What we have been doing lately: We visited the California Indian Museum and Cultural Center in Santa Rosa and saw some wonderful exhibits of local native America tribes, Pomo, Miwok, and Wappo. What a really fine cultural center. Among their many goals, the center strives to preserve and protect California Indian culture. The center is partnered with the National Indian Justice Center and the California Indian Storytellers Association. We were fortunate to meet one of the directors and had an amazing discussion comparing Jewish and Native American stories of holocaust and discrimination. We hope to have her come speak at CBA.
We also have been at work planning a special event for our CBA members. May 5th is our next shabbat service and dinner. Our committee is sponsoring a special panel of speakers on the health of our environment in Sonoma County. How is this a social justice issue? What we can do to take care of it and with Tikkun Olam in our hearts? It will be moderated by our own CBA member and daughter of Leanne and Mark Schy, Ilana Stoelting. Ilana is supervising park ranger at Sonoma County Regional Parks. Our guest speakers are Dan Levitis, community science coordinator for Sonoma Ecology Center and Leah Halper, of the Climate Center Rapid Response Network of California. Since this event may happen after the Shofar is published, there will be more to come later.
We continue to meet monthly to share and discuss recent current events, books, articles, etc. that are relevant to our goal of advocating for social justice. If you are interested in resources, please look at our growing list of books, websites, etc. to learn about racial issues on the Beth Ami website at: https://bethamisr.org/wpcontent/uploads/2021/11/Resource-List-About-Race-and-Social-Justice1.pdf
We meet every third Thursday of the month in the afternoon. If you are interested in joining or learning more about the committee, contact Carol Swanson at swangirl@comcast.net
Current members: Carol Swanson(Chair), Bonnie Boren, Betty Boyd, Myrna Morse, Ellen Mundell, Lyla Nathan, Rabbi Miller, Michelle Zygielbaum, Jerry Newman, Myra Thomas, Susan Miller.