Friend—

If you open The New York Times in Washington, DC today you’ll see something special: a letter from over 600 multiracial Jewish organizations, denominations, and synagogues saying unequivocally that Black Lives Matter.

Our message of solidarity is being shared at a critical moment. This week, Kenosha police shot Jacob Blake seven times in the back but enabled a white 17-year-old with an AK-47 to allegedly murder two protesters. And speakers at the Republican National Convention relentlessly spread fear and lies about Black Lives Matter, with the Vice President even blaming rightwing vigilante violence on protesters.

No one should doubt where our Jewish community stands. We reject any effort to use fear to divide us against each other.

The signatories on the full-page ad represent over half of all Jewish people in the United States, making this powerful commitment to racial justice:

“The Black Lives Matter movement is the current day Civil Rights movement in this country, and it is our best chance at equity and justice. By supporting this movement, we can build a country that fulfills the promise of freedom, unity, and safety for all of us, no exceptions.”

Bend the Arc has supported the uprisings for Black lives since they began this May, as well as the Not Free to Desist campaign calling on Jewish institutions to fight racism in the Jewish community. And our leaders have been organizing in cities across the country to hold the police accountable, reduce police budgets, and invest in Black communities.

Today, on the 57th anniversary of the March on Washington, and before the start of the historic Black National Convention this evening, we are honored to share this letter with the world.

At the March on Washington in 1963, Rabbi Dr. Joachim Prinz called for urgent action in words that ring too true today:

I speak to you as an American Jew. As Americans we share the profound concern of millions of people about the shame and disgrace of inequality and injustice which make a mockery of the great American idea...

The time, I believe, has come to work together — for it is not enough to hope together, and it is not enough to pray together — to work together that ["liberty and justice for all"] may become a glorious, unshakeable reality in a morally renewed and united America.

This full-page ad today is our collective proclamation that freedom and safety for any of us depends on the freedom and safety of all of us. When Jewish people join together with our neighbors across racial and religious differences, as we have in the past, we can protect each other and build the future of freedom and safety we all deserve.

Here are three things you can do right now to show up for Black lives:

1. Share the ad to let others know where our Jewish community stands.
2. Tune in tonight (if it's within your Shabbat practice) for the live broadcast of the Black National Convention by the Movement for Black Lives, at 7 PM ET / 4 PM PT.
3. Donate to Bend the Arc to support Jewish organizing for multiracial democracy.

This Shabbat and every Shabbat, Black Lives Matter. 

In solidarity,

The Bend the Arc team