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One of the key advantages of CJP’s CCA is our ability to leverage national and local best practices and bring them to Greater Boston. We’re seeing it all: Our partnership network is made up of colleagues from every corner of the country and, like us, they are developing immediate interventions and testing strategic plans over time.
A key driver in our ability to be effective in advancing and scaling CJP’s CCA work and slow the spread of antisemitism is grassroots action, and community members are critical to this movement. Through five recommendations, this handbook provides a set of actions you can take; these recommendations are intended to uplift and amplify the grassroots efforts of our volunteers and wider Jewish community in their day-to-day efforts.
Some recommendations are focused on short-term, urgent tactics, and others we know will yield powerful long-term results. In all cases, it is critical to highlight that you are the heartbeat of our movement—our children, young adults, and neighbors depend on our cohesive efforts. It is not always easy to build strategic alignment when the subject matter is difficult and rife with our individual experience of pain. But in each difficult time for our people, we survive and flourish when we stand together.
We are committed to keeping Greater Boston updated on the daily activities and progress on our strategies to prevent, combat, and address antisemitism. Join CJP’s Center for Combating Antisemitism’s Community Network WhatsApp Group for regular updates today.
Continue to read each recommendation, or jump to a specific section using the links below:
- Confronting and preventing antisemitism in the workplace
- Confronting and preventing antisemitism through productive engagement with government leaders
- Empowered conversations with K-12 administrators and educators
- Confronting and preventing antisemitism on Greater Boston’s college campuses
- Responding to community-based incidents
Confronting and preventing antisemitism in the workplace
For most adult Jews in Greater Boston, the largest time spent in social interaction is at work, and therefore CJP’s CCA is aligning with partners to foster safe environments for Jewish employees across Greater Boston’s workplaces. Many local companies and organizations have launched diversity and inclusion programs to support their most vulnerable populations, but these structures have too often left Jewish experiences outside of these conversations and without access to necessary support.
CJP’s CCA has launched a strategic, coordinated effort to create a support network within Boston-based companies by funding intracompany trainings on the dangers of antisemitism and fostering safe environments for Jewish employees, and by connecting networks of companies dedicated to workplace support of Jews.
Where your advocacy in the workplace can start
Jewish employee resource groups (ERGs) are an excellent workplace vehicle to begin to create, or grow, your company’s support for Jewish employees. If you are involved in your company’s Jewish ERG or are considering creating one, we can help you implement best-in-class antisemitism workplace trainings and connect you to a growing network (30 companies across Greater Boston thus far!) of groups that are exchanging ideas and interventions to make their workplace experience safer.
Key action
Bring CJP’s CCA-sponsored trainings and resources to your workplace by filling out this form. Delivered by expert facilitators at Project Shema, the trainings for workplace leaders, DEI professionals, and ERGs at your company can be transformational to Jewish and non-Jewish colleagues and prepare them for solidarity and allyship when it’s needed the most. If you don’t already have a Jewish ERG at your place of work, learn how to advocate for one.
Confronting and preventing antisemitism through productive engagement with government leaders
CJP’s CCA vision of making antisemitism socially and politically unacceptable in Greater Boston will rely on our ability to engage productively with government leaders. Their voices can amplify ours and help prevent future acts and manifestations of antisemitism in our community. Our expectation is that our elected leaders listen to our worries, hear our stories with care, and are motivated to speak loudly in our support—especially in crisis—without being asked.
This ideal outcome, however, does not happen on its own; it’s the result of individual and collective strategic actions.
Where your advocacy with government leadership can start
Know who your local, state and federal representatives are; familiarize yourself with your local council structure, local school board, and key stakeholders in the Massachusetts legislature. You’ll find that your representatives are meeting with the public often about communal priorities; by becoming engaged civically, you’ll create opportunities for positive relationship-building with local leadership.
Key resource
We partner with the excellent leadership of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston (JCRC), who are professional advocates in the local, state, and federal government. The JCRC senior staff work daily to keep a drumbeat of important conversations live with our key stakeholders. They keep our volunteers engaged and informed about political and policy priorities. JCRC also connects our community to mobilize in support of our combating and preventing antisemitism priorities. If you and your community have identified a gap of support and believe that your representative needs additional education and training about our priorities, CJP’s CCA and JCRC staff can guide toward the right conversations, and we encourage you to let us know.
Read more about this leadership model in action.
Empowered conversations with K-12 administrators and educators
Your advocacy on behalf of your children—and all our children in Greater Boston—is crucial. ADL’s 2023 report on antisemitism in Greater Boston documented 600 instances of antisemitism (including a massive surge after Oct. 7), and our school settings are not immune to this trend. We know that anti-Jewish bias exists in educational entities across this community, and we’ve sourced best practices from across the country to help our Jewish parents be well-positioned for successful conversations.
Where your advocacy can start
CJP’s CCA aims to empower community members with the knowledge, tools, and resources they need to effectively engage with school administrators and educators when antisemitic incidents happen in the classroom. Alongside our strategic partners, we also invest in relationships with key stakeholders in the local education ecosystem to promote safe and inclusive classroom climates where Jewish students are valued and embraced.
Key resource
We are strong believers in preventing antisemitism through thoughtful engagement with educators and administrators. This primer is essential reading for successful dialogues in school settings, and trainings for parents and for educators and administrators are available through CJP’s CCA.
Confronting and preventing antisemitism on Greater Boston’s college campuses
Since launching this April at the height of campus tensions related to the Hamas attacks and ensuing wars, our Center for Combating Antisemitism has regularly convened a roundtable of Greater Boston Hillel, Chabads, and our key campus organizers, bringing national partners and resources to these local conversations. Through these roundtables, we align on strategy, tactics, and execution of proactive and responsive initiatives to uplift our Jewish students and enable them to engage with their campus community and their studies without fear. We closely and regularly interact with students and Jewish organizations on campus to understand their needs, understand opportunities, and coordinate action.
In this space, we not only lean into our role of convener, but also that of innovative funder. CJP’s CCA has placed hundreds of thousands of dollars in surge funding of pilot programs on Greater Boston campuses in response to the dangerous rise of antisemitism in our community, alongside funding for long-term partners who are the foundational infrastructure for joyful Jewish student life on campuses.
Where your advocacy for Jewish students on campus can start
We are committed to uplifting our local Jewish students; sometimes that means showing up in huge swaths of support, like our community rally for students this past April, which drew over 1,500 attendees. Subscribe to CJP’s CCA Newsletter and CJP’s CCA WhatsApp Group to be regularly invited to opportunities like these.
Key resource
Learn more about what actions we’re asking colleges and universities to take during the coming school year so you can effectively echo these recommendations. Locally, learn about innovative programs that CJP is supporting on several campuses to increase education on antisemitism and allyship with other communities.
Responding to community-based incidents
Your family’s safety and well-being are the central priorities for all communal work confronting antisemitism. We encourage every community member to report an incident of antisemitism as soon as it takes place. This allows our local key partners and resources to be coordinated and help you in the immediate aftermath and in recovery.
Key resource
Know how to report and respond to an antisemitic incident.
We are committed to keeping Greater Boston updated on the daily activities and progress on our strategies to prevent, combat, and address antisemitism. Join CJP’s Center for Combating Antisemitism’s Community Network WhatsApp Group for regular updates today.
