Statement of Purpose on Race, Equity, and Social Justice
Core values statements:
Culture happens between the seeing, the acknowledging, the healing and the heart
— Michael Twitty, Black-Jewish culinary historian
"I am in this play produced by ShPIeL and directed by David Chack, because theatre is another way to protest and this is what the Civil Rights Movement meant - love, universality, crossing borders, and fighting the ideas of racism.”
― Jason Maina
Racism is man's gravest threat to man - the maximum of hatred for a minimum of reason.
— Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel
Storytelling reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it.
― Hannah Arendt
What Are Our Underlying Assumptions?:
- The world we imagine and the world we aspire to comes first through our cultural life. It is here that we share life space with others, we imagine and present human hurt and suffering, humor and joy, compassion/empathy, healing and transformation.
- Arts and arts organizations play an essential role in fueling a healthier and more harmonious society by providing the ability to feel safe, to feel a sense of belonging, to feel connected, and to understand our rights and responsibilities to each other.
- Racism towards BIPOC and antisemitism towards Jews and Jews of color, is rooted in white nationalist supremacism, the perpetuation of oppressive power systems, religious beliefs which are tribal and fundamentalist, and by those who denigrate those deemed as “other” through hate, inflammatory rhetoric, and violence.
- We are interdependent. If you are not healthy, I am not healthy. If you are not safe, I am not safe. If you are not valued, I am not valued.
What Are Our Core Beliefs?:
- Culture is an essential catalyst for change and culture precedes change. In order to create lasting change, we need to move both minds and hearts.
- Jewish culture has always existed in relation to and/or been intricately bound with other cultures, races, ethnicities, and beliefs and is fluid, encompassing many stories from many perspectives: race, spiritual beliefs and practices, genders, ethnicities, etc.
- Arts institutions have the responsibility to spur and support societal movement and social justice causes.
- The Jewish people — as a people who’ve endured anti-Semitism as an existential and exilic threat for at least one thousand years leading to the genocide of the Holocaust, — are uniquely positioned in our ability to survive and provide ongoing transmission and transformation of culture.
- Theatre and performance have an immediacy and power of telling stories in a visceral way by illuminating, inspiring, celebrating, and working through the hard places. Classically, it utilizes creative passion, towards catharsis and enlightenment; in light of current events, we want to utilize creative passion in theatre and performance toward protest and justice.
Purpose:
- Our purpose is to be a catalyst and resource in generating Jewish culture through theatre and performance for a transcultural world that pursues racial tzedek - justice and equity; tikkun olam - healing the world; and sukkat shlomecha -- sanctuaries of peace.
- We pledge to deepen AJT’s resources and networks towards a theatre of self-examination and discovery.
- We pledge to make connections for Jewish theatre which are rooted in our Jewish identity, culture, heritage, stories and texts.
- We pledge to be radically open to other racial, ethnic and spiritual narratives, heritages and texts.