February 1, 2026
On Martin Luther King Jr. Day. I was invited to speak at the annual B.R.E.A.D. (Building Responsibility Equity and Dignity) network and clergy retreat in honor of the holiday and Dr. King’s legacy. They invited four people who were new to the organization and represented the broad reach of B.R.E.A.D’s network: Rev. Raymond Austin of New Faith Baptist Church, myself, Fadi Suleiman of Noor Islamic Cultural Center, and Paisha Thomas, a ministry student at First Unitarian Universalist.
We were all asked to discuss our denomination’s spiritual and historic commitment to the work of social justice, and how our denomination’s connection to the broader interfaith community has helped inspire our fight for justice and efforts to build and use the power of people in that fight.
With social justice already at the forefront of many of our minds, please find below some of the remarks I shared with our B.R.E.A.D. community about Reform Judaism’s historic commitment to civil rights and social justice:
The Reform Movement is a progressive Jewish denomination that believes we are bound by the moral and ethical strictures of our scripture. Torah tells us 36 times in various ways that we must protect the rights of the stranger, the widow, and the orphan – metonyms for those who are most vulnerable in our society. We see ourselves as inheritors of the prophetic tradition of calling both ourselves and those in power to do what is right. The words of Isaiah 58 reverberate through our tradition:
“…Then, when you call, Adonai will answer. If you remove the chains of oppression, the menacing hand, the malicious word. If you offer compassion to the hungry, and satisfy the suffering, then shall your light shine through the darkness.”
We believe that to bring light, we must be light. Reform Judaism thus has been invested in the work of Social Justice since our first platform, written in 1885, where we declare: “we deem it our duty to participate in the great task of modern times, to solve, on the basis of justice and righteousness, the problems presented by the contrasts and evils of the present organization of society.” As a denomination of Judaism founded in the United States, our roots here in Ohio, we have always seen this call as outward facing, a call to be partners in creating a more just society for all.
We created the Commission on Social Action for Reform Judaism, which later became the Religious Action Center (or RAC for short) to help coordinate and guide our efforts. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was drafted in the conference room of their Washington DC office. So was the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Many Reform rabbis were deeply involved in the fight for Civil Rights, but Dr. King called on them to move from words to action, when, in 1964, Dr. King approached the Central Conference of American Rabbis, the Reform Rabbinic professional leadership organization, and asked them to join with him as creative witnesses to their joint convictions of equality and racial justice in St. Augustine, Florida. Seventeen rabbis from all over the country heeded his call and were arrested for praying and eating with integrated groups.
In their letter written from jail on June 19, 1964, they explain why they came to St. Augustine in this way:
[…] We came to St. Augustine mainly because we could not stay away. We could not say no to Martin Luther King, whom we always respected and admired and whose loyal friends we hope we shall be in the days to come. We could not pass by the opportunity to achieve a moral goal by moral means – a rare modern privilege – which has been the glory of the non-violent struggle for civil rights.
We came because we could not stand quietly by our brother’s blood. We had done that too many times before. We have been vocal in our exhortation of others but the idleness of our hands too often revealed an inner silence; silence at a time when silence has become the unpardonable sin of our time. We came in the hope that the God of us all would accept our small involvement as partial atonement for the many things we wish we had done before and often.
We came as Jews who remember the millions of faceless people who stood quietly, watching the smoke rise from Hitler’s crematoria. We came because we know that second only to silence, the greatest danger to man is loss of faith in man’s capacity to act.
“The greatest danger to man is loss of faith in man’s capacity to act.” These words are ringing through history, through time and space, to us today. We cannot lose faith in our ability to act, even when it’s hard, when it’s scary, and when it’s dangerous; we must rise.
Two days after the rabbis in St. Augustine wrote their letter, James Charney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner, volunteers and activists taking part in Mississippi’s Freedom summer, were abducted and brutally killed by the Klu Klux Klan. James Charney was a black man, an activist with the Congress of Racial Equality. Michael Schwerner was a coordinator for the same organization. Andrew Goodman was a volunteer. He and Michael Schwerner were Jewish, like half of the volunteers who came to support the Freedom Summer from across the nation.
It is not always safe or easy to do what is right in the face of thuggish injustice.
We must do it anyway.
Three years later, in 1967, the Klan firebombed the synagogue in Jackson, Mississippi, because of the work they and their rabbi were doing to support civil rights. At three in the morning on Shabbat, January 9, 2026, that synagogue was destroyed again by an antisemitic act of arson.
Acts like this seek to scare us and isolate us, but I have faith. I have faith that we are God’s partners in the work of healing what is broken in our world, in our nation, in our state, and in our city. I have faith that this is holy work. Not only are we God’s partners, but we are also yours too. We will not be scared into silence because we know that when we work together, we bend the arc of the universe toward justice.
Earlier, I mentioned the Religious Action Center for Reform Judaism. For decades, they have helped to shape and coordinate the justice work of the Reform Movement across the United States because collective action is powerful. As a result, the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1982, the Voting Rights Extension, the Japanese American Redress Act, the Civil Rights Restoration Act, the Fair Housing Act Amendments of 1988, and the Civil Rights Act of 1991 were all drafted in their conference room.
In 2015, the Reform rabbis of Ohio came together to form the second state-based branch of the Religious Action center here in Ohio. With RAC-OH, Reform Jewish congregations across the state have partnered with allies to contact 250,000 voters to encourage them to vote for fair voting districts. We mobilized more than 436,000 voters to enshrine and expand reproductive freedom. We were part of a coalition to help pass the Targeted Community Alternatives to Prison Program; we lobbied for a fairer probation system, helping to pass Senate Bill 66. Our participation in each of these campaigns has been guided and informed by our Jewish values.
Here in Columbus, Congregation Beth Tikvah has been part of B.R.E.A.D. for several years, and together, we have accomplished meaningful change. As Jews, we know we cannot do this alone. We’re a tiny percentage of the population, and we know too well that injustice impacts us all but does not impact us all equally. As we continue together in this holy work, may we continue to be inspired by Dr. King, by each other, and by the words of our prophets:
You have been told, Mortal, what is good,
And what God requires of you:
Only to do justice,
Love kindness,
And walk humbly with your God
(Micah 6:8).
Rabbi Karen Martin