About Us

A multiracial and multigenerational group of more than a dozen people standing under a sukkah at night smiling, holding up four fingers, and showing a sign that says Jews4.

An early gathering of Bay Area Jews for Justice, then called Jews4 (that’s why everyone’s holding up four fingers), during Sukkot.

Points of Unity

  • We envision a multiracial, multigenerational Jewish community based on belonging and inclusion. We believe that a better world is only possible by embracing difference. If you’re resonating with what you’re reading, we want to organize with you.

  • We strengthen the communities where we live by investing time, effort, and labor into these communities, understanding that a strong home provides fertile ground for larger change.

  • Our government funds and fuels many of the crises that oppressed people face around the world. We stand with oppressed people all over the world who are fighting militarism, ethnonationalism, and authoritarianism. As a Jewish organization with an internationalist lens, we feel called to express our solidarity with Palestinians demanding their liberation.

  • Christian power, wealth, and violence has shaped many of the systems of oppression that are tearing our communities apart and destroying the natural environment. The United States was built on a system of white supremacy and that system still permeates every aspect of life in this country. As Jews, we have been hurt by these systems and we stand in solidarity with all people who resist them and carry a vision of the future beyond these forms of dominance.

  • Antisemitism hurts Jews around the world and pits marginalized communities against each other, undercutting our struggle for collective liberation. We refuse to be pitted against other oppressed groups, or to let Jewish safety be used as justification to harm others. Criticizing Israel and Zionism is not inherently antisemitic.

  • We know systems of oppression are working exactly as intended: to keep marginalized people subdued while people who benefit from supremacist logics hoard and build power.  We believe in dreaming big, getting detailed in our visions for the future, and practicing those visions in our organizing and relationships. Our members are from diverse backgrounds and have different relationships to dominant structures of power. Bay Area Jews for Justice unites us in the collective struggle for liberation.

  • This includes, but is not limited to: mutual aid, direct action, electoral politics, political education, public demonstrations, coalition building, art and cultural work, and spiritual leadership towards healing and restorative justice. Justice work is tough, joyous, and beautiful.  We believe in bringing fun and the myriad of Jewish practices wherever we can to ground our work in the legacy of our ancestors and to fuel the radical imagination necessary for our success.

  • We work to address harm within our community with humility and love. We move with courage, knowing we will all make mistakes. We believe that all systems of punishment dehumanize all people, and see the power of restorative justice as a key tool for personal and communal transformation.

Founding Leadership

Bay Area Jews for Justice (BAJJ) was founded by a diverse and committed group of people who come from a wide range of walks of life.

We include: observant and secular Jews; people who have been engaged in politics and community building our whole lives and some who have come to this work more recently; activists and organizers involved in anti-racism, labor rights, youth empowerment, ending homelessness, Palestinian solidarity, and electing progressive politicans; artists and cultural workers; Jewish community leaders; Sephardi, Mizrahi, and Ashkenazi Jews, white Jews and Jews of color. We are united in our values and commitments to action, as articulated in our Points of Unity.

In addition to a 10-person steering committee, more than 100 people have helped us reach this point by participating in committees, conversations, visioning, brainstorming, strategizing, advising, guiding, financing, feeding, encouraging, and more.

There is room for many to participate and to lead. If you would like to get involved, please attend one of our upcoming orientations and sign up to get updates from us.

If you would like to get involved, fill out our contact form and click on the box to request a 1:1 meeting. We welcome you!

Homage to JYCA

Bay Area Jews for Justice (BAJJ) is proud to be a multi-generational and multi-racial organization. We stand on the shoulders of Jewish Youth for Community Action (JYCA), which closed its doors in 2024 after 29 years of Jewish progressive organizing and activism in the Bay Area.

JYCA was a youth-led organization that empowered Jewish youth to take action for social justice through innovative leadership development, community organizing, and socio-political education. JYCA was also a national model for youth empowerment, building multi-racial Jewish community, and Jewish solidarity and activism, and launched Jews Against Marginalization (JAM), which was an affinity space for Jews of Color, Sephardic, and Mizrahi (JOCSM) youth. Over the course of nearly 3 decades, JYCA has built a base of nearly 400 Jewish activists who now span the globe, supporting activism and organizing in hundreds of organizations and dozens of communities.

Nearly two-thirds of the Bay Area Jews for Justice (BAJJ) founding Steering Committee members were involved in JYCA at some point in our lives as youth, staff, or board members, and many of our organizing values and approaches were seeded through our involvement in JYCA.

To JYCA community, past and present: we honor and welcome you!