Interfaith Call to Justice News Agency P R E S S R E L E A S E For Immediate Release. Interfaith Call to Justice: LA 2007 LOS ANGELES, CA—Concerned community members will join together this coming November for what promises to be an interactive learning experience about public policy and advocacy. The Interfaith Call to Justice: LA 2007, scheduled for November 11-12, 2007, brings together people of faith with a burning desire to create justice in their local community. The two-day social justice training and community strategic planning seminar will educate religious leaders and their congregations to identify problems within their communities and effect systemic change through legislative and public policy advocacy. More than 50 religious and community-based organizations are sponsoring this event. Keynote speakers include: All three individuals are examples that organized efforts make an enormous difference. They will discuss: Going from social action to social justice advocacy; What is advocacy? How does it differ from justice? During breakout sessions participants will be introduced to the “nuts and bolts” of advocacy training, community organizing and issue-based campaigns, such as immigration, economic justice, the environment, youth at risk, affordable health care and homelessness and affordable housing. The conference is the brainchild of Rabbi Suzanne Singer. Rabbi Singer is no stranger to the social justice cause. In November 2005, she organized a similar conference within the Jewish community called The Consultation on Social Justice, winner of the Irving J. Fain Award for Social Action. Highly successful, COSJ was primarily sponsored by Sinai Temple of Oakland, where Rabbi Singer served as a spiritual leader and was co-sponsored by numerous other synagogues and Jewish organizations in San Francisco Bay Area. “The conference in the Bay Area demonstrated the appetite people have for social change,” said Rabbi Singer. “I believe that people of faith are ready to take the next step by pairing their charity work with the work of justice. To quote from Rabbi Eric Yoffie, who heads the Union for Reform Judaism, ‘The prophet Amos said: Let justice roll down like water. Justice, he said, and not charity, and for good reason. Because while charity alleviates the effects of poverty, justice seeks to eliminate its cause.’ The Bay Area conference also underlined the need for joining together in interfaith coalition. The LA conference is just the first step towards joint efforts in Los Angeles.” For more information contact: Rabbi Suzanne Singer at 213-793-1560 or e-mail: sznsinger@earthlink.net. |