Dear Friends,

As the NY legislative session is ending, it is our pleasure to update you on all that has been achieved this year thanks to the work of the Social Action Committee and many of you who supported our advocacy efforts. 

First and foremost, thank you to everyone who helped in this important work of tikkun olam. It has been amazing to have so many Romemu congregants join with us. Many people worked around the clock trying to get meetings with legislators, participating in meetings, sending emails, making calls, creating and signing petitions, and more. Week to week the sense of excitement grew for this work of making state-wide change. We proved that our relatively young (17 years) community of 1000+ individuals can have a big impact when we work together.

Though the advocacy was NY state-focused, that did not stop others from joining, including members in New York as well as those from around the country and even some from outside the U.S. Congregants of all ages and backgrounds connected with each other and with Romemu clergy, lay leadership, and staff, making our community closer and stronger. This in and of itself was worth all the hard work.

Before getting into the specifics of what we achieved together, we want to wish a huge mazel tov to our partners in the Jewish Coalition on Criminal Justice Reform for their work on the Clean Slate NY campaign, which led to the successful passage of a bill to automatically seal some conviction records this legislative session. What a great win for advocates and what a great win for NY, as thousands of formerly incarcerated people will now have access to work and education, helping to alleviate employee shortages in the state.  

What We Achieved

Though this was not the session for our two bills – Treatment Not Jail (TNJ) Bill and Child Abuse Reporting Expansion (CARE) Act - to pass, great strides were made towards their passage, some of which - were entirely THANKS TO US - ROMEMU.

Treatment Not Jail Bill (TNJ):

This year, the third year of the campaign for this bill, advocates brought support in the legislature (measured in # of legislators signing onto the bill as co-sponsors) from one-third up to almost half by the middle of the legislative season.

On May 3, 14 Romemu congregants including Executive Director Jeffrey Cahn, Rabbi Ingber, and Rabbi Shoshana Leis went up to Albany to advocate for TNJ (watch Rabbi Leis’ speech at the press conference here). Following our big push, a number of additional legislators signed onto the bill which was then voted out of committee and advanced to the floor in the Senate for the first time in the campaign’s history.  

But MORE significant than the bill passing this season, according to campaign leaders, was the long-sought meeting with Senate majority leader Andrea Stuart-Cousins, who essentially decides which bills go onto the floor for a vote. After she was non-responsive to TNJ advocates for the entire season, Romemu congregants managed to secure a meeting with her. In this meeting, Romemu Social Action Committee members convinced Stuart-Counsins’ legislative director that this bill should pass and with full funding. Stuart-Cousin’s office promised to do everything in its power to pass the bill as part of next year’s budget. This means that thanks to the efforts of the Romemu community, the path was paved for the bill to reach the floor of the Senate AND secure the full funding required for the bill to be successful.

To learn more about this issue, we encourage you to see this report by National Alliance on Mental Health NYC about mental health and drug treatment courts. Check out the photo on page one. See any familiar faces? It’s from the Advocacy Day we joined in Albany.

The CARE Act

Clergy becoming mandatory reporters in NY state was first discussed twenty-one years ago in 2002, following the big revelations of sexual abuse within the Catholic Church. Since then the law on mandatory reporters has been amended 12 times, and yet all attempts to include clergy failed. The CARE Act, which specifically discusses Clergy, was introduced in 2019. But, there had not previously been any campaign demanding passage and no noise from the public.

This year, CFCtoo and Romemu launched a campaign on May 3 – just five weeks ago – and in that short time we have:

• Reached a breakthrough in the gridlock between supporters and opponents which prevented the bill from passing, by offering solutions that worked in other states to prevent additional false reporting
• Met with 9 legislators who said they will support the bill (several also signed on as co-sponsors)
• Created a partnership with the Senate's sponsor of the bill, Senator Brad Hoylman
• Got Governor Hochul's support for the bill
• Recruited major allies including Rabbi Joseph Potaznick, Executive VP of the NYS Board of Rabbis, Reverend Peter Cook, Executive Director of the NY State Council of Churches, and 43 clergy members who along with Rabbi Ingber signed a clergy letter in support of the CARE Act.
• Sent emails, made phone calls, circulated a petition, and had meetings that educated many legislators
• Held two press conferences in Albany. The second press conference included both sponsors of the Act Senator Brad Hoylman Sigal and Assembly Member Monica Wallace, both of whom committed publicly to passing the bill AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. 
• Received wonderful press coverage when advocates for the CARE Act were introduced on the Senate floor and received a standing ovation (see video here)
• Scheduled a meeting with Assembly Member Monical Wallace for this Friday.
• Our new goal is to have the CARE Act be the first bill to be passed in January 2024 at the very beginning of the legislative session.

Over the next few months we will be building a coalition of organizations and relationships with legislators to gain support. We will also work to engage the public through panel discussions, clergy press conferences, and more.

Expanded Our Capacity for Tikkun Olam Work

As important as our progress on legislation has been, perhaps the most important outcome of our work over the last several months is that we have seen that influencing policy is lo bashamaim (not in the sky), but very much within our power. We have built our own community’s capacity to do this type of large-scale Tikkun Olam work. The most satisfying moments for us were when one of you thanked us for reviving the your desire to do Tikkun Olam.

So What's Next? – Opportunities for Further Engagement

Our subcommittee will be taking a short shmita (break) during and resume work with a strategy and planning session for the coming year in July. Here are some ways you can get involved:

• Want to join our team to help with planning for the next year? Contact Tal Siegel at Tal.siegel@gmail.com. 

• Interested in volunteering with formerly incarcerated individuals? Contact Lauren Jacobs at Lauren.aj@gmail.com.

• To find out how you can join a visit to Rikers, please contact to Aya Roth at socialaction@romemu.org (include “Visit Rikers” in subject line).

• While we are taking a break, our partners remain working on these issues. You can find a schedule of June opportunities to join meetings and discussions on criminal justice reform on the Social Action Committee’s web page here.

Thank You!

We want to offer special thanks to a few members who went above and beyond to help this effort: Elana Shneyer for her advocacy consultancy, Shira Dicker for her help with publicity, Asher Chaim for organizing volunteers, and Paul Ullman for helping us get meetings with key, hard-to-reach legislators.

Thank you to Rabbi Shoshana Leis, Roberta Wall,  Laurie Schwartz, Laurie Wolko, Jade Netanya Ullmann, Chana Lunior, and Bob Lesnow for coming with us to Albany on May 3. 

Thank you to everyone who called and emailed legislators, helped with petitions, participated in meetings with legislatures, offered ideas and guidance, or led independent initiatives around this including,  

Rabbi Terry Bookman, Kefira Birks, Rhoda Feuer, Neal Brodsky, Jane Goldberg, Andrea Fooner, Daniel Gildesgame, Eden Foster, Elizabeth Bernhardt, Josephine Martinez, Aly Saddrudin, Keith Torgan, Barbara Siesel, Daniel Pincus, Rachel Makleff, Miryam-Margo Wolfson, Abby Bernbaum, Jamie Shashaway, Jamie Askin, Anya Raveh, Amanda and Melissa Kaufman, Julia Schlesinger, Miriam Rubin, and many more!  

And of course - A HUGE Thank you to Rabbi Ingber, Executive Director Jeffrey Cahn, and Debra Passner, without whom NONE of this would have been possible!

Looking forward to reaching even higher next year! 

Tal Siegel, Social Action Committee Co-Chair and the Social Action Committee’s Criminal Justice Reform and CARE Act Advocacy Team: Iva Kaufman, Lynda Rodolitz, Aya Roth, Ed Malin, Sarah Tobias, Jessica Litwak, Pat Latzman