Send us a message via text message! Link accessible at joyousjustice.buzzsprout.com. ✅

We cover a LOT of ground in today’s conversation, where we get curious about what prevents some folks and groups from accessing joy. We talk about Black joy, the whiteness of white Jews and what often makes embracing joy difficult (and the impact of the historical middle agent role), individual and collective safety, and imagining our liberated selves and living into that. What would it look like for white Jews choose the side of liberation over whiteness?

Check out our discussion/reflection questions for this episode:  https://joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-81

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director, and Tracie is a senior partner: https://joyousjustice.com/

Support the work our Jewish Black & Native woman-led vision for collective liberation here: https://joyousjustice.com/support-our-work

Listen to this year’s Purim episode here:  https://www.joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-80

Learn more about NCJW, the National Council of Jewish Women: https://www.ncjw.org/

Learn more about Black joy:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQlEpjZXfRU

Read more about Thich Nhat Hanh:  https://plumvillage.org/about/thich-nhat-hanh/

Support the show

Discussion and reflection questions:

1. What in this episode is new for you? What have you learned and how does it land?
2. What is resonating? What is sticking with you and why?
3. What, if anything feels hard? What is challenging or on the edge for you?
4. If relevant. what feelings and sensations are arising as you reflect on themes from this episode, and where in your body do you feel them?
5. What key insights or strategies are you carrying forward and how do you want to weave them into your living and/or leadership?

Send us a message via text message! Link accessible at joyousjustice.buzzsprout.com. ✅

Inspired by the holiday of Purim, April and Tracie use the practice of giving mishloach manot or Purim baskets, to unpack the difference between intention and impact. (Who knew you could learn so much from fruit-filled cookies?) They also interrogate the relationship between Vashti and Esther, and use them as a metaphor for differently-positioned Jewish Leaders of Color today. The megillah (Scroll of Esther) positions them as competitors, but we imagine what it would look like if they recognized they have more to gain by working together and rejecting the externally-imposed division between them. 

Check out our discussion/reflection questions for this episode: https://joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-80

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director, and Tracie is a senior partner: https://joyousjustice.com/

Support the work our Jewish Black & Native woman-led vision for collective liberation here: https://joyousjustice.com/support-our-work

Read more about the practice of giving mishloach manot: https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/purim-gifts/

Join our private Facebook group, Joyously Pursuing Racial Justice: https://www.facebook.com/groups/590922415522750

Get your tickets for the LIVE Jews Talk Racial Justice event on 3/23: https://joyous-justice.mykajabi.com/live-podcast-tickets

Support the show

Discussion and reflection questions:

1. What in this episode is new for you? What have you learned and how does it land?
2. What is resonating? What is sticking with you and why?
3. What, if anything feels hard? What is challenging or on the edge for you?
4. If relevant. what feelings and sensations are arising as you reflect on themes from this episode, and where in your body do you feel them?
5. What key insights or strategies are you carrying forward and how do you want to weave them into your living and/or leadership?

Send us a message via text message! Link accessible at joyousjustice.buzzsprout.com. ✅

April and Tracie think about some of the lessons of Purim: hidden identities, the power of 'no,' the power of being in the right place, the importance of joy, and the links between joy and liberation.

Find discussion questions for this episode: joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-79

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director and Tracie is a senior partner: https://joyousjustice.com/

Resources and notes:

In the Talmud, Megillah 7b:7, it says "Rava said: A person is obligated to become intoxicated with wine on Purim until he is so intoxicated that he does not know how to distinguish between cursed is Haman and blessed is Mordecai." (William Davidson English edition, courtesy sefaria.org)

Peninei Halakhah, Zemanim Chapter 14:1: "When Adar arrives, joy increases."

Learn about Arthur Waskow’s book, Seasons of Our Joy: https://jps.org/books/seasons-of-our-joy/

Support the show

Discussion and reflection questions:

1. What in this episode is new for you? What have you learned and how does it land?
2. What is resonating? What is sticking with you and why?
3. What, if anything feels hard? What is challenging or on the edge for you?
4. If relevant. what feelings and sensations are arising as you reflect on themes from this episode, and where in your body do you feel them?
5. What key insights or strategies are you carrying forward and how do you want to weave them into your living and/or leadership?

Send us a message via text message! Link accessible at joyousjustice.buzzsprout.com. ✅

With all that’s going on in the world right now (and since we’re in the middle of two (2!) months of Adar, we thought it would be good to reprise Episode 10 from the conclusion of election season. Tracie asks April for advice on working through the negative emotions that sometimes accompany justice work. They unpack the ways we've been taught to associate anger or rage with justice work (and anxiety with intelligence), and April shares suggestions for achieving the positive effects of BOTH feeling your feelings AND cultivating joy and presence.

Check out our discussion/reflection questions for this episode:  https://joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-78

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director, and Tracie is a senior partner: https://joyousjustice.com/

Support the work our Jewish Black & Native woman-led vision for collective liberation here: https://joyousjustice.com/support-our-work

Watch our free masterclass to learn more about Racial Justice Launch Pad: bit.ly/RJLPMC53min

Watch Thich Nhat Hanh’s video “How to deal with strong emotions”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJX8WkKbPf8

Read more about Rabbi David Jaffe and his book, Changing the World from the Inside Out: https://www.rabbidavidjaffe.com/davids-book/

Support the show

Discussion and reflection questions:

1. What in this episode is new for you? What have you learned and how does it land?
2. What is resonating? What is sticking with you and why?
3. What, if anything feels hard? What is challenging or on the edge for you?
4. If relevant. what feelings and sensations are arising as you reflect on themes from this episode, and where in your body do you feel them?
5. What key insights or strategies are you carrying forward and how do you want to weave them into your living and/or leadership?

Send us a message via text message! Link accessible at joyousjustice.buzzsprout.com. ✅

A couple of weeks ago, we did a Facebook Live where we used popular tv shows to help us playfully make a point about how folks sometimes overestimate their skills when it comes to DEI work–or really anything. In this episode, we revisit that conversation and add some additional commentary. If you tuned in the first time around, stick around for a whole lot more. And, fair warning, there are some definite spoilers of the tv show the Good Place in our follow up conversation.

Check out our discussion/reflection questions for this episode:  https://joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-77

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director, and Tracie is a senior partner: https://joyousjustice.com/

Support the work our Jewish Black & Native woman-led vision for collective liberation here: https://joyousjustice.com/support-our-work

Watch our free masterclass to learn more about Racial Justice Launch Pad: bit.ly/RJLPMC53min

Learn more about the series TV “The Good Place”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Good_Place

Learn more about the TV series “Schitt’s Creek”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schitt%27s_Creek

Learn more about the series “Lucifer” and the character of Dr. Linda: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucifer_(TV_series)

Learn more about the TV series “Pose” and the character of Blanca: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pose_(TV_series)

Join our private Facebook group, Joyously Pursuing Racial Justice: https://www.facebook.com/groups/590922415522750

Read more about prison and police abolition: https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/the-emerging-movement-for-police-and-prison-abolition

Learn more about Mussar: https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/the-musar-movement/

Read Michael Schur’s book, How To Be Perfect: The Correct Answer to Every Moral Question: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781982159313

Support the show

Discussion and reflection questions:

1. What in this episode is new for you? What have you learned and how does it land?
2. What is resonating? What is sticking with you and why?
3. What, if anything feels hard? What is challenging or on the edge for you?
4. If relevant. what feelings and sensations are arising as you reflect on themes from this episode, and where in your body do you feel them?
5. What key insights or strategies are you carrying forward and how do you want to weave them into your living and/or leadership?

Send us a message via text message! Link accessible at joyousjustice.buzzsprout.com. ✅

In today’s conversation, April and Tracie unpack white Jews’ whiteness, the history of race and Jewish racialized identities, and the benefits of getting clear about who is actually in the ingroup. Using metaphors from physics to sanctuaries, we talk about historic and contemporary intersections of the social construct of race and lived identities of Jews. 

Check out our discussion/reflection questions for this episode:  https://joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-76

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director, and Tracie is a senior partner: https://joyousjustice.com/

Support the work our Jewish Black & Native woman-led vision for collective liberation here: https://joyousjustice.com/support-our-work

Learn more about Racial Justice Launch Pad and attend our free masterclass:

Join our private Facebook group, Joyously Pursuing Racial Justice

Learn more about how race is a social construct in the NY Times, YouTube, The Atlantic, and Scientific American.

Listen to our episode about conditional whiteness: https://www.joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-45

Tune into our episode about Whoopi Goldberg’s Holocaust comments: https://www.joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-75

Support the show

Discussion and reflection questions:

1. What in this episode is new for you? What have you learned and how does it land?
2. What is resonating? What is sticking with you and why?
3. What, if anything feels hard? What is challenging or on the edge for you?
4. If relevant. what feelings and sensations are arising as you reflect on themes from this episode, and where in your body do you feel them?
5. What key insights or strategies are you carrying forward and how do you want to weave them into your living and/or leadership?

Send us a message via text message! Link accessible at joyousjustice.buzzsprout.com. ✅

In this edited version of a Facebook live that April recorded after Whoopi Goldberg’s comments and the controversy that followed, April digs deep into her analysis of the reactions many in the Jewish community expressed. Internalized terror and persisting unhealed trauma–elicited by the Holocaust and centuries of persecution–among white Ashkenazi Jews has caused an understandable misalignment between those folks’ emotional thermometer and the actual threat of danger on the oppression scale. Despite the elevated blood pressures the situation has caused, it seems clear to April that compassion (for ourselves and others!), healing, and solidarity across lines of difference will lead us toward the future we want. 

Trigger Warning: This episode is not for you in this moment if as a result of this controversy, you are feeling terror or are in a panic mode.

Check out our episode-specific discussion/reflection questions for this episode:

1. Had you heard about this controversy before listening to this episode? What were your initial reactions, both intellectually and in your body?
2. As you are listening to this, are you having any moments of resistance? Where? What is happening and how can you move through them instead of running away from then?
3. In your experience, how do you interpret the difference between the oppression scale and emotional thermometer? Are there moments from your life when you or members of your community conflated the two?
4. April lists a couple of different ways that we can release our internalized terror. Is internalized terror something you experience? Is it possible that it is something you experience, even subconsciously? And, what ways do you use or can you use to release?
5. What did you learn from April’s perspective? What points in particular are sticking out for you? 
6. April drives the point home that “All ish can be fertilizer if we choose it to be and when we’re ready for it to be.” How does this resonate with you? How can you and your communities apply this to this situation and others?
7. What is a kavannah or intention you want to see in the world that is clarified by what happened and this convergence moment and how this played out? What is your answer to the question, “how does this further clarify what I want?”

Watch the original conversation from “The View” that stirred this controversy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhITfM4bqO8

Watch the full, unedited Facebook Live video:  https://www.facebook.com/1706639/videos/4889145714509771/

Learn more about Brené Brown and her book “Braving the Wilderness”: https://brenebrown.com/book/braving-the-wilderness/

Find our more about Annie-Rose London and their work: https://www.annieroselondon.com/

April mentions her Cherokee, Chickasaw, and Choctaw heritage. Find out whose land you reside on here:  https://native-land.ca/

Learn more about Joy DeGruy and her work: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joy_DeGruy

Read more about Dr. Lewis Gordon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Gordon

Learn more about rapper Mos Def: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mos_Def

Listen to Aly Halpert’s song “Loosen Loosen”:  https://soundcloud.com/aly-halpert/loosen-loosen

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRaci

Support the show

Discussion and reflection questions:

1. What in this episode is new for you? What have you learned and how does it land?
2. What is resonating? What is sticking with you and why?
3. What, if anything feels hard? What is challenging or on the edge for you?
4. If relevant. what feelings and sensations are arising as you reflect on themes from this episode, and where in your body do you feel them?
5. What key insights or strategies are you carrying forward and how do you want to weave them into your living and/or leadership?

Send us a message via text message! Link accessible at joyousjustice.buzzsprout.com. ✅

Many of us are learning about racial justice and trying to implement DEI in our lives and workplaces, but sometimes we become so stuck in our questions that it keeps us distanced and prevents us from going–and staying–in the deep end. In this conversation, April and Tracie challenge us to get intellectually intimate with the learning and to use our systems of accountability and partnership to stay in this close relationship while also taking ownership of ourselves.

Check out our discussion/reflection questions for this episode:  https://joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-74

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Send us a question, idea, insight, or thought:  https://joyousjustice.com/jews-talk-racial-justice-questions

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director, and Tracie is a senior partner: https://joyousjustice.com/

Support the work our Jewish Black & Native woman-led vision for collective liberation here: https://joyousjustice.com/support-our-work

Read more of Tracie’s thoughts at her blog: https://www.bmoreincremental.com/

Learn more about Racial Justice Launch Pad and join the waitlist: https://joyous-justice.mykajabi.com/rjlp-waitlist-1

Join Awareness Accelerator: https://joyous-justice.mykajabi.com/awareness-enrollment

Listen to our MLK and Tu B’Shva Episodet: https://joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-71

Listen to our episode “Q&A or Q&Stay”: https://joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-69

Like our Facebook page to tune into our Facebook lives: https://www.facebook.com/joyousjustice365

Request to join our Facebook group, Joyously Pursuing Racial Justice (Beta) (and don’t forget to answer all the questions and agree to the group rules!): https://www.facebook.com/groups/590922415522750/

Support the show

Discussion and reflection questions:

1. What in this episode is new for you? What have you learned and how does it land?
2. What is resonating? What is sticking with you and why?
3. What, if anything feels hard? What is challenging or on the edge for you?
4. If relevant. what feelings and sensations are arising as you reflect on themes from this episode, and where in your body do you feel them?
5. What key insights or strategies are you carrying forward and how do you want to weave them into your living and/or leadership?

Send us a message via text message! Link accessible at joyousjustice.buzzsprout.com. ✅

It’s been almost two weeks since the Colleyville synagogue hostage situation, an antisemitic event that was incredibly scary for Jewish communities. During this conversation from just a few days after, we dive into the feelings of isolation that many of us are experiencing, the all-encompassing nature of grief, our internalized terror and communal need for healing, and what it looks likes when we show up and support one another across lines of difference. 

Check out our discussion/reflection questions for this episode:  https://joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-73

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Send us a question, idea, insight, or thought:  https://joyousjustice.com/jews-talk-racial-justice-questions

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director, and Tracie is a senior partner: https://joyousjustice.com/

Support the work our Jewish Black & Native woman-led vision for collective liberation here: https://joyousjustice.com/support-our-work

Read more of Tracie’s thoughts at her blog: https://www.bmoreincremental.com/

Learn more about Racial Justice Launch Pad and join the waitlist: https://joyous-justice.mykajabi.com/rjlp-waitlist-1

Read more about the Colleyville synagogue hostage crisis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colleyville_synagogue_hostage_crisis

Learn more about Baltimore Ceasefire 365: https://baltimoreceasefire.com/

Learn more about what mutual aid is and how to get involved: https://www.thecut.com/2020/09/what-exactly-is-mutual-aid-how-to-get-involved.html

Read more about Cherie Brown and her thought leadership: https://www.tikkun.org/author/a_brownc/

Support the show

Discussion and reflection questions:

1. What in this episode is new for you? What have you learned and how does it land?
2. What is resonating? What is sticking with you and why?
3. What, if anything feels hard? What is challenging or on the edge for you?
4. If relevant. what feelings and sensations are arising as you reflect on themes from this episode, and where in your body do you feel them?
5. What key insights or strategies are you carrying forward and how do you want to weave them into your living and/or leadership?

Send us a message via text message! Link accessible at joyousjustice.buzzsprout.com. ✅

A few weeks into 2022, April and Tracie share with us what they’ve learned about how to set intentions and their best practices for succeeding. Referencing the conversation they had in Episode 70, they chat about achieving goals versus implementing systems. They unpack some of the patterns around setting intentions and assumptions of our own enoughness. Tracie  shares her personal 10 commandments for the upcoming year. 

Check out our discussion/reflection questions for this episode:  https://joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-72

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director, and Tracie is a senior partner: https://joyousjustice.com/

Support the work our Jewish Black & Native woman-led vision for collective liberation here: https://joyousjustice.com/support-our-work

Read more of Tracie’s thoughts at her blog: https://www.bmoreincremental.com/

Learn more about Racial Justice Launch Pad and join the waitlist: https://joyous-justice.mykajabi.com/rjlp-waitlist-1

Learn more about James Clear: https://jamesclear.com/

Learn more about Demir and Carey Bentley’s process of setting personal commandments here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSTKbvcaNGU

And learn how Gretchen Rubin talks about personal commandments here.

Find out more about the Lumen device here:  https://lumen.me/

Learn more about Stacey Boehman here:  https://staceyboehman.com/

Support the show

Discussion and reflection questions:

1. What in this episode is new for you? What have you learned and how does it land?
2. What is resonating? What is sticking with you and why?
3. What, if anything feels hard? What is challenging or on the edge for you?
4. If relevant. what feelings and sensations are arising as you reflect on themes from this episode, and where in your body do you feel them?
5. What key insights or strategies are you carrying forward and how do you want to weave them into your living and/or leadership?