Sheila Katz

Jews are being attacked on the streets, campuses, in airports, in our homes, and in synagogues. Nowhere feels safe. We need those who claim to be our friends to passionately and unequivocally condemn antisemitism. Silence is not neutrality; it's complicity. Please stand with us.

Mazel tov to NCJW CEO, @JRabhan! At a critical moment for women, for Jews, and for Jewish women, it is inspiring to see Jody stepping into this essential role. My favorite fun fact about Jody at NCJW (outside all her policy achievements) is that she started as an intern. What an incredible full circle moment to now become CEO. ❤️

Over 24 hours later, this did not make national news. Beth Israel Congregation in Mississippi was set on fire on Shabbat. Two Torahs were destroyed. The fire department ruled the fire arson. Police and the FBI are investigating. This is the same synagogue that was bombed by the Ku Klux Klan in 1967. Regardless of the findings of the investigation, this is what it means to be Jewish in America right now: antisemitic violence and attacks on synagogues and Jews are so common that they barely register beyond local news, and the people most often naming it, mourning it, and sounding the alarm are Jews themselves. It also means this: the Jewish community in Mississippi will come together. They will support one another and be supported by Jews they don’t know around the country and the world. They will rebuild. They will continue to celebrate Jewish holidays and live Jewish life with joy. A Torah rescued from the Holocaust and kept in a glass case inside the synagogue was not damaged. I am holding on to that. Like that Torah, the Jewish people will persist, as we always have.

Went to bed to the news of a shooting at Brown University. Woke up to the news of a terrorist attack targeting the Jewish community during a Chanukah celebration in Australia. Both are tragic, heavy, and hard. And yet, tonight we still light the first candle of our menorah. Chanukah does not ask us to pretend things are okay. It asks us to create light anyway. Not because the darkness is gone, but because the darkness is real. May this Chanukah remind us that we do not have to shrink or hide in the face of darkness, and that continuing to live Jewishly out loud is how our shared light is amplified. We light for those who cannot. We remember. And we keep going.

Some leaders shape institutions. Others shape hearts. Rabbi Moshe Hauer did both. I’m in such shock and disbelief from learning the heartbreaking news of Rabbi Moshe Hauer’s passing. This week, as we reach the end of the Torah and begin again, we read V’zot HaBerachah, “And this is the blessing.” In this portion, Moses offers his final blessings before his death. The text closes with the people mourning him, and with a eulogy describing the uniqueness of his leadership, that there would never again arise a prophet like Moses who knew God face to face. As I read those verses, I can’t help but think of Rabbi Moshe Hauer. To me, he was larger than any biblical figure, though knowing him, he would have immediately disagreed with me for saying that. Like Moses, he spent his life blessing our people, guiding, teaching, comforting, and uniting us. His leadership was rooted in humility, faith, and love. After October 7, we found ourselves advocating side by side at the Departments of Education and Justice, in Congress, and in the White House, determined to show what Jewish unity could look like. It wasn’t unity for its own sake, but unity in service of the Jewish people, to advocate together for Jewish women, for the Orthodox community, and for all of us. Him, an Orthodox male rabbi. Me, a Reform Jewish progressive woman. Together, we were an unlikely duo that came together to advocate against antisemitism, to promote safety in Israel, and for the return of the hostages. We learned Torah together. Debated each other. Disagreed often. But agreed even more when we took the time to hear each other. We always came back to our shared Jewish values and our deep love for the Jewish people. What began as simple coalition work became a true partnership and a profound friendship. On a bus ride in Israel that lasted more than an hour, we chatted about life and legacy. He talked about his family and his hope to be remembered through them. We exchanged pictures of family members, discussed books we were reading, had a friendly debate on the Torah of reproductive freedom, and genuinely connected. When I mentioned that I sometimes relax by watching Survivor, he reminded me that he doesn’t watch television, but he asked why I loved it and what about it helped me to relax. He always showed genuine interest in the things that animated others. Our very different realities came up over and over again. I loved learning how he lived his life, and he seemed to love learning how I lived mine. Difference, but mutual respect, was at the core of our deep friendship. When I got the text message that he had passed away, I didn’t believe it. We had just spoken last week. I even texted him, saying I had just heard something awful that I was hoping was fake, and that I was praying and checking to see if he was okay. Sadly, the news of his passing was confirmed. I’m grateful he lived to see all the living hostages come home. But I’m heartbroken that we won’t get to be with him for all that’s next, for the rebuilding, the hope, and the unity he modeled so powerfully. Right before Rosh Hashanah, he shared: “Mi yichyeh u’mi yamut, mi b’kitzo u’mi lo b’kitzo — Who will live and who will die? Who will die at the predestined time and who before that time? We should not underestimate our role, as individuals and as Klal Yisrael, in setting the forward direction of Klal Yisrael and the world. While we come and go, we have the chance to build towards the future by investing with love and focus in the next generations and their passionate commitment to our way of life, in our Torat Chaim and Torat Chessed, values built and nurtured at the core by our connection to God, faith, and Torah. What we do today is part of a process and trajectory that will ultimately lift up Klal Yisrael and change the world. Not today or tomorrow. But it is not our task to finish the job, just to continue it and never neglect it.” May his memory be for a blessing. ❤️

Today, Jews everywhere are finally exhaling. The last living hostages are home in Israel. As a former trauma counselor, I know that when safety returns, it brings a kind of relief we didn’t know we needed, a lightness we’d forgotten was possible. But we can’t go back to who we were before October 7. We carry the pain, and we carry each other, as we begin to figure out who we can become now. We celebrate life. We celebrate this deal. We celebrate today. And soon, we will mourn — for the hostages who did not return alive, for the families whose pain will never end, for the tremendous loss of these two unbearable years. May this moment open the door to healing, to wholeness, and to peace. Am Yisrael Chai. 💙

This bill is a moral failure. It takes food from children and healthcare from those who need it. This is cruelty, codified into law. Today we mourn. Tomorrow we mobilize. Everyone who voted for this must hear from the constituents whose dignity and safety they just traded away.

Yesterday, I issued this statement on behalf of @NCJW condemning the Senate budget bill as a moral betrayal:

Today is 3 years since Roe was overturned. We remember the women and girls forced to carry pregnancies, denied care, and silenced. We mourn those whose stories we’ll never know. Abortion bans don’t just strip away rights, they shatter lives & violate our Jewish belief in dignity.