In mourning on George Floyd's yahrzeit
Today, we join you in mourning following the horrific murder of 19 elementary school children and 2 teachers in Uvalde, Texas. We join you in rage at the inaction of lawmakers who refuse to make even the smallest changes in gun laws that would protect our children and save lives.
Today is also the second anniversary of the murder of George Floyd.
In the two years since George Floyd's life was stolen by Minneapolis Police on the corner of 38th and Chicago, many in our communities rose up to denounce the racism and violence at the core of our system of policing. White folks, possibly for the first time, began hearing the BIPOC communities who have long understood that police presence does not equal public safety.
Yet there is so much left undone. There are more names that we have added to the ever growing list of Black people killed by MPD, including Amir Locke just a few months ago. The department still engages in a pervasive pattern of racial profiling and discrimination, as detailed in this comprehensive report by the Minnesota Department of Human Rights.
And as Charles Blow notes in this column for the New York Times, the commemorative art dedicated to George Floyd's memory is fading in cities across the country.
The Jewish tradition’s way of marking the anniversary of a death—called yahrzeit by Ashkenazi Jews—is to disrupt the trend of erasure.
On a yahrzeit, we remember and honor the dead and commemorate both the tragedy of their death and their legacy.
We think about the values and commitments they stood for, and we recommit ourselves—with our time, our actions, our resources—to those values.
Today, we invite you to take a moment to contemplate how far we must go to create true public safety for all in our communities - rethinking policing, to preventing gun violence. We encourage you to spend some time reading the MDHR report on MPD or MPD150's detailed history of the department.
In the Book of Proverbs 20:27 we read: "The soul of a person is a candle of the Holy One" (Ner Adonai Nishmat Adam) the word in Hebrew for soul is the same as the word for breath.
Zichrono livracha. May George Floyd’s memory, and the memory of the victims of yesterday’s shooting, be a blessing.
May we work towards a world where everyone in our communities is safe. Where everyone is protected. Where everyone can breathe.
In mourning and solidarity,
Jewish Community Action
