Values Vocab
These are words and concepts that we use a lot around here. Let us know what you'd like to see added to the list.
Caring Economy: A caring and feminist economy is one that meets everyone’s basic needs, values all of our bodies and our work, and redistributes wealth back to the many people and communities who generate it. We believe our economy, like our government, should not be controlled by a few wealthy people, and must prioritize the wellbeing and care of all people and the planet.
Doikayt/Diasporism: Diasporism is rooted in the Jewish Socialist Labor Bund’s principle of doikayt—hereness. At JFREJ, we believe that where we live is our home; it is where we build relationships and where we fight for justice for ourselves and our neighbors. Doikayt affirms that there is no justice just for Jews just as there is no justice that erases us.
Interdependence: Interdependence is at the heart of what makes a caring economy work. It acknowledges that none of us are an island, that each of us is mutually dependent on one another—in our lives and in our movements. As adrienne maree brown writes, the “idea of interdependence is that we can meet each other’s needs in a variety of ways, that we can truly lean on others and they can lean on us.” Interdependence is also one of Sins Invalid’s “Ten Principles of Disability Justice.”
Oppression: Oppression is the subjugation, domination, or exploitation of individuals or groups by other individuals or groups in positions of ideological, institutional, or interpersonal power. Oppression can take legal, social, political, economic, or violent form. Intersectionality was a term coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw to describe the relationship between overlapping systems of oppression.
Solidarity: Solidarity is a commitment and an investment to win justice for all people. It is about taking responsibility for each other, recognizing our shared stake not only in resisting and defeating our opponents, but in building something beautiful in its place. At JFREJ, we actively choose solidarity and connection over fear and isolationism.
Teshuvah: Teshuvah (also teshuva or t’shuva) is a Hebrew word that means “return” and a Jewish value articulating a process for repair and communal accountability. At JFREJ, teshuvah refers to our process of addressing harm by returning as a collective to our values of justice and care for the sake of repair and our communal transformation. Teshuvah for us is accountable not punitive, communal not individual, and measured by our collective ability to act differently when the situation arises again.
Transformative Justice: In the writing of Mariame Kaba and Kelly Hayes, our teachers and mentors, transformative justice (TJ) is “…a community process developed by anti-violence activists of color, in particular, who wanted to create responses to violence that do what criminal punishment systems fail to do: build support and more safety for the person harmed, figure out how the broader context was set up for this harm to happen, and how that context can be changed so that this harm is less likely to happen again.”