IKAR – IKAR’s mission is to reanimate Jewish life and develop a spiritual and moral foundation for a just and equitable society.

IKAR Reflects

Yom HaShoah 2024 and The Future of Memory

Click here to view our poignant lunch and learn with Auschwitz Survivor Ella Mandel and Amit, Zeve, and Oren Zilberstein, Jason Neidleman, and Alexia Gyorody, the second, third, and fourth generation of family members who both survived and perished in the Shoah. As living survivor numbers dwindle, we explored together how we can understand and hold their experiences in ways that co-create a more just, humane and dignified future for one another and our world. Co-produced by Peanut Productions.

Videos by The Righteous Conversations Project:

– To Life: The Ella Mandel Story created in collaboration with Sinai Akiba

– Dreams of Yisrael: The Story of Yisrael Zilberstein created in collaboration with IKAR Limudim

Click here to view our poignant lunch and learn with Auschwitz Survivor Ella Mandel and Amit, Zeve, and Oren Zilberstein, Jason Neidleman, and Alexia Gyorody, the second, third, and fourth generation of family members who both survived and perished in the Shoah. As living survivor numbers dwindle, we explored together how we can understand and hold their experiences in ways that co-create a more just, humane and dignified future for one another and our world. Co-produced by Peanut Productions.

Videos by The Righteous Conversations Project:

– To Life: The Ella Mandel Story created in collaboration with Sinai Akiba

– Dreams of Yisrael: The Story of Yisrael Zilberstein created in collaboration with IKAR Limudim

Calendar

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Monday-Friday & Sunday, 8am PT, Virtual Morning Minyan

I Care About Our Safety. And I Care About Our Soul.

– Rabbi Sharon Brous

Click here to watch, listen, and read.

April 27, 2024 – Aharei Mot 5784

We must have zero tolerance for violent and racist rhetoric in our Jewish community. We must support the birth of a new mixed multitude: those who reject extremism, who reject the violent, reductive idea that Palestinians and Jews must be eternal enemies. That one’s victory necessitates another’s victimhood, or even worse: elimination. This mixed multitude is made of people who know that we do not undermine our own sorrow or betray our own people when we see one another, those who understand that our fates are all tied up in one another.

Influential L.A. rabbi Sharon Brous wants to heal a ‘world on fire’

Los Angeles Times – April 16, 2024

Click here to read the entire piece.

“This is a time of crisis,” she said, “because we’re living in an epidemic of loneliness and isolation. It is not only a crisis for our bodies, it is a crisis for our democracy.” She later added: “Can we find our way to one another before the 2024 election?”

Brous then widened the moral lens, urging her followers to understand the breadth of the tragedy. She spoke of the “shattering” loss of Palestinian lives in Gaza. “As a mother, as a daughter, as a human being, as a Jew, I am heartsick because we don’t have to choose. You either believe that every single person is an image of God or you don’t actually care about human life.” She invoked Abraham, the meaning of being a Jew, and peace with the enemy. A Jew, she said, will “hold the humanity of the Palestinians at the forefront of our hearts and minds.”

“How do we choose to see each other’s humanity?” she said. “Are we willing to go on a path of sacred accompaniment with one another?”

Click here to read the entire piece.

“This is a time of crisis,” she said, “because we’re living in an epidemic of loneliness and isolation. It is not only a crisis for our bodies, it is a crisis for our democracy.” She later added: “Can we find our way to one another before the 2024 election?”

Brous then widened the moral lens, urging her followers to understand the breadth of the tragedy. She spoke of the “shattering” loss of Palestinian lives in Gaza. “As a mother, as a daughter, as a human being, as a Jew, I am heartsick because we don’t have to choose. You either believe that every single person is an image of God or you don’t actually care about human life.” She invoked Abraham, the meaning of being a Jew, and peace with the enemy. A Jew, she said, will “hold the humanity of the Palestinians at the forefront of our hearts and minds.”

“How do we choose to see each other’s humanity?” she said. “Are we willing to go on a path of sacred accompaniment with one another?”

Responding to the crisis in Israel and Gaza

Click here to watch, listen, and read.

-Remembering and Rebuilding Kfar Azza

-Writings

-Videos

-Audio

-On Israel

-Importont articles featuring our partner organizations

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“The meaning comes not from what we have, but what we share” – Rabbi Sharon Brous

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Thank you for enabling us to do this holy work.

The Mission

IKAR’s mission is to reanimate Jewish life and develop a spiritual and moral foundation for a just and equitable society. Fusing piety and hutzpah, obligation, and inspiration, IKAR is a dynamic, multi-generational community that fosters a yearning for personal, purposeful, creative engagement in Jewish life, particularly among young and disaffected Jews. Rooted in Los Angeles and reaching globally, we strive to actively and intentionally celebrate the vibrancy and diversity of the Jewish people.