Dear DJJ community,
When I started my internship at the beginning of June, one of the first things I did was to start reading The Next American Revolution by Grace Lee Boggs, and one of the first things I learned from her is that transforming the world requires transforming yourself. This idea is one of her most well known and powerful insights. But what does it even mean? What does it feel like? This is what “transforming yourself to transform the world” meant for me this summer:
As I learned new skills and techniques for organizing people to make change, I began to feel like an organizer.
As I spent time engaging with the scale and depth of the problems facing our world, I felt that I was being called to do something about them.
As I read and thought and talked very deeply about society and how best to change it, I felt my study of philosophy become concrete and urgent.
As I learned ways to incorporate Jewish teachings and rituals into my everyday work, I felt more deeply connected to my Jewish identity.
Jumping into a new internship in a new city and a new community was intense and sometimes scary. I’m truly grateful for the support I got from the DJJ community, which enabled me to learn and grow from that challenge. It’s really hard to have to move on after such a short time here, but the ways I’ve changed will stay with me for a long time. I want to give a huge thank you to the DJJ staff for being so committed to making my internship experience transformative, and to all the DJJ leaders who welcomed me, worked with my, 1:1ed with me, and built relationships with me.
In love and solidarity,
Jacob Schneyer
