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Promoting social and economic rights, combating poverty and discrimination, and advancing equal opportunities.
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Designing and delivering educational programs on human rights, religious pluralism, and tolerance.
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Dialogue and interfaith cooperation, development of joint initiatives, and the promotion of mutual understanding.
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Rabbis for Human Rights is the Jewish voice on human rights.
Founded in 1988, it brings together more than 170 members – ordained rabbis and rabbinical students from across the denominations.
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Weekly Torah Portion
People of Valor – People of Truth
A Teaching for Parashat Yitro / Rabbi Prof. Yehoyada Amir
Parashat Yitro brings the story of God’s revelation to human society. Alongside it, in a manner inseparably interwoven, it confronts the human figure of Moses, leader of the people and prophet. These two dimensions are bound together from the very beginning. Already at the sight of the miracle of crossing the sea and the complete redemption from Egyptian slavery, the people’s enthusiastic response was: “And they believed in God and in Moses His servant” (Exodus 14:31). At the burning bush, Moses feared that the people would not believe him (Exodus 4:1).
Faith and The Saving Few
Thoughts for Parasht Beshallah / Rabbi Yehiel Grenimann
Faith grows not from witnessing miracles, but from education, choice, and continuing commitment. That is the message of the narrative in this week’s Torah reading — so teaches Yeshayahu Leibowitz in his Seven Years of Talks on the Weekly Torah Portion. He points to the people’s repeated demonstrations of lack of faith, despite the miracle at the Reed Sea, before the event and after the event, when faced with the existential threats of the approaching Egyptian chariots and of lack of water and food in the desert.
Memory as a Moral Compass
Thoughts for Parashat Bo / Rabbi Lana Zilberman Soloway
Parashat Bo meets us at a particularly challenging moment: the Israelites are still in Egypt, not yet having begun their journey toward freedom. Precisely there, at the very heart of oppression, they are given foundational commandments that define what true freedom is: preservation of memory, sanctification of time, and taking on moral responsibility.
“And you shall tell your child on that day, saying: It is because of this that the Eternal One acted for me when I came out of Egypt.”
(Exodus 13:8)
Even before the Israelites were free, they were commanded to remember and to tell the story. Not a story of heroism and triumph, but a story of enslavement, vulnerability, and the denial of rights. The Torah understands that a people who forget their own vulnerability may come to harm others. Memory is not nostalgia; it is responsibility. It is meant to shape a moral compass, reminding us again and again what human freedom truly means.