Cynthia Nixon will host the T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights’s 10th Anniversary Celebration, with a Special Performance by Y-Love.
by Melanie Nathan, May 06, 2013.
T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights will celebrate its 10-year anniversary on Wednesday, May 22 at the New York City Fire Museum in Manhattan. The event will honor three individuals who exemplify T’ruah’s mission of bringing a Jewish moral voice to the most pressing human rights issues of our time. The program is hosted by Tony and Emmy award winning actress, Cynthia Nixon with a special performance by Y-Love, a Los Angeles-based African-American Jewish gay hip-hop artist.
Host and acclaimed actor Cynthia Nixon is an Emmy and Tony Award-winning actress who has been a critically acclaimed and sought-after actress since the age of twelve. For six seasons Nixon starred as Miranda Hobbes in HBO’s much-celebrated series, Sex and the City, a role that garnered her an Emmy Award in 2004 for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series, two other Emmy nominations, and four consecutive Golden Globe nominations.
T’ruah joined other organizations to file Amicus Briefs at SCOTUS in the DOMA and Prop 8 Cases, arguing that Marriage Equality is a Jewish and Human Rights Imperative.
THE EVENT:
Who/What: T’ruah’s 10th Anniversary Celebration, hosted by Cynthia Nixon, honoring Rabbi Everett Gendler, Rabbi Susan Talve and Thomas B. Wilner; Special performance by Y-Love
Where: New York City Fire Museum, 278 Spring Street, Manhattan
When: Wednesday May 22, 6:45 PM
Receiving Awards:-
Rabbi Everett Gendler who will receive the T’ruah Human Rights Hero Award marched with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and has led movements for human rights, non-violence and the environment. He served as rabbi at Temple Emanuel, Lowell, MA, from 1971 to 1995. For nineteen of those years, he also held the position of Jewish Chaplain and Instructor in Philosophy and Religious Studies at Phillips Academy, Andover, MA. During the Civil Rights era, he marched with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (‘62-‘68), and has long advocated for nonviolence, human rights, the environment, vegetarianism, liturgical renewal. His pioneering work on environmentalism earned him the affectionate nickname, “the Father of Jewish Environmentalism.” Rabbi Gendler has served on the boards of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, Jewish Peace Fellowship, War Resisters League, and other leading peace and human rights organizations. Since retirement from regular commitments in 1995, he and his wife, Mary, travel almost every year to India to help the Tibetan exile community develop an educational program on strategic nonviolent struggle. This program is sanctioned by the Dalai Lama and coordinated by the Tibetan Government in Exile.
Rabbi Susan Talve , who will receive the T’ruah Human Rights Hero Award was a founder of the Missouri Health Care for All, and now serves as the chair of this multi-faith, multi-ethnic coalition. In addition to her health care advocacy, Rabbi Talve has become one of the most powerful religious advocates for gun control, workers’ rights and LGBT rights. Within the St. Louis community, she has modeled interfaith partnerships by forging strong ties between her own community andAfrican-American and Muslim congregations. She is the founding rabbi of Central Reform Congregation in St. Louis, Missouri. When other congregations were leaving the city for the suburbs, she and her congregation chose to maintain a vibrant presence in the city, and commit to fighting the racism and poverty plaguing the urban center. Today she can be found marching arm in arm with local ministers, shop owners and neighbors; Christians, Jews and Muslims, in support of gun reform, women’s reproductive rights, health care, labor rights, and civil liberties for the LGBT community. She teaches courses on Jewish life and thought in both the Jewish and non-Jewish communities.
Thomas B. Wilner, receiving the Raphael Lemkin Human Rights Award is an attorney who worked tirelessly to establish legal protections for Guantanamo detainees. He leads the international trade litigation and government relations practice of Shearman & Sterling LLP. A native of Washington, D.C., Mr. Wilner has practiced law for more than 40 years. He was counsel of record in Rasul v. Bush, decided in June 2004, in which the United States Supreme Court ruled that the Guantanamo detainees have the right to habeas corpus, and in Boumediene v. Bush, decided in June, 2008, in which the Supreme Court held that the Guantanamo detainees’ right to habeas corpus is protected by the U.S. Constitution. He was also counsel of record in Al Odah v. United States which established the detainees’ right to unmonitored access to counsel
About T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights:
T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights is an organization led by rabbis from all streams of Judaism that acts on the Jewish imperative to respect and protect the human rights of all people. Grounded in Torah and our Jewish historical experience and guided by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, we advocate for human rights in Israel and North America. T’ruah continues the historic work of Rabbis for Human Rights-North America, which was founded in 2002 and renamed T’ruah in January 2013. – Read more at: http://www.truah.org