Rebecca Vilkomerson

Rebecca Vilkomerson is a racial and economic justice organizer and served for ten years as the executive director of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP). She became involved with JVP in the Bay Area in 2001. She moved to Brooklyn with her husband and two children in 2009 after 3 years in Israel, which is also when she joined Kolot. Kolot was appealing because although she was new to Brooklyn she already knew a number of members from various organizing struggles, and Kolot was welcoming to people who were working in solidarity with Palestinians. Although her children were in the learning program, it took Rebecca a few years to fully integrate into the Kolot community and her relationship with the congregation evolved over time. Although at first she came to Kolot as a religious space apart from her political work, she joined the Israel-Palestine working group in 2017 at the request of Rabbi Ellen Lippman. Rebecca joined the board in 2020, serves on the executive committee, and is now vice president of the congregation. She is also a regular shamash and member of the knitting circle. Her primary reason for being at Kolot is to participate in Jewish practice and she finds Kolot to be a spiritual antidote to the Judaism she grew up with, with deep appreciation for a place where anti-zionist Jews are fully part of the community. Three words she would use to describe herself are political, spiritual, and organizer.

In this interview, Rebecca Vilkomerson reviews her lifelong engagement with Judaism, from Hebrew school to and childhood experiences, to her college, early relationship and involvement with organized political Jewish community, to her eventual return to synagogue practice and association with Kolot Chayeinu. She details the timeline and stories of her political awakening in San Fransico, in which she begins to identify not only as a member of the Left, but specifically as a Jew who is pro-Palestinian and critical of Israel. Rebecca then explains the circumstances in which she joined Kolot, the importance of its community and it being a space for Jewish spiritual practice, and her reflections on the growth edges and challenges of the community to come, from growing through its current organizational life cycle moment to anti-racism efforts to the simple need (but difficult task) of clear communication between leadership and congregants. Rebecca’s interview is a love letter to Kolot as a community of vulnerability and of practice, as well as a testimony to the difficulties and rewards of pursuing a Jewishness that seeks–or maybe even demands– political, communal, and personal reflection and innovation.

Rebecca talks about the “preciousness” of Kolot, its originality, and the way in which the community encourages vulnerability.

Rebecca speaks to Kolot’s Organizational health, Ellen’s transition, the process of finding ways to grow deeper as a congregation.

“Anti-racism, israel-palestine, and the sticky questions of putting into practice the values of a progressive Jewish community.”

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