Meet the 2020-21 Fellows in Conflict and Peace: Brant Rosen

My name is Brant Rosen – I’m the founding rabbi of Tzedek Chicago, a Jewish congregation based on core values of transformative justice, human rights and solidarity with the oppressed, including Palestinians. I’m also a writer – a journalist and a blogger - and for many years I’ve also written poetry and liturgy, much of which we use in my congregation.

I was first drawn to the Religion, Conflict and Peace Initiative, because, quite frankly, I’ve admired the work of its faculty and many of its fellows. I was particularly drawn to the way the program conceptualized the historic role of religion in both conflict and just peacebuilding – which has been central to my own work for many years. I also deeply appreciate the RCPI’s emphasis on the power of narrative – and the important role of reimagining narrative in the work of just peacebuilding.

At my congregation, Tzedek Chicago, I’ve been developing new liturgy and communal traditions that reflect a new Jewish narrative – one that lifts up the central Jewish liberation narrative and rejects the narrative of Jewish political nation-statism embodied by Zionism. One that views Jewish liberation through solidarity with all who are oppressed - not as a form of exceptionalism or entitlement to a specific piece of land.

So for my project, I’ve proposed the expansion of my liturgical writing into a prayerbook for the Jewish Sabbath and festivals that will reflect a new Jewish religious paradigm: one that consciously centers the Torah’s sacred liberation narrative and that openly reflects these values in particular:

• It will view the entire diaspora as the Jewish people’s “homeland”
• It will promote sacred solidarity with all who are oppressed by state power and structural violence.
• It will view the establishment of the state of Israel not as a redemptive moment to be celebrated but rather as an injustice that demands a communal moral reckoning;
• It will reject any form of religious exceptionalism and model respect for the integrity of all religious traditions.

I’ve very excited that the RCPI is giving me the opportunity to expand my work in this way. I do believe that the medium of prayer is one of the most primary and elemental ways that human cultures have expressed and experienced their sacred narratives throughout history. As such, I believe prayer has the power to shape the way tell our stories, to help us understand our histories and our place in them.

It’s my hope that my liturgical project will point the way toward a new sacred Jewish narrative – one that will contribute toward the work of transformative justice that is so central to the mission of the RCPI program – and all religions at their best.