Frequently Asked Questions

  • Jewish legacy institutions are actively causing harm by aligning with oppressive state power, funding Israel (and therefore the ethnic cleansing and genocide of Palestinians), conflating antizionism with antisemitism, and refusing to engage in meaningful dialogue with dissenters.

    We believe that our traditions carry liberatory values that can support us in building a more just world and refuse to allow mainstream Judaism to speak for us.

  • Diaspora is a word that provokes a lot of strong feelings. Some people believe the word centers Israel and/or Zionism. We have chosen it because diaspora is now a concept that belongs to many—if not most—people and communities on Earth, and we use it to emphasize our commonalities and connections with others, rather than the artificial insularity that pervades Jewish discourse about Jews.

    We encourage those struggling with embracing the concept of diaspora to familiarize themselves with the term beyond the Jewish context, as Jews have always been in a context shared with others. Embracing diaspora is a commitment to the joy of intermixing and learning from our non-Jewish friends and neighbors, and all of us flourishing together.

    We also believe that Judaism is fundamentally diasporic. Before the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem there was Israelite religion; after the destruction and the exile a new religion was developed: Judaism. Israelite religion evolved from rituals of sacrifice and pilgrimages to a central temple into a Jewish religion involving forms of prayer, ethics, foodways, and communal life that can be practiced wherever you live. 

    Classical Jewish sources teach that at the end of history, when the messiah arrives, both living and dead Jews will return to the land of Israel to rebuild ancient Israelite tradition. Many different approaches to this belief have existed over time, but prior to Zionism, all have pointed towards a mythical, mystical future being required for mass return to the land, if at all.

    Today, we understand that all Jews live in diaspora – even those who live in Jerusalem! In fact, all Jews are multi-diasporic: even if we trace our traditions’ origins back to Judea, for most of us that connection can only be held in a mythic register, because our lineages have moved through many different places on the way to the present. There is no single “original” moment we can fully return to, and we are shaped and strengthened by the many Jewish diasporic cultures we each carry, past and present.

    This is especially true today, when most Jews are also of multiple ethnicities and backgrounds, holding diasporic identities that are not only Jewish, and when diaspora itself is understood as an ongoing process of human cohabitation that Judaism can affirm and celebrate.


    Read other thinkers on this topic!

  • We are creating more than just a network of connections; we are working together to build social, cultural, and political power.

  • Strengthen the work of making life-affirming, ethical, liberatory Judaism and the people who are making it by: 

    1. Connecting people and organizations doing similar work to share resources;

    2. Providing liberatory Jewish perspectives to media outlets and interfaith partners;

    3. Developing new modes of practice and relating that help us build thriving communities for ourselves and our non-Jewish neighbors;

    4. Becoming a defining cultural force in Jewish life. 

  • JDM is not designed to be a spiritual or cultural home for individuals, but to support self-organization into and amongst Jewish organizations.

    There are already many organizations, congregations, and projects that share a vision of Jewish life that is liberatory, interdependent with our neighbors, collaborative and creative—and many more in formation.

    JDM is an umbrella designed to support the growth of collective efforts to meet our social, spiritual, cultural needs and aspirations. We encourage individuals to form or join organizations, and advocate for their organizations to join JDM.

    JDM membership will include organizations, projects, and groups of various sizes, structures, and levels of formality.

  • See our handy-dandy chart!

    • Encourage a project that you are part of to join! 

    • Join an existing project; many have virtual programming

    • Start a project and join JDM!

    • Donate money to help the movement get off the ground

    • Spread the word!

    • Individuals who are part of member organizations of JDM do the work of sustaining JDM through committees and circles

  • Autonomous, self-organized circles are where the bulk of JDM’s work takes place.

    Dive into the details in the Circles section in our structure document.

  • We hope not!

    We recognize that many people are already doing a lot—and that making something new is labor-intensive.

    Our hope is that people will participate as much or as little as makes sense for them so that involvement feels nourishing, connective, and valuable.

  • No. JDM’s focus is supporting and amplifying the work happening at the local level.

    We are an unincorporated network (with fiscal sponsorship from Beloved Garden) predicated on the idea that ethical Judaism is best made with distributed leadership and voluntary labor. Therefore, we have chosen to have no paid staff, no physical location, and no formal incorporation.

    If at some point it serves our collective goals to change this, JDM would hold an organization-wide process in which all members are invited to participate, as required by the Referenda section of our structure.

  • There are costs associated with basic operations such as maintaining a website, mailing lists, etc. 

    We also plan to come together in-person to strategize, build relationships, and to practice the Jewishness we are building. We need resources to subsidize lodging, meals, materials, and travel for people who need financial assistance so that our organization can live up to its ideals of including as broad a range of people as possible.

  • No. We see diversity as a strength and are actively working to include as many different kinds of Jews and Jewish practices as possible within our networks and in our leadership, including, but not limited to, Jews by choice, Sephardic, Mizrahi, Israeli Jews, Jews of color, Jews in interfaith relationships, atheist Jews, disabled Jews, queer Jews, and Jews from all around the world.

    We are primarily starting in the U.S. and hope to grow and broaden from here. We have invited some international participation and hope to continue to invite more, but are limited by language, time zones, and social networks. We’d love your help in connecting to more people doing this work around the world. If you are from anywhere else in the world, we are excited to connect with you!

    And we believe that there is more urgency in moving the conversation in the United States because of the outsize role that U.S. military and financial support plays in Israel/Palestine and because so much of world Jewry lives in the United States. We will continue to hold the contradictions of being mostly U.S. based and our goals to be a global movement given that the U.S.’s current hostility to non-citizens makes it unsafe for many to travel to the U.S. to meet and gather. These are all power dynamics we are seeking to undermine, but we can't deny the current reality. 

    This project is rooted in solidarity and stands against the many exclusions that have characterized mainstream Jewish life. We emphasize that solidarity is a choice, while many identities—and their meanings—are not.

  • Part of diasporism is responsible stewardship of wherever we are and building robust community with its current and indigenous inhabitants—including people who are both Jewish and indigenous.

  • No. We hope our participants will include Jews who are part of all the denominations as well as those who are atheist, agnostic, secular, are engaged with other religious and spiritual traditions.

  • Our analysis is that Jewish institutions are defined by the global and national power structures in which they operate and inherently depend on and contribute to capitalism and other systems of violence. In truth, most of the major (and even many of the minor) mainstream institutions fundamentally rely on wealthy donors who hold disproportionate power and have no impetus to relinquish it, no matter how many stakeholders have divergent opinions.

    JDM’s strategy is to focus on building and supporting the new institutions Jews are making which are unserved by legacy institutions; though we recognize that a diversity of tactics is always needed and we respect anyone who chooses to go the route of trying to move existing ones.

    We believe the future of Judaism is in the democratic, cooperative, and coalitional formations that are currently blossoming.

  • Both!

    Secular, cultural, and spiritual projects are as central to our vision as religious ones.

  • No. We are proud to include many antizionists and anyone who agrees with our purpose and principles is welcome to join.

  • We are so glad that other diasporic Jewishness is happening and we hope to bring as many of us together as we can.

    We understand that it may strike some as presumptuous, but we believe “The” does important rhetorical work to unify and solidify our collective projects which helps us build social and political power.