By Sam Goldstein, Josh Topor, Jacob Lauter, Matt Permut – Hevrah Campers

Since the 1980s, Hevrah has been a program at Camp Newman which focuses on social action and Tikkun Olam, the Jewish value of repairing the world. Every year, Hevrah researches and discusses a different issue that is currently impacting our society. This summer, we have put our focus on our country’s problem with gun violence.

As a group we were shocked to learn about the magnitude of gun violence issues in the US. With the guidance of our faculty and staff, we have been discussing and debating existing and “on-the-ballot” laws that impact the usage and distribution of guns in our country. To begin to tackle this huge issue, we have split up into task forces that each work to make a change in their own specific way.

Every morning, we go into task forces that work to educate Camp Newman and the URJ as a whole, on gun violence prevention. These task forces include publicity, programming, video making, and tefillah leading. Our afternoon task forces work to prepare us for our Project Day in Sacramento. Those task forces are t-shirt and mural making, lobbying, and protesting. By working in our task forces we educate not only ourselves, but also our community, on how to make America a safer place.

We hope you stand with us in our fight against gun violence.