A Juneteenth Seder

by Rabbi Arthur Waskow

We are sharing with you today the link to a Haggadah for Juneteenth — June 19 of every year — developed by the Jews of Color Caucus of Jews for Racial and Economic Justice (JFREJ) of New York City..

Juneteenth is a festival of Memory and Transformation created by first the Texas Black community and then adopted nationally to commemorate the day in 1865 when the Union Army and action by enslaved Blacks combined to enforce the Emancipation Proclamation and end the last pockets of chattel slavery in the US
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The ascension of Juneteenth to status as a national holy-day is an extraordinary measure of the growing influence of the Black American community in American culture. The content of this Haggadah is an extraordinary measure of the continuing power of white supremacy as an idea and a practical reality in many areas of the American polity and economy.

Weaving into Juneteenth the Jewish tradition of joining specific ritual foods and ritual words and blessings has been undertaken by groups of Black Jews in recent years. We recommend it to all our readers as a prophetic outcry against the continued oppressive presence of America racism, embodied in our generation in a resurgent campaign for Christian white supremacy. We recommend it as both a celebration of past transformations and an incitement toward future transformations – a call to join in the struggle to embody and fulfill an all-inclusive multiracial democracy in America.

 With blessings of shalom for all who act to make that vision real.

— Arthur