As a community college student, Jasmine Hall found herself surrounded by non-Jewish peers for the first time. The Jewish advocate and artist had been raised Orthodox and described community college as a turning point in her life.
“I saw that there’s so much happening outside of my own community that I wanted to be involved in and that I saw [my] close friends affected by,” Hall said. “I think it’s very important to understand who you can help, even if it’s not directly affecting you.”
Now a recent graduate from the University of Maryland, Hall advances social justice causes through an Orthodox Jewish lens in the nation’s capital. She is the advocacy and leadership program coordinator at Uri L’Tzedek, marking the Orthodox social justice organization’s first Washington, D.C., hub.
In 2020, Hall was a fellow with the Shalom Hartman Institute, a nonprofit Jewish research and education institute that serves Israel and America.
She lives in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood of D.C. and attends services at Kesher Israel Congregation.
Tell me about your Jewish upbringing and background.
I was raised Orthodox kind of my entire childhood. I’ve lived in Maryland for most of my life and [have been] really involved in the Rockville and Silver Spring Orthodox communities, and just recently moved to D.C. to be part of [the Jewish community] there. I attended Jewish day school my entire life, as well; I went to Berman Hebrew Academy. Because of this background, I’ve had a pretty high level of comfort within the Jewish community. It was all I knew and [is] a very strong community that all of my friends and mentors were a part of.
I was really involved with the Jewish community [at the University of Maryland]. I think it’s a really great community there because they have such a large and strong Orthodox community with so many people that are very supportive and committed to being involved, while also having Jews from all walks of life. It’s a standard state college where you can interact with anybody from anywhere, so you can be involved in the community and have that safety and comfort of being in a religious space and it not being difficult and inaccessible, while also being able to talk with all different people.
What are your responsibilities with Uri L’Tzedek?
I do a lot of program coordination. A lot of what we do is not just advocacy but education in that space and teaching Jewish [and non-Jewish] people how to approach advocacy with Torah-rooted lenses and to essentially develop this leadership from having speakers and mentors. I [help create] fellowships both for students in college and for young professionals, ages 20s to 30s. Being in D.C., I’m also the sole representative for Uri L’Tzedek at a lot of D.C. events and rallies and protests. I attend those and work to partner with a lot of other organizations that are already well-established in the area and help uplift what’s already going on and what aligns with our outlook.
Why is social justice important to you?
At University of Maryland, I pursued a dual bachelor’s degree in art and American studies. In the American studies major, it’s not just American history; it’s American pop culture, American current events, so that major attracts a lot of activist types who are very passionate about helping the world and being a part of what seemed not to be super-polarizing issues, but [they] ended up being polarizing. I wanted to continue that because I saw so much of that activist mentality aligning with Torah values and Orthodox Judaism.
What causes are you most passionate about and why?
I would say I’m most passionate about issues such as food insecurity [and] homelessness. Especially in the current age, immigration is a big one because it’s very much involving our communities right here; a lot of Maryland and Virginia have big immigrant communities. Uri L’Tzedek is based in Arizona, which is right by the [U.S.-Mexico] border, so they see it firsthand.
What are your upcoming goals?
For Uri L’Tzedek specifically, we really just want to be super-involved in the D.C. social justice space, both in the existing Jewish social justice space and also the broader one. While I’m starting this D.C. expansion while being the first one here, I’m not the only one here by any means. Rabbi Shmuly [Yanklowitz, Uri L’Tzedek’s founder and president,] is very committed to coming out here regularly. We have so many partners in the organizations we’re helping and who are helping us, and we’re trying to strengthen that community and further expand to have an office here [in D.C.] eventually.
One of my biggest goals is to, at the moment, create this fellowship for young professionals in D.C. It’s somewhat my age demographic; somewhat the community I’m going to be involved in. But [my goal is] to create a space where we can be an educational center and leadership development center and help people who might be working other jobs be involved in the space and learn more about it.
