The Progressive Jewish Alliance (PJA) was founded in 1999 by Jewish Angelenos who broke away from the Los Angeles chapter of the American Jewish Congress. They sought to assert a Jewish interest in the campaigns for social justice in Southern California, which has the United States' second largest Jewish population. Progressive Jewish Alliance expanded in February 2005 by opening a San Francisco Bay Area chapter. The PJA stated goals are social justice, judicial reform, and improved working conditions. They also try to facilitate dialogue between non-violent young offenders and their victims and between Jews and Muslims.
They run the Jeremiah Fellowship that trains young Jews to be future social justice leaders. In addition, the PJA conducts education programs and quarterly holiday events on the intersection of art, culture and politics.
Famous quotes containing the words progressive, jewish and/or alliance:
“The history of modern art is also the history of the progressive loss of art’s audience. Art has increasingly become the concern of the artist and the bafflement of the public.”
—Henry Geldzahler (1935–1994)
“Don: Why are they closed? They’re all closed, every one of them.
Pawnbroker: Sure they are. It’s Yom Kippur.
Don: It’s what?
Pawnbroker: It’s Yom Kippur, a Jewish holiday.
Don: It is? So what about Kelly’s and Gallagher’s?
Pawnbroker: They’re closed, too. We’ve got an agreement. They keep closed on Yom Kippur and we don’t open on St. Patrick’s.”
—Billy Wilder (b. 1906)
“Let it be an alliance of two large, formidable natures, mutually beheld, mutually feared, before yet they recognize the deep identity which beneath these disparities unites them.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)