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)
“What was lost in the European cataclysm was not only the Jewish past—the whole life of a civilization—but also a major share of the Jewish future.... [ellipsis in source] It was not only the intellect of a people in its prime that was excised, but the treasure of a people in its potential.”
—Cynthia Ozick (b. 1928)
“In short, no association or alliance can be happy or stable without me. People can’t long tolerate a ruler, nor can a master his servant, a maid her mistress, a teacher his pupil, a friend his friend nor a wife her husband, a landlord his tenant, a soldier his comrade nor a party-goer his companion, unless they sometimes have illusions about each other, make use of flattery, and have the sense to turn a blind eye and sweeten life for themselves with the honey of folly.”
—Desiderius Erasmus (c. 1466–1536)