The Joyous Justice Podcast

Send us a message via text message! Link accessible at joyousjustice.buzzsprout.com. ✅ It’s been almost two weeks since the Colleyville synagogue hostage situation, an antisemitic event that was incredibly scary for Jewish communities. During this conversation from just a few days after, we dive into the feelings of isolation that many of us are experiencing, the all-encompassing nature of grief,...

Send us a message via text message! Link accessible at joyousjustice.buzzsprout.com. ✅ A few weeks into 2022, April and Tracie share with us what they’ve learned about how to set intentions and their best practices for succeeding. Referencing the conversation they had in Episode 70, they chat about achieving goals versus implementing systems. They unpack some of the patterns around setting intent...

Send us a message via text message! Link accessible at joyousjustice.buzzsprout.com. ✅ As MLK Day and Tu B'Shvat overlap this coming week, April and Tracie unpack the lessons we can learn from trees and their growth in our racial justice journeys. They get into the nuances and differences between treating the symptoms of oppression and injustice – often addressed through “service” – and diag...

Send us a message via text message! Link accessible at joyousjustice.buzzsprout.com. ✅ It’s the first week of January and April and Tracie are thinking about resolutions. We delve into willpower, habits, and mindset, and discuss the role of American individualism in the culture of New Year’s Resolutions. Ultimately, we look for a better way to change our habits–and stop beating ourselves up with...

Send us a message via text message! Link accessible at joyousjustice.buzzsprout.com. ✅ In this week’s episode, April and Tracie talk about how questions around racial justice often come from a place of “stuckness,” keeping us from making real progress on racial justice. They discuss ways in which you can work through your questions to get past this stuckness.  Check out our discussion/reflection...

Send us a message via text message! Link accessible at joyousjustice.buzzsprout.com. ✅ In this week’s episode, Tracie and April discuss the phrase, “stay humble and keep going,” the final words of the podcast every week. They explore why they chose this simple phrase and what it means to them.  Check out our discussion/reflection questions for this episode:  https://joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-ta...

Send us a message via text message! Link accessible at joyousjustice.buzzsprout.com. ✅ This week, we’re sharing an excerpt from one of our “Shared Agreements” videos of Racial Justice Launch Pad, a recently-released Joyous Justice program. April and Tracie discuss the dynamics of power and privilege baked into the well-known phrase “the customer is always right.” They also unpack the pattern of b...

Send us a message via text message! Link accessible at joyousjustice.buzzsprout.com. ✅ In this week’s episode, Tracie and April reflect on the concept of Shleimut, Wholeness, and how it was a driving force for April when she created the Ko’ach Fellowship, supported by Rise Up. April shares more about the Ko’ach Fellowship and together with Tracie, they discuss how healing, wholeness, and peace ar...

Send us a message via text message! Link accessible at joyousjustice.buzzsprout.com. ✅ In this week’s episode, April and Tracie use the Talmudic debate on how to light the Chanukah menorah to reflect on light, darkness, and what this holiday can teach us about navigating the difficult times in our lives.  Check out our discussion/reflection questions for this episode:  https://joyousjustice.com/b...

Send us a message via text message! Link accessible at joyousjustice.buzzsprout.com. ✅ In this week’s episode April and Tracie continue to explore their thoughts around Thanksgiving and the tension between a holiday about gratitude and family and its racist, genocidal origins.  Check out our discussion/reflection questions for this episode:  https://joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice...

Send us a message via text message! Link accessible at joyousjustice.buzzsprout.com. ✅ April and Tracie dig into and challenge the oft-repeated notion that proximity across a line of difference immunizes against bigotry or racism. In other words, the assertion “I can’t be racist, my (fill-in-the-blank) is Black." We discuss how the good/bad binary plays into this misconception about proximit...

Send us a message via text message! Link accessible at joyousjustice.buzzsprout.com. ✅ April and Tracie spend Veterans’ Day reflecting on their family connections to veterans and the ways in which our country has treated veterans throughout our history. The political conversations that happen around war and policy often employ either/or thinking that leads us to forget the human beings and all th...

Send us a message via text message! Link accessible at joyousjustice.buzzsprout.com. ✅ In this week’s episode, April and Tracie unpack the false assumption that some folks have expressed--that April “hates America” since she has chosen to relocate out of the States, and to West Africa, no less. This question leads April and Tracie to think about the hierarchies and racism built into conventional...

Send us a message via text message! Link accessible at joyousjustice.buzzsprout.com. ✅ In this week’s episode, April and Tracie discuss the dangers of making that “diversity hire” when the organization hasn’t done the necessary work of deconstructing dynamics of oppression, so that “diversity hire” needs to endure unhealthy and unsustainable microaggressions and worse. They discuss strategies for...

Send us a message via text message! Link accessible at joyousjustice.buzzsprout.com. ✅ On this week’s episode, Tracie and April discuss the recent discussion on the concept of “Jewface” that followed a recent podcast by Sarah Silverman on the topic. They discuss a few different perspectives on the topic and reflect on the patterns within the portrayal of Jewish characters in media.  Check out our...

Send us a message via text message! Link accessible at joyousjustice.buzzsprout.com. ✅ In this week’s episode, April shares more about her ongoing exploration around her Indigenous, Cherokee heritage and the impact a healing workshop had on her desire to live and embody this aspect of her identity. Tracie and April use this exploration to reflect on the ways in which we are the products of our an...

Send us a message via text message! Link accessible at joyousjustice.buzzsprout.com. ✅ In our current pandemic-, racism-, and climate-change-ravaged times, April and Tracie talk about the Shmita Year, or Sabbatical Year, which we just began at Rosh Hashanah. How does one live out the values of the Shmita year when most of us are no longer working as farmers in the fields? They discuss how we can...

Send us a message via text message! Link accessible at joyousjustice.buzzsprout.com. ✅ In this week’s episode Tracie and April discuss some of the traditions related to the holiday of Simchat Torah (lit. “Joy of Torah”). The symbolism of the holiday--appreciating the totality of the Torah and starting the cycle anew--illuminates for ways we can do the same with our own life and racial justice cur...

Send us a message via text message! Link accessible at joyousjustice.buzzsprout.com. ✅ In this week’s episode, April and Tracie mark Sukkot and discuss themes around shelter, safety and security, and sacrifice, and the trade-offs that exist which this holiday helps to illuminate for us. Content warning : descriptions of animal slaughter/sacrifice Check out our discussion/reflection questions for...

Send us a message via text message! Link accessible at joyousjustice.buzzsprout.com. ✅ In this week’s episode, as we mark Yom Kippur, April and Tracie discuss the big concepts and ideas that can frame Yom Kippur and give some practical tips for how to work through our collective and individual yearly accounting of our souls by finding the joy in the process.  Check out our discussion/reflection q...

Send us a message via text message! Link accessible at joyousjustice.buzzsprout.com. ✅ As Yom Kippur approaches, April and Tracie reflect on T'shuvah. We specifically dig into what Jewish tradition teaches us about what to do when “return” requires us to ask how much of ourselves we are willing to dismantle, especially when it comes to perpetuating white supremacy and racism.  Check out our...

Send us a message via text message! Link accessible at joyousjustice.buzzsprout.com. ✅ As the Jewish new year, Rosh Hashanah, approaches, we think about the year that was, and reflect on ways to improve while still holding ourselves tenderly.  Check out our discussion/reflection questions for this episode: www.joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-52 Find April and Tracie's full...

Send us a message via text message! Link accessible at joyousjustice.buzzsprout.com. ✅ In this week’s episode, we talk about how we often forget that Jewish leaders in the civil rights movement who are lauded today were not universally supported in their time. We often pretend their detractors did not exist, and yet, they are in fact still here in our communities pushing back against our current...

Send us a message via text message! Link accessible at joyousjustice.buzzsprout.com. ✅ In this week’s episode, Tracie and April both react to recent experiences they have had which have deepened their consciousness or understanding around racial justice and healing. For Tracie it was a neighbor’s reaction to an activist campaign to Free Keith Davis, Jr., and for April, a weekend at a virtual Blac...

Send us a message via text message! Link accessible at joyousjustice.buzzsprout.com. ✅ In this week’s episode, we reflect on the meaning of Elul, the month in the Jewish calendar that leads up to Rosh HaShanah and the high holidays. This time of anticipation calls us to prepare ourselves spiritually for the new year. We talk about the symbolic meanings of the holiday and how the ritual of hearing...