All-Network Gatherings

In November 2023, the Roundtable held its biggest, most ambitious Network Assembly, bringing together over 275 people from across the country. After six years without an in-person gathering, there was a lot of pent-up enthusiasm for being together. The Roundtable’s Network Assembly serves the field in a big way. No other event on our agenda touches as many individuals at once and provides personal and professional nourishment and fosters collaboration at this scale. The Assembly also strengthens the talent pipeline and sustains staff.

Staff from almost two-thirds of our affiliates came together for a gathering that endeavored to provide a supportive experience that laid the groundwork for collaborations and energized participants to be in a larger multi-racial Jewish Social Justice movement.

We believe that by being together, we built and deepened relationships across the network in order to connect participants with peers across organizations, identify as part of a bigger movement, and feel less alone (“relationship before task”).

We believe the Network Assembly helped to equip leaders in the Jewish social justice field to be more effective in advancing racial equity and strong, healthy organizational cultures.

Prior to 2023, the Roundtable had held two Network Assemblies, in 2013 and 2017. At the inaugural gathering, the more than 120 attendees focused on building relationships across Roundtable organizations, engaging in collective visioning, and building skills and capacity of the Jewish social justice field. Because we believe in drawing on our internal expertise, 20% of the participants led activities, including 18 sessions on topics such as: Cultivating Spiritual Sustainability, What Anti-Oppression Organizing and Constituency Organizing Have to Say to Each Other, and Challenges and Opportunities of Coalition Building. 

In 2017, 160 staff from 46 organizations attended our second Network Assembly, which had a racial justice focus throughout. A full day was devoted to an impactful series of trainings that focused on lifting up the experiences of Jews of Color. We held an optional add-on day for the community of practice of organizations deeply engaged in the work of racial justice. Trainers Suzanne Feinspan, Koach Frazier, Dove Kent, Jo Kent Katz, Yavilah McCoy, and Aba Taylor guided participants on a journey with love and with meaningful challenges; it was particularly profound as the attendees learned and grew together.

Our reimagined 2020 conference became our Network WEB: Weave - Energize - Build. To meet our goal of convening our multiracial Jewish social justice field for joy, healing, learning, and strategizing for the future, we offered sessions over the course of four months such as:

• Equity As We Go, a deepening of racial justice learning; themed Community Hours;

• Communication Strategies for Progressive Organizations; and

• election-related discussions including Strategic Planning Through the Election and Inauguration and open space time for post-Election Day processing and further planning.