Rabbi Margaret Holub, new co-chair of the Jewish Voice for Peace Rabbinical Council

Jewish Voice for Peace is proud to announce that Rabbi Margaret Holub will be joining Rabbi Brant Rosen as the co-chair of the Jewish Voice for Peace Rabbinical Council.

Rabbi Holub has been the rabbi of the Mendocino Coast Jewish Community since 1989. She was ordained at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in 1986 and is a member of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association. She was the founding Chair of Honor the Image of God: Stop Torture Now, a campaign of Rabbis for Human Rights-North America, which organized the North American Jewish Community to resist U.S.-sponsored torture.  In the 1980s, Rabbi Holub was a member of the Los Angeles Catholic Worker community and the Homeless Litigation Team. In 2006 and 2007, she spent a sabbatical in Cape Town, South Africa, working in several projects sponsored by Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

In 2013, Rabbi Holub will return to Cape Town to participate in a dialogue with leaders of the Dutch Reformed Church (DRC). She is particularly interested in experiences in a church which actively upheld the doctrine of apartheid while the world moved towards universal condemnation -  and how anti-apartheid church leaders pursued their activism without destroying the church that they love.  Rabbi Holub will invite these religious leaders to share their perspective with rabbis and other Jews who are challenging the Jewish world to end Israel’s occupation over another people.  

Rabbi Holub joins founding co-chair of the JVP Rabbinical Council Brant Rosen, the rabbi of the Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation in Evanston, Illinois since 1998 and the author of Wrestling in the Daylight: A Rabbi’s Path to Palestinian Solidarity, which documents in real time, through blog posts, the growth of his powerful voice for justice for all peoples in Israel and Palestine and his skillful public negotiation of opposition to his stands.  Wrestling in the Daylight was published in 2012 by Just World Books.

Said Rabbi Rosen, “Rabbi Holub’s activism is truly creative, challenging and inspiring. It is precisely these kinds of authentic and challenging questions that expose the moral urgency of the situation on the ground now in Israel/Palestine that is the work and mission of the JVP Rabbinical Council. I am thrilled that she will now be lending us her talents on behalf of this very special rabbinical community.”

The JVP Rabbinical Council is made up of rabbis, cantors, and rabbinical students across the denominational spectrum who share JVP’s goal of promoting full equality, democracy and self-determination for both Israelis and Palestinians. The current list of JVP council members can be found at: http://jewishvoiceforpeace.org/campaigns/jvps-new-rabbinic-council-4 and the JVP rabbinical council’s blog can be found at: www.palestiniantalmud.com.

For more information on the JVP rabbinical council, email rabbis@jewishvoiceforpeace.org.