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This past weekend I had the privilege of attending the L’Taken Seminar with the Religious Action Center for Reform Judaism in Washington D.C. I attended multiple seminars on different social justice issues in our modern day world, such as reproductive rights, economic justice and poverty, and gun violence prevention. I had the opportunity to pick a topic, write a speech, and lobby my representative to Congress about the social justice action for which I was advocating. After careful consideration, I chose to lobby on gun violence prevention. Living 30 minutes away from the Borderline shooting and meeting someone from Parkland, Florida, made this issue feel so pressing to me, and I am determined to advocate for gun control laws.  To state our case to Congresswoman Brownley, colleague Rachel Oplinger and I made a speech, which I modified and share with you here:

        On September 6, 1949 Howard Unruh embarked on his “Walk of Death” through his neighborhood, killing 13 people in Camden, New Jersey. The United States experienced our first mass shooting, and no legislative action was taken. Sixty-three years later at Sandy Hook Elementary school in Newton, Connecticut, twenty-eight people were murdered, twenty-three of whom were children from ages six to seven.  After this shootingt and after these beautiful young children had their lives stripped away before they even started, appropriate legislative action was still not taken. I was nine years old when the tragedy of the Sandy Hook shooting occurred. I remember being confused. How could anyone take away the children from many families in Connecticut right before the holidays? The following week we practiced lock down drills at my elementary school. We were shooed into closets and told to be as quiet as possible. As 4^th graders in America, we were learning how to hide from an active shooter. I continued to express my worries about the topic to my parents, and we decided to put our saved holiday money to a good use. We donated it to an organization that was actively trying to improve gun violence prevention laws. The tragedies have now escalated to an epidemic in our country that’s getting worse every day. Gun violence is killing over 30,000 people in the U.S daily, eight of whom are under the age of twenty. We as American citizens should not be afraid of getting shot. However we as American teens have this burden on our childhood, and we’re talking to you today to express our hope that legislative action will be taken and The Bipartisan Background Checks Act will be passed.

        I would like to share with you today the reality of what it is like to be a high school student in 2019. I know you are familiar with the idea of student safety, but let me share with you my experience, living 30 minutes away from the Borderline Shooting, and experiencing how high school students really are affected by killings like the one in Parkland. On November 8, 2018, the day after the Borderline shooting, I went to school, only knowing that a tragedy had happened the night before. I was waiting for responses from my friends at California Lutheran University, hoping they weren’t at the restaurant that night. I’d had a bad day at school, I’d gotten a bad test score, and I was just feeling down. I ran into my friend Chase in the music room, where I continued to complain about my day’s hardships. He responded simply with, “I bet my day was worse”. Not understanding the situation, I asked him, “Oh really?” as if I needed to one up him, as if my day were so much worse than his. He stopped walking, turned to me, and said, “My friend Cody was killed last night in the Borderline shooting.” I stopped short. I was completely at a loss for words. In the past year and a half, I have had to console countless friends for losing their houses in the Thomas fire, but this was an experience I had never confronted. As a 15 year old living in Ventura, California, I should not have to be afraid to go to the movies with my friends. I should not have to be afraid to go to a restaurant. I should NOT have to go to school and take time away from my learning so I can practice an active shooter drill. I want the legislators of this country to be horrified, that students between the ages of 6-18 need to participate in active shooter drills, because this fear of violence shapes the climate of our country. I should not have to console friends whose loved ones were just killed. To combat this issue, we, as the voice of this generation, need to make guns less readily available to anyone who wants one. The Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2019 will expand background checks and fix loopholes, making guns harder to obtain for people in whose hands they should not be. As residents of Ventura County, where gun shows are held multiple times a year at the Ventura County Fairgrounds, this issue is especially personal, as we are directly affected by the possible effect of a gun being purchased without a background check, right in our own city. We are proud to be citizens of California, where restrictive gun laws are amongst the strictest in the country, but we urge you to support The Bipartisan Background Checks Act on behalf of students and young people across the country. We hope you encourage other legislators to support this act as well, so we as American kids can feel safe and know we are being protected by our government.

        U’vacharta b’chayim, choose life, that you and your children will live (Book of Deuteronomy). As Reform Jews we look to Torah for wisdom and guidance on 21^st century issues. Teachings like Btzelem Elohim (we are all created in the image of God), and “Do not stand idly by while your neighbor’s blood is shed” Leviticus 19:16 inspire us to speak out against gun violence, and the loss of life. The quality of our country is affected by gun violence, and like any piece of text, people can choose to interpret it in many different ways, but as Reform Jews, we understand it as a command from God to take action against this injustice.

        We strongly urge Congresswoman Brownley to support the Bipartisan Background Checks Act so that every American, from students to adults, can feel safer in a country with more guns than people.

        Thank you for your time.

On January 19, 2019, I found myself marching in downtown Ventura in the 3rd annual Women’s March.

Surrounded by signs and chants about freedom and rights, I felt part of the battle to which so many women before me have dedicated their lives. Marchers waved signs bearing the image of one woman in particular, who set the precedent for what we as women in the 21st century should expect in the eyes of the law. That woman is Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

On December 25, 2018, “On the Basis of Sex” premiered. This film shows the journey of young Ruth Bader Ginsburg (RBG) and her personal battle with discrimination, first as a law school graduate in New York City, and then as the architect of legal challenge to sex discrimination, as she successfully argued the case of “Charles E. Moritz V. Commissioner of Internal Revenue” before the federal appellate court in Denver, Colorado.

Ginsburg went on from there to develop and argue many gender discrimination cases in the 1970s and 1980s, to attack all areas where the law treats people differently based on gender and to bring to the public eye the fact that gender-based discrimination is not only a problem for women, but for all people.

“On the Basis of Sex” joins documentary RBG released earlier this year and Irin Carmon and Shana Knizhnik’s book “Notorious RBG”: “The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg” in providing a detailed account of the life and legal career of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Today Ginsburg remains an active member of the Supreme Court and in the public eye as a leader of women’s rights. Whenever Ginsburg is asked when will there be enough women on the Supreme Court, she always responds by saying, “When there are 9 of us.”

I went to see this movie. Twice. All my life I have heard about Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the powerhouse that she is. Over fall break, my parents took me to see an exhibit about her life at the Skirball Museum. I was in awe of her accomplishments and how she did it all purely on her own drive to succeed. I am a Jewish feminist, and it is empowering to see someone like me out in the world making real change. While the law is not my passion, I am inspired to apply the same confidence, determination and skill to whatever field of study I pursue.

In the beginning of the movie, a scene shows Ruth at Harvard running to get to her ill husband Marty’s law classes after attending her own. This scene really spoke to me because it showed how she let nothing stand in the way of achieving her goals – for herself and for her family. Watching this movie showed me the struggle she went through to connect with her children and her family life, while never losing momentum in fighting for a cause that she believes in (earning her the nickname Notorious RBG).  More importantly, I see that it is possible to be a loving and nurturing parent while simultaneously being a dedicated and fierce career woman and a public figure working toward important changes in our society.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg embodies so many of the qualities I want to strive for as I chose my own path. She is a role model for me, and I was so excited to see her on posters at the Women’s March and understand how she has become a symbol of this movement.

Seeing RBG’s story through the Skirball exhibit, the documentary and the movie, “On the Basis of Sex,” helped me understand what the battle for gender equality is all about and what we, as women, have won, and what we still need to fight for. For young women like me, coming of age during President Donald Trump’s administration and the #MeToo movement, RBG’s story is a wakeup call – a call to march. To march for the right to equal pay, to march for the right to make choices about our bodies and to march for equality in all aspects of the law.

I urge you to go out and watch “On the Basis of Sex” to understand the women’s movement better. Where we started, what we have accomplished and who led the way, and where we have yet to go.