SHOW NOTES: https://jewishbooks.blogspot.com/2024/08/the-mitzvah-of-voting-edited-encore.html

TRANSCRIPT: https://otter.ai/u/ql3_Vi81NBwkvNT97SKZiyh8_yM?utm_source=copy_url

Four years ago in 2020 at the height of the pandemic, I ran a 3-part series called The Mitzvah of Voting. Here we are in 2024 in a presidential election year again and defending our democracy is more important than ever! Here's an edited encore presentation of that 2020 podcast, with all three parts combined and streamlined. You'll hear inspiring words and calls to action from some of your favorite authors, recorded in 2020 but as relevant as ever. We cap it off with Sarah Aroeste's Ladino song "Gracia" (English lyrics below), a tribute to the medieval Sephardic heroine, Doña Gracia Nasi who lived in the 1500's and saved hundreds of Jews from the Inquisition. The theme of the song is that activists of the past inspire us to activism in our own time. I hope you will be inspired to VOTE!

RESOURCES SUGGESTED BY GUESTS:

• Hold the Line: A Guide to Defending Democracy
• T'ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights
• Jews for Racial and Economic Justice
• The Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society
• VoteRiders.org
• Become a poll worker
• Add your Representative and Senators to your cell phone and call regularly on issues you care about
• Confirm your voter registration at Vote.org
• The Matthew Shepard Foundation
• Reclaim Our Vote
• Doña Gracia Nasi

GUESTS: (See show notes for links to their websites and books)

• Marjorie Ingall
• Linda Epstein
• Jeff Gottesfeld
• Leslie Kimmelman
• Susan Kusel
• Tziporah Cohen
• Elissa Brent Weissman
• Lee Wind
• Barbara Bietz
• Jane Breskin Zalben
• Jacqueline Jules
• Anne-Marie Asner
• Gail Carson Levine
• Lesléa Newman
• Evan Wolkenstein
• Sue Macy
• Sarah Aroeste

ENGLISH TRANSLATION OF GRACIA: 

You give us grace
You give us life
You give us promise
You give us bravery
You give us strength
You give us defiance

You give us command
You give us voice
You give us inspiration
You give us esteem
You give us value
You give us admiration

Chorus:
Because of you we have the
Honor, fight, effect;
Because of you we stand with
Power, height, respect

Some have the deeds, some have the fame–
You have both and the same.