I attended a pre-Passover seder hosted by Jews United for Justice at Baltimore’s Beth Am synagogue, and left with a clearer answer to a question I often ask, what does it mean to be an American Jew right now? If you want to see that answer lived rather than theorized, sit at JUJF’s Seder table next Pesach.

What struck me first was not only the energy in the room, but the layering of texts. On the table sat the Haggadah alongside something I had never seen placed there before, the United States Constitution. The juxtaposition was not decorative. It was interpretive. The story of the Exodus, of liberation from bondage triggered by a God who hears the cry of the oppressed, was being read alongside the American experiment in democracy. Not as a perfect fulfillment of that story, but as one of its remarkable chapters. For American Jews, this country has been, in many ways, a miraculous space of flourishing after two thousand years of vulnerability. And yet, the seder insisted, that miracle is not self-sustaining. It depends on what we do with it.

Throughout the evening, speakers rose to connect the ancient narrative to present struggles. Representatives from organizations like the ACLU and CASA spoke about concrete issues: resisting the cooperation of local and state agencies with ICE in ways that erode trust and safety in immigrant communities, a very important issue for most American Jews, confronting a criminal justice system that, in........

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