Take Action: Endorse the Campaign Against Torture!

Join with Jews across the country in urging for a Presidential executive order to ban torture! We have partnered with the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, Evangelicals for Human Rights, and the Center for Victims of Torture to launch the Campaign to Ban Torture - an effort to call upon the President to issue an executive order banning torture based on six core principles embodied in the Declaration of Principles. Prominent faith leaders from Catholic, Protestant, Evangelical, Jewish, Muslim, and Sikh communities, as well top officials from every Administration since the 1970's, have joined together to endorse the Declaration of Principles.

On June 25, major American Jewish leaders joined a broad bipartisan coalition of religious leaders, former national security and defense officials, and top officials of every administration since President Johnson in calling for a Presidential Executive Order banning torture.  In a joint statement, they said that such a ban would improve national security and recommit America to its values. The bipartisan statement calls for the President to adopt an executive order affirming principles including the rule of law, an end to rendition, Congressional and judicial oversight of detention and interrogation, uniform national standards for all prisoner treatment, and an end to any practice the US would not like to see used on Americans, such as water boarding.

In a time when there is a lot of willingness to compromise on who bears the image of God, it so important to state publicly that we are all created in God’s image. We believe that American Jews are deeply concerned about the use of abusive interrogation techniques in the name of national security, and many of them are unequivocal that torture is wrong. Ending torture is a Jewish religious impertative. 

What you can do to help:

• Endorse the Declaration of Principles. You can read the Declaration and sign it on the NRCAT website. 
• Recruit five friends to endorse. If you would prefer, NRCAT has a petition version of the Declaration.
• Convince your congregation to endorse as an organization.
• If you have not already done so, join K'vod Habriot: A Jewish Human Rights Network. Members of K'vod Habriot will be working on advocacy related to the Declaration of Principles.
• Encourage your congregation to join the communities from coast to coast that have joined K'vod Habriot. K'vod Habriot congregations will be incorporating NRCAT's suggestions for congregations over the coming months.
• Write a letter to the editor about the Declaration of Principles.

Read a recent New York Times article about this bipartisan effort, or a complete list of articles related to the Campaign. RHR-NA's press release can be downloaded from the bottom of the page.

Jewish leaders who have endorsed the Declaration of Principles include:

Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson, Dean, Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies
Rabbi Dan Ehrenkrantz, President, Reconstructionist Rabbinical College
Chancellor Arnold Eisen, Jewish Theological Seminary
Rabbi David Ellenson, President, Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion
Rabbi Arthur Green, Rector, Hebrew College Rabbinical School
Rabbi Steve Gutow, Executive Director, Jewish Council of Public Affairs
Rabbi Peter S. Knobel President Central Conference of American Rabbis

Rabbi Gerry Serotta, Chair of Rabbis for Human Rights North America
Rabbi Toba Spitzer, President, Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association
Rabbi Eric Yoffie, President, Union for Reform Judaism
(as of 6/25/08)

Read the complete list of major endorsers.