Jacky Rosen: Special place in my heart for tikkun olam

#10 - From synagogue president to the Senate: Jacky Rosen

Newly elected Democratic Senator Jacky Rosen meets with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Kyrsten Sinema in the U.S. Capitol, in Washington (photo credit: AL DRAGO/REUTERS)
Newly elected Democratic Senator Jacky Rosen meets with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Kyrsten Sinema in the U.S. Capitol, in Washington
(photo credit: AL DRAGO/REUTERS)
If power is measured by the ability to affect change, then a US Senator wields a lot of it. And Jacky Rosen, a US senator for the state of Nevada, certainly packs a punch in the world of influential Jews.
Rosen, a Democrat elected to her current office in 2018, sits on four permanent Senate committees, including the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, and as chair of the Senate Bipartisan Taskforce for Combating Anti-Semitism.
Rosen, who formerly served as president of the Ner Tamid Reform Synagogue in Nevada, has done much in her short time as senator to help counter the worrying rise of antisemitism in the US.
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In January 2019, right at the beginning of her tenure, she introduced bipartisan legislation requiring the president to upgrade the special envoy position to combat antisemitism.
She also introduced in the Senate, together with other Democratic and Republican senators, the Never Again Education Act to establish a federal fund through to provide teachers with resources and training necessary to teach students about the Holocaust, which was passed into law in May.
Rosen has also frequently cited her Jewish identity as a source of inspiration and motivation to better the world around her.
“There is a special place in my heart for the Jewish principle of tikkun olam, the idea that it is up to each and every one of us to do our part in repairing the world,” she said in an address to the Anti-Defamation League’s National Policy Summit last year.
“While it may seem like the world is in disrepair, I have an unwavering faith in the capability of Jews and non-Jewish allies alike, to do their part to help better this world, to care for one another, and to diminish the hate in our hearts and in the hearts of others.”