Moses, Marijuana, and Violence: Stories of Return

Description

The Talmud teaches that even the most righteous cannot hope to stand in the place reserved for those who return to the Jewish tradition. Joshua Safran, social justice lawyer, writer, and Jewish storyteller, will explore his return to tradition, sharing stories from his forthcoming memoir and from traditional texts. He will also discuss Crime After Crime, an award-winning feature documentary profiling his seven-year legal odyssey to free Deborah Peagler, a wrongfully imprisoned survivor of severe domestic violence. In advocating for Deborah, Safran drew strength both from his faith as an Orthodox Jew and his own childhood experiences with brutal domestic violence.

Safran grew up mostly “off the grid” in the wilderness of the Pacific Northwest. He and his mother were constantly on the run, living in a variety of habitats that included school buses, teepees, one-room cabins, and utopian communes, and encountering revolutionaries, rednecks, hippies, artists, and violent alcoholics. Safran’s journey out of the wilderness of chaos and poverty was guided by his unlikely reconnection with God and his revelation that mainstream society is not the evil empire he was taught to fear.

Joshua Safran is deputy port attorney for the Port of Oakland and Oakland International Airport, and the principal of the Safran Law Group. He is an advocate for the rights of women and girls, survivors of domestic violence, and the wrongfully imprisoned.

More Info

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http://www.bjesf.org/library_progsevents.htm

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415-567-3327

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