Jonah Lipson- Support Formerly Incarcerated People

Hello, my name is Jonah Lipson. Thank you for visiting my Mighty Cause page!

I joined the Jewish Teen Foundation (JTF), a teen philanthropy board, where teens become effective philanthropists by coming to a consensus on a mission statement each year, fundraising for the cause, and researching/vetting nonprofit organizations to award grants to because I feel that when people are suffering, I want to do whatever I can to help them. I believe that everyone deserves basic rights in this world and when I see people who aren't getting this, I feel compelled to support them in whatever way I can because I feel that they deserve equality just as much as anyone else. 

JTF South Board's mission statement this year is:

The Jewish Teen Foundation South Board is committed to supporting and raising awareness for formerly incarcerated people through advocacy and direct service organizations/initiatives that prioritize their financial rehabilitation and reassimilation into society.

Some statistics about this are:

• "27% of formerly incarcerated people are unemployed" (Prison Policy Initiative, Lucius Couloute, and Daniel Kopf)
• "Black men are incarcerated 6 times more often than white men" (Prison to employment connection)
•  "85% - 89% of the formerly incarcerated who are re-arrested are unemployed (Prison to employment connection)

These statistics are incredibly scary because this is a significant amount of formerly incarcerated individuals who are being treated unfairly and are suffering and it is unfair that are being treated this way. This shows that we cannot wait any longer to put an end to the mistreatment of formerly incarcerated individuals. We believe that everyone struggling deserves equal rights as we are all human. In the Torah, it states: “Love your neighbor as yourself”. In Judaism, we are commanded to treat every how we would want to be treated, so if we want support and attention when we are struggling, then we should help others who are struggling. 

There is systematic racism in the prison and police system where African-Americans are disproportionately discriminated against and criminalized. This results in an increase of African-Americans in the prison system when many times they are undeserving of being there. 

Formerly incarcerated people have paid their debts to society by serving their time in prison, whether they were justly put in there or not. It is unfair to punish them any further as they have already served such an extremely severe punishment. 

Together we can help formerly incarcerated people get back on their feet and be able to be self-sufficient because everyone deserves equality and basic rights and no one should face treated differently just because they may or may not have done some bad things in their past. We have all made mistakes in our past, and even the for the worst things that we have done, if we make amends, then it is unfair to continuously be judged for it, if we recognize our wrong doings.  Please donate today! 

The fundraising deadline is April 6th. If you have any questions, please email me at jonahlipson@gmail.com

Thank you so much for donating and learning more about formerly incarcerated people! It really means a lot to me.