Rabbi Freeman brings over 30 years of experience working in a variety of settings from synagogues to hospitals. She has focused on healing and the use of spiritual care as a modality to help individuals find peace with life’s most difficult situations. She often embraces tools and adaptions from the field of integrative medicine including dance yoga and mindfulness to open pathways to healing. Rabbi Freeman joins JFS after most recently serving as a chaplain and Clinical Pastoral Educator for Sharp Healthcare in San Diego.
“As an agency guided by Jewish values, having a rabbinic resource on our team, and specifically within the Center for Jewish Care, will be valuable to our staff, volunteers and board as we explore the work we do through our uniquely Jewish lens,” said JFS CEO Michael Hopkins. “We are resolved to lift our values in our advocacy work, meet the pastoral needs of individuals served by the Center for Jewish Care and amplify our sacred teachings with a contemporary perspective within our team.”

U.S. Senator Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Chair of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, and Border Safety, visited the San Diego border region, and joined local NGOs and advocacy organizations to discuss their critical work to protect and welcome asylum seekers and how the federal government can support their efforts. Padilla also highlighted his commitment to protecting the right to asylum and his advocacy to create more legal pathways for migrants to safely arrive and be welcomed into the United States. As part of his visit he toured the San Diego Rapid Response Network (SDRRN) Migrant Shelter Services operated by Jewish Family Service of San Diego.

ACLU, Jewish Family Service, UCLA Center for Immigration Law and Policy Send Letter to Secretary Mayorkas Raising Concerns Over Continued Family Separations, Calling for Justice for Separated Family.

For the thousands of people looking for protection while they seek asylum, Jewish Family Service of San Diego (JFS) hopes that the Department of Homeland Security’s ending of the unlawful and cruel “Migrant Protection Protocols” (MPP, also known as “Remain in Mexico” policy) is the catalyst to many more actions to rebuild our immigration system into one that welcomes with compassion, safety, dignity and equity.

Today’s Supreme Court ruling allowing the termination of the unlawful and cruel “Migrant Protection Protocols” (MPP, also known as “Remain in Mexico” policy) is a welcome relief. The Biden Administration must now take immediate action to end this devastating program.

The San Diego City Council voted unanimously on Monday to approve Mayor Todd Gloria’s proposal to extend operations at one of the City’s Safe Parking lots to 24 hours, allowing for expanded opportunity for residents experiencing homelessness not only to safely live out of their vehicles, but also to access services and get on a path to housing.

Jewish tradition is grounded in obligation and responsibility to ourselves, one another, and our community. As Jewish communal professionals and clergy, we understand Jewish approaches to autonomy and community have long protected the rights of reproductive freedom and justice, as exemplified by cases where health, wellness, and life are at stake.
Jewish experience tells us that our reproductive freedoms are integrally bound to our religious liberty. At the core of the Jewish tradition is the affirmation of the sanctity of life. Further, the tradition recognizes that life does not begin at conception and the wellbeing (spiritual, emotional, and physical) of the parent takes precedence over an unborn fetus.

The California Welcoming Task Force held a press conference on Monday, May 23, 2022 to call for an end to Title 42.

As we approach Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day), Jewish Family Service is helping to promote a national matching initiative of our partner Kavod Shef. In 2022, 34 communities nationwide have partnered through KAVOD SHEF to address unmet needs of Holocaust Survivors. The KAVOD SHEF partnership involves collaboration between KAVOD, Seed the Dream Foundation, National Philanthropic Partners, Jewish Federations, local donors, and Jewish Family Service agencies.
KAVOD SHEF dollars directly respond to Survivor needs in nine emergency areas: food, medical, dental, vision, urgent home needs (utilities, rent, repairs), emergency home care, transportation, essential deliveries, and PPE.

In the coming days as the plight of Ukrainians and other Eastern Europeans continues to unfold – among many other conflicts and humanitarian crises across the world – Jewish Family Service of San Diego stands at the ready to “Welcome the Stranger.” We call for the end of Title 42 and a stop to inhumanely expelling asylum seekers and migrants arriving at the U.S. border.

Jewish Family Service of San Diego (JFS) has been awarded its 14th consecutive 4-star rating from Charity Navigator – America’s leading independent charity evaluator. With rigorous evaluations, less than 1% of the thousands of charities evaluated are awarded this recognition continuously for more than a decade.

This past Saturday marked the three-year anniversary of the first time that a person seeking asylum was returned to Tijuana from San Diego under the cruel and unjust “Remain in Mexico” program, also known as the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) on January 29, 2019. Despite initially taking steps to end Remain in Mexico, the Biden administration is now reimplementing the policy and again putting the lives and asylum cases of people fleeing persecution at risk. Today, immigration judges in San Diego will preside over the first court hearings of people forced back to danger in Tijuana under the reimplemented policy.

Jewish Family Service of San Diego (JFS), one of San Diego’s largest and most impactful nonprofit agencies, received the 2022 Kaleidoscope Award for Good Governance by The Nonprofit Institute at the University of San Diego.

Jewish Family Service of San Diego (JFS) is offering free rides through On The Go to local seniors who want to receive COVID-19 vaccine booster shots — or the original vaccine — as part of the agency’s continued efforts to provide meaningful services to help San Diegans through pandemic challenges.

As legal service providers and immigration advocates, Jewish Family Service of San Diego strongly urges the White House to permanently terminate MPP. We stand at the ready to help the Administration achieve its previously stated goal of rebuilding a humane immigration system, all while prioritizing public health. We must return to our nation’s long history of welcoming the stranger.

US Senators led by Senator Blumenthal are calling for US Customs and Border Protection to stop detaining known pregnant people. This action was prompted by a formal complaint filed by JFS and the ACLU of San Diego and Imperial Counties following a woman giving birth in a Border Patrol detention facility.

The Biden-Harris Administration made a promise to terminate the inhumane border policies it inherited, and that promise has been broken with the plan to reinstitute “Remain in Mexico.” The Biden-Harris Administration is upending protections for vulnerable people who are desperately looking for safety. With tens of thousands of lives at stake, the time is now to rebuild our nation’s broken immigration system by allowing people to seek international protection in the U.S.

Yesterday’s Fifth Circuit decision is a devastating blow to the progress made in putting an end to the heinous MPP program put in place by the previous administration.

Jewish Family Service of San Diego (JFS) has appointed Shreya Sasaki as its new senior director of family and community services to oversee a breadth of JFS initiatives, including refugee resettlement, positive parenting training and other JFS programs that strengthen families. Sasaki will integrate her background in public health with the nonprofit’s social service programs, aiming to improve community health and client outcomes.

While we commend the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General for its investigation, there is more work to be done to ensure pregnant people and their families are treated with dignity and compassion as they seek their legal right to asylum in the U.S. No one should be forced to give birth in custody or immediately returned to a carceral setting with a newborn baby. We urge the federal government to continue investing in infrastructure and in processes that provide humanitarian reception along the border region.

Jewish Family Service continues to stand with the nation’s Dreamers. The ruling in Texas puts thousands of our friends, colleagues, and neighbors at greater risk of deportation – many who have never known any home other than the United States.