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'This is the most meaningful work I’ve ever done in in my life'
Meet the Jewish couple leading the Trump resistance
Leah Greenberg and Ezra Levin startedIndivisible almost by accident. A few months later, they’ve inspired over 5,000 local groups
By Josefin Dolsten 4 March 2017, 2:27 am
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Ezra Levin and Leah Greenberg founded the anti-Trump group Indivisible with other former congressional staffers. (Courtesy of Greenberg/via JTA)
Ezra Levin and Leah Greenberg founded the anti-Trump group Indivisible with other former congressional staffers. (Courtesy of Greenberg/via JTA)
NEW YORK (JTA) — The group at the forefront of “resisting the Trump agenda” started in the middle of December with a single document circulated among friends. One that was “poorly formatted” and “full of typos,” in the words of one of its authors, Leah Greenberg.
As of this week, the Indivisible guide to grassroots advocacy has been downloaded or viewed over 1.7 million times and inspired more than 5,000 local groups (with another 2,000 groups waiting to be verified), which are using it to take action on issues like preserving the Affordable Care Act, supporting public schools or challenging the administration’s immigration policies.
At the center of the efforts is one young Jewish couple, Greenberg and her husband, Ezra Levin, both former congressional staffers who founded Indivisible with three friends and former colleagues.
“I think right now we are facing an existential threat, quite literally, from this administration and this Congress,” Levin, 31, told JTA on Thursday. “The only thing that I think is going to really work to convince Congress to do something else, is local groups [that] stand up and make their voices heard.”
Constituents speak-out and rally supporting the Affordable Care Act, organized by MoveOn.org outside Senator Pat Toomey's office on December 20, 2016 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Lisa Lake/Getty Images for Moveon.org/ via JTA)
Constituents speak-out and rally supporting the Affordable Care Act, organized by MoveOn.org outside Senator Pat Toomey’s office on December 20, 2016 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Lisa Lake/Getty Images for Moveon.org/ via JTA)
The group’s document, now proofread and reworked into a sleeker 26-page version, provides progressives with practical advice, such as the best way to contact a local member of Congress (office visits are preferred over form letters), voice opposition at a town hall (stick to a prepared list of questions and be polite but persistent) and speak with the media (research local reporters and use social media to contact them).
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Last week, Levin became the organization’s first paid staffer — it had been run entirely by volunteers — declining a job offer at the Georgetown Law School’s Center on Poverty and Inequality to work as Indivisible’s executive director.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/meet-the-jewish-couple-leading-the-trump-resistance/