Activist Spotlight: Jay Falk

Hello wonderful Workers Circle community! My name is Jay Falk, and I am the new Washington, DC-based Social Justice Organizer at the Workers Circle.

Inspired by student gun violence prevention and youth vote organizing and brought up in a Jewish youth movement, I always knew that my family had deep values tied to the Jewish social justice movements of the last century. However, I never knew many of the details until I mentioned the Workers Circle to my Bubbe just a few months ago and her eyes lit up. She told me that Harry Lifshitz (my great-great-grandfather) was a member in 1916. Here is a photo of Harry and Bessie, my great-great grandparents, and Harry’s Workmen's Circle membership card from 1916.

Joining the Workers Circle feels in many ways like sitting down at a dinner table with my ancestors, or even standing with them on a garment worker’s strike line. Without knowing it, my entire career has been shaped by their social justice legacy.

I started my career as a Title I public school teacher in Alexandria, Virginia, where I taught 9th grade English and public speaking at the very same high school I attended as a student, earning my Masters Degree in Education from Johns Hopkins along the way. As a teacher, I became a leader in our local union, organizing my colleagues and leading as a building rep (steward) and eventually member organizer. In the union, we organized and won practical budget changes to improve our schools like new full time school psychologist positions at every middle and high school. Ater teaching there for a few years, I felt like I was pushing up against the walls of the school building, unable to fully support my students who were constantly kept out of school by the realities of economic insecurity or the dysfunction of our child-welfare and juvenile-justice systems.

I turned back to local politics, and found a job as a chief of staff to a state legislator. In that role, I was able to see our democracy up close, from sitting in on insider meetings to facilitating constituent forums which went late into the night. But, while working in the Virginia General Assembly in many ways restored my faith that we have dozens of hard working and thoughtful legislators trying to make good laws that represent their constituents at the helm in our state houses, there is still a nasty underbelly of voter suppression, money pulling strings, and questionable ethical standards across our local, state, and national elections.

Now I am thrilled to be standing alongside my great-grandparents in Workers Circle’s history, weaving together my Jewish culture and values and my experience in government and the labor movement to continue the Workers Circle's legacy of bringing people together to create change. I look forward to seeing you all at a Wednesday Phone Bank, First Fridays meeting, or maybe even in-person in North Carolina for our September canvass!