Activist Spotlight: Pasha Toub

Photo from a Workers Circle Text Bank. If you are interested in participating, you can learn more and sign up here. 

Hello! My name is Pasha Toub, and I’m serving as this semester’s social justice intern through the Collegiate Leadership Internship Program (CLIP) at NYU Hillel, a program that matches students to internships at Jewish non-profit organizations across New York City. I’m a senior studying at NYU Gallatin School of Individualized Studies, developing a major titled ‘Identity and Education in the Digital Era’, and I’m hoping to continue my work in educational media and curriculum development to create offline spaces for children (and adults!) to build and rebuild healthy images of themselves. 

 I have long been involved in Jewish extracurricular spaces (summer camp, New Frontier USY (United Synagogue Youth)) which promote Jewish values, such as Tikkun Olam (repairing the world), and quickly found myself craving both more responsibility in these spaces. On the Bay Area USY Regional Board, and while serving as my camp’s Digital Media Manager, I found joy in my shared relishing of Jewish culture and values—however, the Workers Circle allows me to truly find fulfillment by prioritizing justice and democratic values in Jewish spaces and beyond. As an activist, I look to my grandmother who found the most value in helping people help themselves, and her ancestors from Eastern Europe, for inspiration. This has primarily driven me to organize in California and New York against patriarchy, white supremacy, and their manifestation through organized state violence both domestic and abroad. 

 My work as an intern this semester primarily is centered around the Workers Circle College Network and the Democracy Circles Initiative, which each greatly align with my long term goals of organizing alternative local communities to keep each other educated, safe, and off of our phones. Outside of my organizing and Jewish spaces, I am a photographer, college radio reporter, home cooking enthusiast, sunbather, and an avid Golden State Warriors fan. I am incredibly grateful to be offered a first hand view into the ins and outs of Jewish social justice organizing, and to do so with a warm and welcoming community is a blessing. Thank you for being engaged with the Workers Circle!