All of us in the United Farm Workers join our sisters and brothers in the Jewish community in honoring the High Holidays that began on Monday, September 6, at sunset with Rosh Hashanah, the start of the Jewish New Year. Active Jewish support and encouragement of our union cause goes back to the beginning of the Delano Grape Strike in 1965. Then, the first institutional religious backing for the grape strikers came when boards of rabbis in big Eastern cities declared boycotted products non-Kosher. Support for the UFW from the Jewish community remains strong to the present day.
Jewish social-justice teachings—along with the social teachings of the Catholic Church—profoundly influenced Cesar Chavez. He was often invited to address congregations at synagogues in major North American cities, especially around Passover. Cesar regularly organized seder services during Passover at UFW headquarters, what today is the National Chavez Center and Cesar E. Chavez National Monument at La Paz, in the Tehachapi Mountain town of Keene, Calif., where he lived and labored his last quarter century, and where he is buried. The story of the Exodus held special meaning for him.
One of Cesar Chavez’s favorite biblical passages that he would incorporate into his speeches was from the Book of the Prophet Micah, “What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.”