October 28, 2026
This guide offers simple ways to bring your community’s strengths to local efforts, help your neighbors approach the election with confidence, and prepare to respond peacefully and constructively if our elections are threatened.
Traveling Across the Country for Democracy
By Shifra Bronznick and Rev. Dr. Katharine Henderson
This weekend we traveled across the country – from New York to Los Angeles – to participate in a historic bus tour for voting rights. It’s one of a number of trips that each of us has taken over the last few months, including trainings in Omaha, door knocking in Charlotte and organizing in Atlanta, as part of a multifaith effort to protect democracy. We’ve both seen a lot – we’re in our 70s and have been part of this movement for many decades. That’s precisely what pushes us to continue.
Everything looked different when our paths crossed 25 years ago through our work at Auburn Seminary, where Shifra served as a social change strategist in residence and Katharine rose to become the institution’s president. We’d seen significant progress in just a few decades. When we were born, many faith traditions didn’t ordain women; now women lead seminaries, synagogues and churches. While many barriers still exist – especially for women of color, LGBTQ+ people and others from marginalized communities – there was momentum.
Today, we’ve not only stalled but our country is backsliding.
The very fabric of our society is at risk: the right to vote. We’re worried about individual measures that make it harder for women, immigrants and people of color to cast their ballots. These are fueled by dangerous and inflammatory rhetoric at the highest levels of our government, including overt threats to democracy and the attack on free and fair elections.
What’s really being called into question is not only whose vote deserves to be counted but who counts. As women who grew up at a time when our voices were suppressed, by sexist laws and cultural attitudes, we know the danger of invisibility. As people of faith who believe that we are all made in God’s image, we see this erasure as antithetical to our core beliefs.
That’s why we are proud to participate in “The Vote Is Sacred” bus tour. Organized by Interfaith Alliance, with partners like Jews for Freedom, the initiative brings Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Hindu and other leaders of faith and moral courage on a 31-day 9,000-mile tour to states facing significant risk of election interference.
Participants represent diverse communities and may not share the same political views or affiliations, but what’s at stake supersedes any of these differences. This Saturday, we joined the bus tour’s stop in Los Angeles, where we held a press conference to call for voting rights after Shabbat services at IKAR, a spiritual social justice community led by one of our country’s most influential rabbis, Sharon Brous.
This is happening across the country: religious communities are defending democracy, sending hundreds of clergy to voting sites as poll chaplains and organizing thousands of volunteers from synagogues, churches, mosques and temples to get out the vote.
What gives us hope is that faith leaders are coming together to stand up for what’s right and take action in this moment of urgency. We’ll be here after Election Day too, ready to defend against any efforts to delegitimize voting results or impose additional restrictions for future elections.
We’re not where we hoped to be decades ago, yet we feel uniquely prepared for this moment. We’ve seen the power of organizing and coalition building. Change takes work and time. It feels too slow and shaped by bias. But it does come. We’re hopeful that despite the setbacks, we’ll continue to move toward a more just society, where we truly respect what’s sacred within each of us.
Shifra Bronznick is the program lead at Jews for Freedom and a longtime activist in the secular world and the Jewish community. Rev. Dr. Katharine Henderson is Senior Advisor to Interfaith Alliance and is president emerita of Auburn Seminary in New York.
Traveling Across the Country for Democracy
By Shifra Bronznick and Rev. Dr. Katharine Henderson
This weekend we traveled across the country – from New York to Los Angeles – to participate in a historic bus tour for voting rights. It’s one of a number of trips that each of us has taken over the last few months, including trainings in Omaha, door knocking in Charlotte and organizing in Atlanta, as part of a multifaith effort to protect democracy. We’ve both seen a lot – we’re in our 70s and have been part of this movement for many decades. That’s precisely what pushes us to continue.
Everything looked different when our paths crossed 25 years ago through our work at Auburn Seminary, where Shifra served as a social change strategist in residence and Katharine rose to become the institution’s president. We’d seen significant progress in just a few decades. When we were born, many faith traditions didn’t ordain women; now women lead seminaries, synagogues and churches. While many barriers still exist – especially for women of color, LGBTQ+ people and others from marginalized communities – there was momentum.
Today, we’ve not only stalled but our country is backsliding.
The very fabric of our society is at risk: the right to vote. We’re worried about individual measures that make it harder for women, immigrants and people of color to cast their ballots. These are fueled by dangerous and inflammatory rhetoric at the highest levels of our government, including overt threats to democracy and the attack on free and fair elections.
What’s really being called into question is not only whose vote deserves to be counted but who counts. As women who grew up at a time when our voices were suppressed, by sexist laws and cultural attitudes, we know the danger of invisibility. As people of faith who believe that we are all made in God’s image, we see this erasure as antithetical to our core beliefs.
That’s why we are proud to participate in “The Vote Is Sacred” bus tour. Organized by Interfaith Alliance, with partners like Jews for Freedom, the initiative brings Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Hindu and other leaders of faith and moral courage on a 31-day 9,000-mile tour to states facing significant risk of election interference.
Participants represent diverse communities and may not share the same political views or affiliations, but what’s at stake supersedes any of these differences. This Saturday, we joined the bus tour’s stop in Los Angeles, where we held a press conference to call for voting rights after Shabbat services at IKAR, a spiritual social justice community led by one of our country’s most influential rabbis, Sharon Brous.
This is happening across the country: religious communities are defending democracy, sending hundreds of clergy to voting sites as poll chaplains and organizing thousands of volunteers from synagogues, churches, mosques and temples to get out the vote.
What gives us hope is that faith leaders are coming together to stand up for what’s right and take action in this moment of urgency. We’ll be here after Election Day too, ready to defend against any efforts to delegitimize voting results or impose additional restrictions for future elections.
We’re not where we hoped to be decades ago, yet we feel uniquely prepared for this moment. We’ve seen the power of organizing and coalition building. Change takes work and time. It feels too slow and shaped by bias. But it does come. We’re hopeful that despite the setbacks, we’ll continue to move toward a more just society, where we truly respect what’s sacred within each of us.
Shifra Bronznick is the program lead at Jews for Freedom and a longtime activist in the secular world and the Jewish community. Rev. Dr. Katharine Henderson is Senior Advisor to Interfaith Alliance and is president emerita of Auburn Seminary in New York.