At NCJW Minnesota’s annual breakfast fundraiser Tuesday morning, civil rights attorney Irina Vaynerman talked about her family fleeing the former Soviet Union, coming to the U.S. as refugees, and how the event’s title – “Democracy is a Verb” – speaks to her work.
“My family and I came here in the hopes of freedom, civil rights, democracy, and it became very clear to me, even as a little kid, that the work of maintaining those underlying values and principles is something that is very active,” she said. “Like this event title speaks to, that it doesn’t just exist in the ether. You have to do the work every day to maintain it, to improve it.”
More than 130 people were at the annual breakfast, which honored volunteers for their work with the organization. Vaynerman and retiring State Sen. Sandy Pappas were panelists in a discussion with NCJW-MN board member Sami Saltzman Savin on how each of them interacts with democracy.
Pappas, whose last session is the legislature is scheduled to wrap up May 18, had been active in her St. Paul community and a DFL volunteer where her husband nudged her to run for office.
“To quote him, ‘You’re pregnant with our third child and laid off from your job; why don’t you run for the legislature? You have nothing to do,’” Pappas said to laughs from the crowd. “My campaign slogan was ‘She will deliver.’”
Pappas talked about how she was influenced by Reform Judaism and its stance on social justice.
“It was a perfect fit with my own personal values,” she said. “There’s a wrong, and you see that, and you want to right it, and that’s basically what we do in the legislature. We fight for justice, against injustice, and it can take a long time.”
Veynerman said that her Jewish identity shows up all the time in her work.
“Whether it’s through litigation or policy work or a mixture of everything, or helping to support local and state government to do the right thing, that innate sense of what is right, what is just, what is fair, is instrumental in every decision we make,” she said. “About which case to bring, how to best represent a client, how to move any type of movement forward thoughtfully, especially because I know this work can’t be done alone.”
Veynerman had been the deputy commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Human Rights before starting Groundwork Legal, a public interest law firm.
“My parents immigrated – when they were in their 20s with two little kids and $20 in their pocket – to a country where they didn’t know what would happen,” Veynerman said. “So when I’m tired, it helps me level-set what’s possible. I think the generational trauma that is very real and true for many of us, [it] can either break us or it helps to build this resilient sense at the cellular level.”
Honoring volunteer work
Lenore Blank Kelner and Lori Weissman were honored with L’Dor V’Dor Awards at the breakfast. Kelner joked that being named an “Emerging Leader” is usually for someone in their 20s or 30s. Margie Solomon, who introduced Kelner, said it shows that people can get engaged at any age.
“I’m really grateful to be at my stage of life and still be emerging,” Kelner said.
Kelner is a long-time arts educator who was instrumental in launching the NCJW-MN Social Action Film series, which merges film and social action, focusing on women’s roles and issues and often featuring lesser-known films.
Weissman was awarded for her more than 25 years of gun violence prevention work in Minnesota, including her co-chairing of the organization’s gun safety committee.
“I joined NCJWMinnesota 26 years ago because its Jewish values resonated with striving for social justice, improving quality of life for women, children and families, in safeguarding individual rights and freedoms through action, advocacy and community service,” Weissman said.
