By Daniel Mackintosh 

This piece was written before the many attacks on Jewish institutions in the UK over the past week. One moment of hope amongst it all was, after the attack on Finchley Reform Synagogue (FRS), leaders from across London Citizens joined 500 people at FRS for their pre-Shabbat service on 17 April. Particularly noteworthy were the leaders from the Somali Bravanese community, who had their building burnt down and were subsequently hosted by FRS for 4 years during Ramadan. It is a deep story of organising and relationships across difference (see here for more). While none of us know the route to Jewish safety (and any minority safety for that matter), one thing is for certain, solidarity sure feels a heck of a lot less lonely and gives us all a deep sense of hope.

The word solidarity is so familiar in our work that it can lose its edge. Yet the etymology calls us back to its deeper meaning. It is from the Latin solidus—firm, whole, undivided—the term originally referred to a legal arrangement in which each person bore full responsibility for the whole debt but became a French political term describing unity, shared interests, and mutual support within a group. Solidarity is therefore not a feeling but a commitment. It is a willingness to stake something of ourselves—our time, our reputation, even our comfort—for the sake of a freely chosen, jointly shared obligation to others. It is mutual rather than charitable, reciprocal rather than benevolent. 

In our work, it is easy to see how the word can be emptied of its moral weight.  

“Solidarity” is sometimes used as shorthand for quick moral alignment: a tweet, a slogan, a public statement crafted to avoid criticism. Alicia Garza, one of the co-creators of Black Lives Matters, warns against the temptation to mistake performance for practice. When solidarity becomes a posture—something we signal rather than something we build—we end up recentering ourselves, not the people experiencing injustice. These shallow expressions cost us almost nothing, demand no real relationship, and rarely change any conditions. They can even inoculate us against the real work by allowing us to feel morally satisfied without meaningful engagement. 

But there is also the solidarity that is built slowly, lovingly, through organising. Garza says that it ‘means showing up for one another to bear witness and then expanding our fight to include the challenges faced by other communities besides our own’ (pp 157 from Purpose of Power). 

This richer version emerges from shared struggle and shared strategy. It is what we see when institutions with long histories of mistrust learn to act together because they have learned to listen to one another. It’s visible when leaders discover that what they want for their families overlaps with what a neighbour from a very different background wants for theirs. Here solidarity is not sentiment but power—the power that comes from people recognising that their wellbeing is intertwined. 

Jewish tradition offers something useful here. The Talmudic teaching kol Yisrael arevim zeh bazeh—“all Israel are surety (or responsible) for one another”—is not about affection; it is about binding ourselves to others through obligation. It suggests that solidarity is covenantal. A covenant is not a contract based on utility, nor is it a friendship based on affinity. It is a decision to stay connected even when it is difficult. The Book of Ruth captures this beautifully: Ruth says to Naomi that ‘your People will become my People’, and in so doing, she binds her fate to Naomi’s not because she must, nor because it is convenient, but because she recognises that their futures are now linked. 

Rabbi Sharon Brous, in The Amen Effect, deepens this by describing solidarity as the courageous act of showing up in moments of vulnerability—our own and others’. She emphasises that presence, especially in times of pain or uncertainty, is a form of moral courage. For Brous, solidarity is not only about standing together in public but about choosing not to look away from someone’s suffering. It is what happens when we witness one another fully—bearingness without avoidance, compassion without condescension. She invites us to see solidarity as a spiritual discipline: a practice of refusing isolation, sitting with one another, resisting indifference, and allowing ourselves to be transformed by the encounter with other people. 

Garza’s framing and Brous’s teaching converge on a simple truth: solidarity, although classified as a noun because it describes a bond between people, is better understood as a verb. It is a practice we do. It is about the act and the habit of showing up – in sadness and in joy and not only in crisis. It demands risk, relationship, and repair.  

And this is (hopefully) our daily craft—supporting people build the kind of thick, trusting, cross‑difference relationships that make collective action possible. When solidarity is embedded in meaningful relationships, it is transformed into the kind of power we all need to build the changes we need. 

A few ideas of how we could implement solidarity in our work? 

1. Dont save – Encourage one another and the leaders we work with to resist the urge to solve struggles, sign post or immediately move to action, but rather ask kind questions. Sometimes, the first step is recognition. 

2. Recognition to responsibility – After we recognise one another’s struggles, how do we move from private sympathy to shared responsibility? What obligations do we have to one another following a moment of recognition? Who owns that next step? 

3. Avoiding instrumentalisation – how do we recognise people first without creating an immediate expectation that they share their story publicly? Creating a journey for people to become leaders/people who share testimony. 

4. Building relationships is a political act  – a practice that Priya Parker shared was an American couple who lived in a small flat who felt lonely decided to begin a weekly practice of inviting others over on a Saturday afternoon. Over a year, they had over 150 people over. It was partly to expand their network and partly because they thought it was these people who they would need in the tough years of the Trump administration. 

How could you imagine building solidarity into your work?