Communications Associate

Jews for Racial & Economic Justice; New York (NY); Hybrid; USD 70,000 - 75,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Healthcare coverage

401(k) employer contribution

Flexible schedule

Up to 18 paid holidays

Job summary

J Jews for Racial & Economic Justice (JFREJ) seeks a Communications Associate to manage the day-to-day public voice, including social media, website, and external messaging, supporting organizing staff and the Communications Director.

This full-time hybrid role in New York City requires coming to the office at least one day per week and thriving in a fast-paced news cycle to shape public narrative for a progressive movement.

Qualifications

• Strong social media experience with a consistent presence and engagement
• Strong writing skills with public-facing messaging experience
• Familiarity with NYC politics, Jewish communal life, and grassroots organizing

Responsibilities

• Run day-to-day digital and public presence, including website updates and media advisories
• Manage and expand JFREJ’s social media, create engaging content and highlight organizing work
• Develop messaging in partnership with the Communications Director to advance campaigns

Skills

Digital Outreach

Social Media

Strategic Communications

Job description

Reports to: Director of Strategic Communications

Location: New York City (Hybrid – minimum 1 day/week in our NYC office)

Position Description

As ourCommunications Associate, you manage the day‑to‑day public voice of JFREJ by running our social media, website, and other public‑facing messaging. Your job directly supports the critical campaign work of organizing staff and the broader JFREJ membership, and allows the Communications Director to focus on long‑term strategy and broader public narrative development.

If you are energized by keeping up with a fast‑paced news cycle, participating in political discourse, feeling like your work directly relates to what is happening in the world around you, and you want to use your skills to win a more caring and equitable New York, we want you on our team and in our community!

What You’ll Own / Your Core Impact:

In this vital role, you will build the capacity and strength of our communications across the entire organization, amplifying our message and impact and helping to bring more people into our shared work.

• Digital & Media Outreach: You will run the day‑to‑day aspects of JFREJ’s digital and public presence, from updating our website and programming email blasts to drafting and sending out media advisories.
• Social Media & Content‑Creation: You will manage and expand JFREJ’s social media to maximize our presence, project our power, involve members, increase our engagement and the visibility of our organizing, advance our campaigns, represent our membership in all its breadth and depth, and highlight the irresistibility of our movement.
• Strategic Communications: You will develop strategic messaging and narrative strategy in partnership with the Communications Director to advance JFREJ’s campaigns and organizational goals.

Our Approach to Qualifications:

JFREJ is deeply committed to economic and racial justice, which extends to how we hire. We recognize that traditional credentials—like university degrees or formal corporate titles—are historically gated by systemic bias.

We care about what you can do and your readiness to learn, not where you learned it. If you have gained your communication and digital skills through grassroots organizing, mutual aid, or non‑traditional work histories, your real‑world experience is highly valued here.

What You’ll Need to Be Successful:

Strong social media experience:

• Successful experience having run social media in the past with a consistent presence, knowledge of how to make a posting plan and how to use each platform appropriately, and creation of compelling content with comparatively good engagement depending on context.
• Strong emotional attunement skills and discretion to engage members to be featured in our social media (as appropriate), and to ensure people feel met where they are in key moments, and to craft messaging that makes people feel seen, held, and heard.

Strong writing skills:

• Strong writing skills with experience writing compelling public‑facing messaging, and synthesizing complex ideas and long‑form writing into pithy, concise statements and talking points.
• Ability to write in JFREJ's voice, attuned for different audiences.
• Ability to quickly synthesize live events into immediate coverage on social media (for example, live‑tweeting events).

Foundational knowledge and excitement about JFREJ’s work:

• Ability to be solution‑oriented and strategic in moments of crisis, staying ambitious on behalf of JFREJ so that your excitement can give you momentum through the challenges of a 24‑hour news cycle.
• Familiarity with the Jewish communal world, NYC politics and its major players, and grassroots movement ecosystems with an understanding and respect for organizing as a vehicle for change‑making.
• Deep respect for JFREJ's place within the NYC Left, and ability to consider our value add in relationship to our coalition partners.

Content creation & organizational skills:

• Strong eye for aesthetics and attention to detail to ensure that the website, graphics, and emails are formatted in alignment with our style guides.
• Ability to quickly learn how to work on new platforms, and websites, and digital tools.
• Ability to generate creative new ideas for our social media presence.
• A sense of humor to ensure we bring joy and lightheartedness to our online content to capture attention (when appropriate).
• Strong organizational skills to ensure JFREJ’s work is documented in photo and video, and that content captured by members or at events/actions is promptly collected and categorized for immediate and future use.
• Ability to work with outside vendors to place merch orders, and work with JFREJ’s finance & operations team to track inventory.

Experience thinking strategically about messaging and communications:

• Successful experience calmly pivoting to handle unexpected requests when urgent priorities or rapid‑response actions suddenly shift, without dropping ongoing work.
• A history of strong message discipline with the ability to courageously engage in calculated risk‑taking in partnership with the Communications Director.
• Experience engaging in challenging conversations during which you’ve had to tailor your arguments in order to find common ground with and persuade someone.

Logistical needs:

• Ability and willingness to arrive at key locations in New York City within an hour for actions and events.
• Willingness to be featured as needed in JFREJ's social media.
• While this is a full time, 40‑hour/week job, this role requires that one be routinely and consistently tuned into the news & online discourse during most waking hours as a lifestyle. It also requires availability to cover live events on social media for JFREJ and interact with members at events and on Signal chats on some evenings and weekends (outside of Shabbat).

Salary and Benefits: The salary for this position is $70,000-$75,000 annually with an extremely competitive benefits package and generous personnel policies including: 100% employer paid premiums for healthcare, employer 401(k) contribution, flexible work schedule, up to 18 paid holidays per year, 15 vacation days in first year and 20 in following years, 12 sick and safety leave days, family leave benefits that exceed NYS requirements, and sabbatical leave every 5 years.

JFREJ is an equal opportunity employer. People of color, Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews, women and gender nonconforming people, people with disabilities, immigrants, LGBTQIA+, and people who live or have lived in poverty are strongly encouraged to apply.