Tribute to a Fair Trade Visionary: Ilana Schatz
Ilana Schatz was a fair trade hero who passed away this past July, after enduring a six-year battle with ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis).
She will be remembered for her leadership: her warmth, her humor, and her tireless dedication to creating a more just and compassionate world.
A Fair Trade Visionary
Ilana, who lived in El Cerrito, California, created the organization Fair Trade Judaica, a group that helped Jews to gain access to beautifully crafted ritual objects made by artisans who were paid a fair price for what they created.
Setting up a supply chain and a website required many years of work and a fair amount of chutzpah. Ilana traveled many times, together with her husband, David, to meet with artisan groups in Guatemala and Nepal and led groups of American Jews to travel to meet with the artisans. She herself designed a number of the ritual items that the artisans crafted and made available for purchase on the FTJ website.
Ilana was also the moving force behind the new Equal Exchange Jewish Fair Trade partnership created after the partnership with the American Jewish World Service partnership came to an end. It was Ilana who made the connection between Equal Exchange and T'ruah, the organization that EE partnered with for many years.
Ilana was skilled at introducing the right people in like-minded organizations to one another. She was directly responsible for making the Equal Exchange Kosher for Passover chocolate program happen by serving as a liaison between Equal Exchange and Rabbi Aaron Alexander, who inspected the ingredients and sourcing of the chocolate products to put on the Conservative Union’s Kosher for Pesach list. Without Ilana’s leadership, the program would not have happened.
For many years, Ilana advocated for a more open Jewish spirituality, social justice, fair trade, and many other issues selflessly and tirelessly.
She motivated everyone she worked with to develop meaningful educational content for the Fair Trade Judaica website. She encouraged Equal Exchange to promote fairly traded food products more vigorously to the Jewish community. She made an important contribution to Jewish social justice issues that made the whole community stronger. She will be missed.
