Who We Are: Nefesh Min Lozen 

We are Nefesh Min Lozen: often simply called Nefesh. Our name carries two intertwined lineages of resilience. Nefesh is a Hebrew word meaning “spirit,” “breath,” or “life‑force.” Lozen was a renowned Apache warrior woman of the Chihenne (Red Paint) band of the Chiricahua Apache, whose homelands stretch across what is now southern New Mexico, Colorado, and southern Arizona. 

Our name, taken together, means “the Spirit of Lozen.” It reflects our belief that her courage, clarity, and commitment to protecting her people remain present today. Just as the Apache Nation endures despite displacement and violence, the Jewish people have survived centuries of exile, oppression, and extreme conditions. Both traditions teach us how communities can remain whole, adaptive, and spiritually alive even under immense pressure. These histories guide our communitarian approach our models of mutual care, collective responsibility, and cultural survival draw deeply from Jewish communal strategies and Indigenous resistance traditions. 

Nefesh Min Lozen is a reflection of who we are: a movement rooted in memory, shaped by struggle, and committed to building something better. Though we emerge from the broader La Raza movement, we are not defined by a single identity. We are mixed, diverse, and proudly made up of people from many backgrounds, many beliefs, and many nations. What unites us is not uniformity but shared moral purposes. 

We stand together because we believe unjust power structures, whether corporate, colonial, or state‑based must be replaced by democratic, community‑rooted systems of care. We support all people resisting colonialism, corporatism, imperialism, and any force that strips communities of autonomy and dignity. Our liberation is bound up with the liberation of others. 

Our mission is to build and expand parallel institutions’ structures of care, mutual aid, community defense, cultural revival, and nonprofit support networks that meet people’s needs where existing systems fail. We want to eliminate harm, heal our environments, and cultivate spaces where people can grow stronger together. Like iron sharpening iron, we believe in developing the individual while serving the community. 

We strive for egalitarianism. We uplift diversity. We practice solidarity. And we work every day to build a world rooted in justice, compassion, and collective power.