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AJWS Staff

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What I am Learning about Climate Justice from Activists in Burma, Guatemala and Mexico

Earlier this year, we heard that our long-time grantee Berta Cáceres, an indigenous Honduran environmental activist, was gunned down and killed in her home, simply because she organized her community to protest a multi-million project to build dozens of hydroelectric dams that will destroy the local eco-system and put their survival at risk. At devastating moments like this, the many obstacles to pursuing climate justice feel overwhelming.

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AJWS Los Angeles: What’s Happening

Even though we may not see the leaves change here in Southern California, we know fall is a time for transition. As you may have heard, after eight accomplished years at AJWS, Allison Lee has started a new role as the Vice President of External Affairs at Bet Tzedek.

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AJWS Bay Area: What’s Happening

“What can I do to help beyond the annual gift I make to AJWS?” This is a question I often field from Bay Area donors. There are numerous responses, including advocacy and ambassadorship. But, in my opinion, the best answer is “travel on an AJWS Study Tour.”

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AJWS Chicago: What’s Happening

These days, it often feels like we live in a broken and breaking world. Devastating stories continue to top the headlines: terrorism, racism, war, violence and economic injustice. And we know that there are countless other brutalities that never even make it into the news.

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Elie Wiesel and Monte Dube (Photo by David Shankbone)

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Reflections on the Legacy and Teachings of the Late Elie Wiesel

“Anyone who listens to a witness becomes one.”

More than a week after the passing of Elie Wiesel, I, a proud son of a Holocaust survivor, remain deeply saddened by his death.

I met Elie Wiesel 40 years ago when he began a four-decade teaching career at Boston University, where I was entering my senior year.

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AJWS founder Laurence Simon Remembers Elie Wiesel

I was becoming discouraged in 1984 talking with leaders of American Jewish organizations about my dream to found an American Jewish organization that would make a professional and visibly Jewish contribution to the end of poverty in developing nations. They were not unsympathetic, but “we have other problems” was the phrase I heard over and over. Congregational and Hillel rabbis were more supportive and eventually encouraged me to talk with Elie Wiesel—“He will understand.”

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AJWS Bay Area: What’s Happening

Last month, the Bay Area celebrated Pride with unshakeable spirit. For LGBTI people who have worked to express their rights in the U.S., it was an opportunity to look back on and take pride in all that has been accomplished.

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Mazel Tov to our new President and CEO, Robert Bank!

We are wishing a special Mazel Tov to Robert Bank, who officially assumed the role of AJWS President and CEO today! Robert, who was AJWS’s Executive Vice President for seven-and-a-half years, is a skilled leader with a proven record of managing successful local, national and international organizations, bringing passion and dedication to public service and the pursuit of justice. Robert succeeds Ruth Messinger after her remarkable 18-year presidency of AJWS.

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Bio of Robert Bank

Robert Bank, currently the executive vice president of American Jewish World Service (AJWS), will be the next president of AJWS, starting on July 1, 2016. As the organization’s Executive Vice President for the past six-and-a half years, Robert has focused on the organization’s strategic growth and on deepening its impact. Robert is an experienced leader and manager of local, national and international organizations, and prior to joining AJWS in 2009 he served in New York’s municipal government and in the leadership of GMHC—one of the leading organizations in the world engaged in combatting HIV/AIDS. In 2008, he played an instrumental role in the campaign to overturn the ban on HIV-positive people entering the United States and becoming U.S. citizens.

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Get to know AJWS’s Jacqueline Hart

Jacqueline Hart, Ph.D., joined American Jewish World Service in 2012 to lead the organization’s efforts to strategically learn and measure its impact in the developing world. Since then, she’s created research and evaluation initiatives that aim to deepen AJWS’s understanding of our work and to strengthen our impact. Under Jacqueline’s direction, AJWS uses these findings …

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