When Jewish comedian Gilda Radner lit a menorah on Saturday Night Live in the 1970s, it was the very first time that lighting Chanukah candles had been broadcast on national television. The skit was a hilarious riff on the ubiquity of Christmas, but what millions of viewers remember most is Gilda. After reciting the blessings over …
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Rectifying pervasive social injustice around our world proves an incredibly daunting and complicated challenge. Each case of injustice is caused by not just the obvious perpetrators, but often myriad unintentional secondary offenders and a seemingly intractable web of social, economic and political systems and power brokers. Given these tangled causes, the average person may feel …
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Where Do You Give? Invites Artists to Reimagine Tzedakah Box for 21st Century New York, NY; December 12, 2011—American Jewish World Service (AJWS), an international development and human rights organization, has launched a national design competition focused on philanthropy and social change. Where Do You Give? challenges artists to create a 21st century icon inspired …
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Foreign policy speeches do not typically give me chills. Not so with the speech that Secretary Clinton gave yesterday evening in Geneva on the evening of December 6th. Her remarks, which I was fortunate enough to hear in person, made a powerful, timely and truly historic argument for the human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual …
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By all rights she should have been a nobody. But instead, Sonia Pierre, the Dominican born daughter of Haitian migrants was, at the time of her premature death this week at the age 48, an internationally respected, award winning advocate for the civil and social rights of Haitian Dominicans and a leading grassroots responder to …
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Originally posted on Pursue: Action for a Just World. The U.S. Farm Bill is a piece of legislation that is reauthorized every five to seven years. It covers many food-related government programs like SNAP in addition to international food aid programs. With the failure of the Super Committee to sneak the Farm Bill in under the rug, we have an …
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Hillary Clinton’s visit to Burma—the first from a United States Secretary of State in 50 years—comes to a close today. The trip is a response to what President Obama has referred to as “flickers of hope” in the country and is a significant event in U.S.-Burma relations. How much has actually changed in this repressive …
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Originally posted on the Global Circle blog. In a recent Wall Street Journal article about best (and worst!) tips for organizations soliciting money, philanthropy experts recommended many of the practices that we live by every day at AJWS. The article recommends that charities start working with donors at a younger age. This is the heart …
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1. The recent floods in Thailand have been the worst the country has experienced in seven decades. The floods have claimed over 600 lives since July when the water began traveling from the north of the country, submerging agricultural and industrial areas before drowning Bangkok in October. Damages have been estimated to reach 300 billion …
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Following on the heels of the Akeidah, the near-sacrifice of Isaac, Parshat Chayei Sarah (“Sarah’s Life”), opens by immediately announcing her death. Although a connection to the previous narrative is not explicit, many commentators link Sarah’s sudden passing to the Akeidah, imagining that the emotional shock of hearing the news literally kills her. Rashi expands …
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