Rabbi Zoe Klein recently traveled with AJWS on a Young Rabbis’ Delegation (YRD) to Ghana. Below is a sermon she delivered last Shabbat, August 12, 2011, at Temple Isaiah of Los Angeles, where she is the senior rabbi. This week’s Torah portion [Parshat Va’etchanan] includes the words Shema Yisrael, And in the Torah, as many …
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Originally posted on Pursue: Action for a Just World. At school, we always complain that we’re not doing anything. In my classes, we study feminist theory, race theory, queer theory, postcolonial theology, postmodernist thought, liberatory pedagogy; an alphabet soup of academic jargon about justice. But what’s missing, we object, is action. So we work to …
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If you ask people why they’re involved in community service, few—if any—would include personal reward or accolades on their list of motivations. There seems to be an expectation in our culture that good works should be accompanied by a Mother Theresa-like abdication of personal benefit. Admitting otherwise generally elicits squeamish responses. And yet, public service …
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Stefanie Rubin recently traveled to Haiti in preparation for the November 2011 AJWS Study Tour to Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Below she shares her reflections and insights about all that she has experienced in just three days. My mind is still reeling from everything we’ve seen during the past few days in Haiti. Clips …
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Good intentions strike again. Today’s New York Times op-ed page features a tragic account of how the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform act of 2010—no doubt conceived with good intentions by American politicians—is devastating mining towns in eastern Congo. In an effort to increase transparency in sourcing, the act “requires public companies to indicate what measures …
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“We know the price of an air-conditioned hotel and a plane. [Short-term overseas volunteer trips to the developing world are] an act of affluent tourism masquerading as community service.” -Senior executive, the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers. Like this wary university administrator, I have harbored suspicions toward service-learning programs to the Global …
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AJWS commends President Obama’s announcement today that the administration will enact new steps to prevent genocide and mass atrocities and impose consequences on serious human rights violators. The measures are positive steps toward creating an environment of zero tolerance for human rights abuse.
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“We are born with only one obligation – to be completely who we are.” The wisdom behind these words by poet and teacher Mark Nepo in The Book of Awakening hit me as I reflect upon the one thing I learned from the death of my very dear colleague, Jeanne d’Arc Mihigo, AJWS’s country consultant …
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Originally posted on Pursue: Action for a Just World. As the Pursue Program Officer in San Francisco for the past two and a half years, one of the biggest lessons I learned was the importance of collaboration among Jewish communal organizations. Operating with limited resources, targeting similar demographics, and striving toward similar goals as many …
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On this International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, we have something to celebrate. Fifteen years after signing the UN convention, the DRC has taken a major step forward in advancing human rights. After months of delay, the DRC finally changed its penal code and adopted a law criminalizing torture on July 13th. Local …
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