On April 28, 2007, a day after my 24th birthday, my father passed away after a six-month battle with brain cancer. My father’s recipe for living was tikkun olam, healing the world and working to leave it a better place than he found it—both professionally and personally. Following a family tradition, he became a physician. …
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Daniela lives in a batey—a town of sugar cane workers—in the Dominican Republic. At 17 years old, she has just graduated from high school and now volunteers as a community health educator. Her dream is to go to college—but that dream was crushed last month, when the country’s Constitutional Court revoked citizenship from all Dominicans …
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Seynabou Male Cissé, leader of AJWS grantee Comité Régional de Solidarité des Femmes pour la Paix en Casamance*/USOFORAL in Senegal, recently won the Women’s World Summit Foundation (WWSF) Prize for Women’s Creativity in Rural Life. The annual prize celebrates the International Day of Rural Women on October 15. Every year, WWSF awards 10 notable women with …
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Last week, AJWS President Ruth Messinger attended the 2013 Clinton Global Initiative (CGI), which annually convenes global leaders to create and implement innovative solutions to the world’s most pressing challenges. This prestigious event draws heads of state from around the world, along with Nobel Prize laureates and hundreds of major philanthropists and heads of foundations …
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On September 21, the International Day of Peace, many of AJWS’s partners around the world were pushing for peace, justice and reconciliation in their communities and countries. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), where fighting has escalated due to a standoff between armed groups, civilians have increasingly become the targets of violence, particularly …
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Most readers have probably seen the widespread news about the Al Shabab terrorist attack at Westgate Mall in Nairobi. AJWS staff members were able to check in with all of our Kenyan grantees, and we are relieved to report that none of them have been injured or killed. However, many of them know people affected …
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It’s no secret that American Jews have a rich legacy of involvement in American social movements—the labor movement, the civil rights movement, women’s liberation, LGBT rights and immigration reform, to name just a few. That’s why we’re so moved by this powerful new video, Hineni, created by our friends and colleagues at the Jewish Social …
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Is apathy inherited? Is inaction passed on from generation to generation? Will our lack of responsiveness to global anguish be passed on to our children? When it comes to the question of whether our sins will be visited upon generations to come, Sinai and the Golden Calf offer us a clue. While the story is …
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It’s hard to believe fall is here, and Rosh Hashanah has already come and gone. As my thoughts turn to the Jewish New Year, I begin to think about all the exciting ways American Jewish World Service will continue to deepen its work in developing world. Here’s what we’re working toward this year:
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In August 2013, conflict ramped up in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where the Congolese rebel group M23 and the Congolese Armed Forces escalated fighting. At least 800,000 people have fled their homes in the DRC since the M23 launched its rebellion in April 2012 and laid siege to the city of Goma last December. …
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