Leah Kaplan Robins

Leah Robins

Leah Kaplan Robins is Director of Content and Storytelling at American Jewish World Service. Leah leads a dynamic team of writers and digital content creators responsible for AJWS’s multi-channel communications in print and online—including publications, marketing and fundraising appeals, video, published research, and diverse social media engagement efforts. Over the past decade at AJWS, she and her team have created signature products, campaigns and messaging platforms that bring Jewish values and history to bear on pressing global justice issues, inspiring the growth of a passionate community of supporters who donate and take action to build a more just and equitable world. Leah joined AJWS in 2008, following positions as an editor, grant writer and communications specialist at the Covenant Foundation, the Children’s Museum of Manhattan, and Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. Leah holds a B.A. in Visual and Environmental Studies from Harvard University. Her writing—for AJWS’s president and CEO or under her own byline—has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Medium, Kveller, eJewishPhilanthropy, and Lilith Magazine.

Supporting Women Peacemakers in Casamance

Thirty years of armed conflict in Casamance have left many people—especially women—feeling powerless: powerless to stop the frequent deadly bursts of guerilla violence, and powerless to feed and educate their children in the midst of the chaos of conflict. But one woman, Seynabou Male Cissé, a former high school teacher, saw the potential of women …

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Berishit

We are, by nature, creatures of habit. We find comfort in things that are familiar, carving out routines that give our lives order. But repetition also leads to the curious subduing of awareness that we call “autopilot”—the feeling we get when we arrive at work having absolutely no recollection of the roads or steps we …

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Dvarim

Each year when we reach Parashat Dvarim I experience a rush of exhilaration when I imagine the scene: the Israelites are gathered high on the steppes of Moab, having finally reached the end of their 40-year ordeal in the desert. As they wait for Moses to deliver his final address, they look out at the expanse below, and see the Promised Land at last. For a few moments, perhaps, their thoughts of the traumas behind them and the battles ahead are eclipsed by the simple joy that home is within their sight.

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