Watching girls and boys, men and women, striving together for gender equality in India gave me not only great hope, but also evidence that this better world is possible.
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In a time marked by divisiveness and disagreement in our country and within the American Jewish community, something truly momentous happened earlier this month. A diverse and influential group of Jewish organizations and leaders—spanning nearly every part of the American Jewish community—came together to make a bold statement in a united voice: Stop the massacre …
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As 2017 draws to a close, I know how easy it is to feel the weight of despair. And yet, I’m taking time to celebrate global victories for human rights. Many of these victories haven’t made headline news, but they are making a life-saving difference for millions of people worldwide. I’m deeply proud that with …
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As I reflect on the horrors of Kristallnacht, and the horrors that followed, I cannot help but find tragic parallels in the chilling stories about the Rohingya people, 600,000 of whom have been forced to flee their homes in Burma.
Read More I have been haunted for weeks by a photo of a Rohingya woman mourning her dead baby on the shores of Bangladesh. This photo appeared in The Huffington Post in late September, and I’ve seen dozens of similarly disturbing images on the Internet every day. This mother and child were among the more than half a …
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One of the things I love most about summer is the opportunity to dive into books, articles and podcasts. Summer, after all, is supposed to be a time when things slow down a bit. Even if they don’t — and they haven’t, especially during this harrowing summer — I still love the idea of extra time for summer reading. And since …
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“There is no future without a past.” Crafted by American novelist and poet Siri Hustvedt, these words both haunt and inspire me.
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A year ago, I started the job of a lifetime when I became President and CEO of American Jewish World Service (AJWS). AJWS is an American Jewish organization that fights poverty and advances human rights in some of the poorest countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean. Over the past year or so, …
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As I prepare to travel to Washington, D.C. to participate in the Climate March, I am deeply focused on our Jewish obligation to repair the world and safeguard the earth and its inhabitants. As Genesis tells it, it took six days to create the complex majesty of the universe. Today, I fear that we are …
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This piece is part of AJWS’s Chag v’Chesed publication series. As Passover approaches, I am contemplating the ancient Israelites’ journey from slavery to freedom and thinking about the journeys that lie ahead of us. While today, American Jews aren’t facing the shackles or hard labor experienced by our ancestors in Egypt, our collective memory of …
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