Rights of Muslim Minority Won’t Be Honored if its Existence is Denied Statement by Robert Bank, Incoming President of American Jewish World Service: “As members of an ethnic minority whose own right to exist has been questioned throughout history, we call on the newly elected government of Myanmar to recognize the existence of its own …
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Imagine that you were evicted from your home because your government decided to dig beneath it. And imagine that, if you spoke up to protest, you would face threats — even death. I don’t have to imagine this scenario because I have witnessed it. Yet while I am alive to write about it, many of my colleagues …
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Leading Human Rights Organization Calls on the United States to Urge Compliance by Mexico with Recommendations of Independent Group of Experts New York, NY – On Sunday, April 24, an international group of experts appointed to review the investigation of the forced disappearance of 43 college students from Iguala, Mexico, in September 2014 concluded that …
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Why is this Passover different from any other? Because the story that the Jewish holiday commemorates — the exodus of the ancient Israelites from slavery in Egypt to freedom — resonates more strongly than ever in a world embroiled in a refugee crisis that encompasses approximately 60 million people, the highest number ever recorded, according …
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As someone who has spent the past four years reporting in Southeast Asia, I want to make a suggestion: this Passover, put down the Haggadah for a few minutes and read aloud from an essay by actor Mandy Patinkin about his trip to Cambodia. On the Showtime series “Homeland,” Patinkin plays Saul Berenson, a senior …
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Several months ago, I felt the power of the thousands-year-old Passover story as palpably as I ever have, when I travelled with American Jewish World Service (AJWS) to Cambodia. My sense of what it means for a people to go from slavery to freedom deepened when I spent time listening to the modern-day narratives of …
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We all know that adolescence is, by definition, a time when children begin to mature into adults: physically, mentally and emotionally. In many communities, it’s also a time fraught with anxiety about the emerging sexuality of adolescent girls—a time when, driven by fear, some families exert tight control over where girls can go, who they …
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After nearly 20 years as the president of the American Jewish World Service (AJWS), Ruth Messinger is retiring. She joins us to reflect on her career in humanitarian aid and the work of AJWS, which bills itself as “the first and only Jewish organization dedicated solely to ending poverty and promoting human rights in the developing …
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Patinkin Encourages Jews to Ponder Freedom for People Around the World with a Focus on Cambodia The essay by Mr. Patinkin is part of a special series of Jewish holiday readings curated by American Jewish World Service that includes previous commentaries from Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky New York, NY …
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Ruth Messinger was one of New York City’s most prominent politicians in the 1980s and 1990s before she took the helm of a respected but low-profile nonprofit focused on international development: the American Jewish World Service. After 18 years, Messinger is giving up the presidency of AJWS, which grew into a major player in the fight against …
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