The AJWS community has a lot to say about what's happening in the world. Read our insights about the struggle for justice and human rights around the globe.
As a teenager in the late 1970s and early 1980s in Los Angeles, I didn’t feel safe coming out as gay — even to my liberal Jewish family. Although strides were being made by the LGBT community, rampant homophobia kept me in the closet. When I finally came out as a young adult, I was …Read More
The plight of refugees is undeniable. Little attention is paid, however, to the host communities—in places like northern Uganda and Bangladesh—where a sudden influx of refugees can bring new challenges to already poor and struggling communities.
Since the Rohingya refugee crisis erupted in Burma last summer, forcing over 700,000 people to flee into Bangladesh to escape ethnic cleansing, the AJWS crisis response team has been hard at work. We’ve been facilitating humanitarian aid in Burma and Bangladesh, supporting our partners to document human rights abuses, and deploying both our advocacy team …Read More
Jewish liturgy encourages us to think intergenerationally. Every day the traditional prayers proclaim “L’dor vador,” from generation to generation. And each holiday, when we recite the divine attributes (from Exodus 34:6-7), we hear God’s concern for how our actions impact the third, fourth, and even thousandth generation. Four generations from now, or about a century, is …Read More
It is difficult to imagine the contours of my life without the influence of one of my heroes: Harvey Milk. As a young Jew who was just coming out as gay, I was deeply inspired by Harvey’s courage, confidence and secure sense of self.
LGBTQI Thai people face discrimination and assaults on their basic human dignity. But one Thai organization, Buku, creates spaces for LGBTQI Thai Muslims to find safety and strengthen their resolve.