AJWS Blog

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 — and meet the activists on the frontlines of the fight to build a better world.

A Jewish Feminism for Global Challenges

Originally posted on The Sisterhood Blog of The Forward. This is the seventh installment in the series “What Jewish Feminism Means to Me.” As a child in the 1940s and ’50s, I unknowingly experienced Jewish feminism before it really existed. Beginning in 1938 my mother, Marjorie Wyler, worked full-time as the Jewish Theological Seminary’s director …

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Story of a Fish Pond in Rural Mexico

Originally posted on The Jew and the Carrot. This is the story of a fishpond. Not just any old fishpond, but a fishpond in Muchucuxcah (Pronounce the x like a sh), Mexico, four hours west of Cancun. I was in Muchucuxcah for ten days in January with American Jewish World Service’s Rabbinical Students Delegation. We were there …

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Indigenous and Rural Communities in Guatemala Demand Their Natural Resource Rights

On March 19th, 1,500 rural and indigenous community members in Guatemala began marching for nine consecutive days to defend their natural resource rights. Tragically, state-sanctioned practices are destroying forests and mountains, contaminating rivers and water sources, and preventing rural Guatemalan communities from sustainably producing their own food. Nearly one year ago, hundreds of rural Maya …

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Hunger is Not a Game

Fans of The Hunger Games—you know who you are—are getting excited for the movie version of the first of Suzanne Collins’s trilogy of young adult novels. The film arrives in theaters this weekend. (Midnight or 3 a.m. IMAX screening, anyone?) We want to doff our hat to Oxfam—one of our friends in the campaign to end global …

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A Day With George Clooney

Friday started off as one of those days in which I remember why I decided to move to Washington, DC. At Sherman Circle, a block from the Sudanese Embassy, hundreds of activists gathered to protest the Sudanese government’s blocking food aid. The rally called on the United States and world leaders to stop the violence and …

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