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.
The New Republic recently published a piece by Sebastian Strangio that exposes the dark underbelly of microfinance. Strangio highlights a Bangladesh-based story about impoverished rural farmers forced to sell their organs on the black market to repay their microfinance loans. This tragedy emphasizes the growing backlash on the ground and in the academy against microfinance …
Originally posted on the blog of Where Do You Give? September 1997: I am sitting with my family on the soft, beige carpet in the family room ready to begin our annual tradition. Index cards are lined up in front of us: “Hunger in Africa” “Literacy in America” “Homelessness in Mountain View, CA.” My parents …
Henning Mankell’s December 10th New York Times Op-Ed “The Art of Listening” is a thoughtful examination of the role of storytelling in human nature. In many ways, storytelling, and the authentic listening that accompanies it, is a lost art in our sped-up, Twitterized culture. At AJWS, authentic listening is at the heart of our approach to …
When Jewish comedian Gilda Radner lit a menorah on Saturday Night Live in the 1970s, it was the very first time that lighting Chanukah candles had been broadcast on national television. The skit was a hilarious riff on the ubiquity of Christmas, but what millions of viewers remember most is Gilda. After reciting the blessings over …
Rectifying pervasive social injustice around our world proves an incredibly daunting and complicated challenge. Each case of injustice is caused by not just the obvious perpetrators, but often myriad unintentional secondary offenders and a seemingly intractable web of social, economic and political systems and power brokers. Given these tangled causes, the average person may feel …
