Citing the importance to Israel of a robust U.S. posture abroad, Jewish groups decried drastic proposed cuts in foreign assistance funding in President Donald Trump’s budget despite assurances that aid to Israel would be unaffected. Israel’s guaranteed $3.1 billion defense assistance next year is a “cutout” and not subject to proposed drastic cuts to foreign …
Read MoreDonald Trump’s new budget proposal has a lot of critics. The budget, entitled “America First,” has already been lambasted by scientists, comedians, and elected officials from both parties for slashing funds for agencies across government and eliminating some federal programs altogether. But now faith leaders are adding their voices to the chorus of detractors, with …
Read MoreIn January I traveled with 14 rabbis and a cantor as part of American Jewish World Service’s Global Justice Fellowship to the Dominican Republic—a country that is home to the largest stateless population in the Western Hemisphere. We learned how Dominican court had stripped citizenship from some 200,000 people—Dominican-born children and grandchildren of immigrants from …
Read MoreReligious leaders, including some who spoke at President Trump’s inauguration, are calling on Congress to protect foreign aid that helps the needy across the globe. Trump’s 2018 budget proposal calls for $25.6 billion in funding for the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development. That’s a decrease of $10.1 billion, or 28 percent, from …
Read MoreCiting further legal protections for LGBT people, the Thai authorities have introduced a bill to ‘certify’ gender identity. LGBT experts, however, have asked why they need the state to approve their gender identity at all. On 14 March 2017, leading LGBT activists and legal officers from the Office of Women’s Affairs and Family Development (OWAFD) …
Read MoreEarlier this week, the entire Senate sent a letter to law enforcement officials in the Trump administration asking them to take “swift action” as a series of threats and a wave of vandalism continue to rock the American Jewish community. The move was a rare display of bipartisanship and an appropriate response as many American …
Read MoreWithin 48 hours of the historic protest for women’s rights on Jan. 23, President Donald Trump put millions of people around the world at risk with a stroke of his pen. Late last month, he reinstated the “global gag rule,” which forbids the U.S. from giving global health assistance to any overseas organization that provides abortions, counsels …
Read More“America has established for itself a tradition of fine, open-handed generosity in its response to appeals for help that come from beyond its borders. The respect for human rights, the understanding of the dignity of the individual, the reverence for personality, which are part of the American way of looking at life, carry with them …
Read MoreMore than 20 Democratic Jewish members of the House of Representatives called on President Donald Trump not to sign an executive order that would exempt religious organizations from adhering to nondiscrimination protection. The letter sent Thursday was in reaction to news reports that Trump would sign the order allowing federally funded, faith-based organizations to discriminate …
Read More“If there is no struggle, there is no progress.” These are the powerful words of Frederick Douglass, the 19th century African American who escaped slavery to become an historic leader of the abolitionist movement. His words bear repeating. I’ve been thinking again and again about their profound relevance today, when the need to make progress …
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