Around the world, the rights and safety of LGBTQI+ are under attack. But pockets of progress – life saving progress – do exist, often in unexpected places. “10 years ago, our sisters were getting murdered here,” says Antony Montesino, from his home in La Unión, El Salvador, and a member of the town’s LGBTQI+ community. …
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Burned fields. Depleted and poisoned waterways. Widespread renal failure. These are just some of the high costs of growing sugarcane in El Salvador—from which the producers profit, and the surrounding communities and environment pay the price. The sugarcane industry in El Salvador is infamous for its propensity to use any means necessary to increase yield—and …
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On International Women’s Day and everyday, we give thanks for the incredible women in our families, our communities and around the world who are fighting for social justice.
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Learn more about the major threats facing communities around the world and discover the work of brave activists who—like Queen Esther did in the Purim story—are standing up to injustice and changing lives for the better today.
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Around the world, rural and Indigenous communities are working to repair the world — with food. The challenges they face are immense: industrial development, commercial farming and accelerating climate change are all damaging the land that these communities have farmed for generations. But AJWS is supporting activist organizations to fight back. These activists are working with their communities to build “food sovereignty,” or …
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Antony Montesino was born with a blessing that many LGBTQI+ people in El Salvador can only dream of: a supportive, loving family. But when both his parents died when Antony was 22, he was left to raise his four younger sisters alone. That shift transformed Antony into a dedicated caretaker and leader — a role …
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Today, 26-year-old Kahory Ramos lights up any room she walks into — brimming with positive energy and enthusiasm. But her journey to embrace herself was difficult, and at times, dangerous. Kahory grew up in a poor, traditional neighborhood outside La Unión, El Salvador — with four siblings steeped in the country’s sexist, ‘machismo’ culture. Kahory …
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In El Salvador, local rural communities depend on the mangroves and the creatures that thrive in them for food and their livelihood. Mangroves also act as buffers against the threats posed by climate change by bolstering shorelines from rising seawaters and trapping carbon emissions.[1] La Unidad Ecológica Salvadoreña (UNES)—an organization supported by AJWS—is protecting endangered …
Read MoreEight years ago, while traveling in El Salvador with AJWS as part of a delegation of rabbinical students, I found myself in front of the main cathedral in San Salvador, the capital city. Surrounded by crowds of people in the busy plaza, looking at the massive church with its mix of Spanish and Native American décor, we heard about the Salvadoran people’s struggle to live in peace and to create a just society. I can still remember the moment when our guide, an activist and former priest named Chencho Alas, exhorted us to “be prophets” like his friend, the murdered Archbishop Oscar Romero. We looked at each other in bewilderment and may have even suppressed a giggle or two. We weren’t even rabbis yet; how could we possibly be expected to live up to the expectation of being prophets? The notion seemed wildly absurd.
Read MoreNow that the Exodus narrative is over, the gripping accounts of our ancestors that pervaded the first two books of the Torah fade into distant memory and we begin reading the detailed guidelines for the construction and use of the Mishkan, the Tabernacle. While initially many of these details seem extraneous or irrelevant, they contain within them deep wisdom and insight into our lives and moral obligations as Jews.
Read MoreIn my work as a hospital chaplain, I am often privileged to accompany people in the last days of their lives or the lives of their loved ones. I recently spent a long night with Mark, a middle-aged man who had camped out in the waiting room outside his mother’s hospital room. The doctors had withdrawn artificial forms of life support and she was expected to pass away within hours.
Read MoreThe flour, salt, oil, sugar, yeast, eggs and cinnamon were spread out on the vinyl tablecloth. We had moved the table to the modest cement block porch that jutted out from the doorless entryway to Marta’s house. It was Friday afternoon and this Salvadoran woman had opened her home to our group of American Jews …
Read MoreThis week’s parshah opens in a panic. Marking with dread the refugee nation swelling along his border, Balak, king of Moab, seeks counsel from the elders of Midian. The Midianites, Rashi reminds us, have privileged information about Israel’s unlikely success. Moses had fled to Midian after killing an Egyptian; his wife was a Midianiate and …
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