Masafu Okwara is a lawyer and activist in Kenya who has devoted her life to standing up for queer people who are suffering at the hands of the country’s discriminatory legal system. She works as a program officer for longtime partner National Gay & Lesbian Human Rights Commission (NGLHRC) in Nairobi, offering free legal aid …
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Many countries around the world are experiencing a brutal crackdown on activism—making activists and human rights defenders (HRDs) vulnerable to vilification and attacks.
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New York, NY – Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, one of three women currently sitting on the United States Supreme Court, has co-authored a feminist reading for the Jewish holiday of Passover, which begins at sundown on Friday, April 3, 2015.
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New York, NY – American Jewish World Service (AJWS), the leading international Jewish human rights organization and a funder of 26 human rights organizations in Mexico, today issued a strong demand for Mexican authorities to resume their investigation into the disappearance and possible murder of 43 student activists, who went missing in Iguala, Guerrero State, in September 2014 on their way to a protest against government violence.
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Statement by Ruth Messinger, President of American Jewish World Service on the Conviction of former General José Efraín Ríos Montt New York, NY; May 13, 2013— “We are deeply gratified that former Guatemalan dictator, General José Efraín Ríos Montt, was found guilty of genocide in the very country in which he committed his crimes and …
Read MoreSitting in the dusty courtyard of Challenging Heights, in Sangor, Ghana, surrounded by children rescued from slavery, I realized I was not truly present. It was 2012, and I was on an AJWS rabbinical delegation intended to inspire American clergy to deepen our commitment to global justice by connecting with people in the Global South whom we seek to help.
Read MoreI consider the most beautiful passage in the Torah to be found in Parashat Nitzavim:
Surely, this mitzvah that I enjoin upon you this day is not too baffling for you, nor is it beyond reach. It is not in the heavens, that you should say, “Who among us can go up to the heavens and get it for us and impart it to us, that we may observe it?”….No, the thing is very close to you, in your mouth and in your heart, to observe it.
Read MoreI consider the most beautiful passage in the Torah to be found in Parashat Nitzavim:
Surely, this mitzvah that I enjoin upon you this day is not too baffling for you, nor is it beyond reach. It is not in the heavens, that you should say, “Who among us can go up to the heavens and get it for us and impart it to us, that we may observe it?”….No, the thing is very close to you, in your mouth and in your heart, to observe it.
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