NEW YORK, NY — “As we work as Jewish global citizens every day to combat human rights abuses around the world, we cannot be blind to the moral and structural failings of our own society.
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Washington D.C. – American Jewish World Service (AJWS) and a coalition of advocacy and human rights organizations met with White House officials today to ask President Obama to appoint a Special Envoy for the human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) peoples within the U.S. Department of State.
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Jewish leaders, rabbis and educators reflect on their AJWS journey with Leibel One full day after receiving the news of Leonard “Leibel” Fein’s death, I am reflecting on the loss of this dear friend: a truly brilliant and moral man, and a profound Jewish voice for social justice in the 20th and 21st centuries. Many of us …
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If you’re looking for a powerful, thought-provoking film to see this summer, look no further than Finding Fela—a new documentary that opened this past Friday in New York City at IFC and has bookings throughout the country opening on various dates this month. Fela Kuti was the brilliant Nigerian performer who became a human rights …
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August 4, 2014 – Today in Washington, D.C., President Obama is making history by welcoming multiple heads of state from Africa to the first-ever U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit.
Read MoreThe strange story of Bilam, his talking donkey and the blessings he bestowed on Israel is recounted in Parshat Balak.[1] After the Israelites successfully defended themselves against the attacking Amorites, the Moabite king, Balak, asked Bilam to curse the Israelites in order to weaken them. Following several rounds of negotiations with Balak’s representatives and with …
Read MoreAfter my grandfather’s death, I rifled through a shabby valise into which he had tossed important-seeming documents. Among the runic scraps were several fragile pages of type-written Yiddish with their English translation, signed and dated, Tel Aviv, 1957, and titled “Sworn Declaration in Lieu of Birth Certificate.” The Declaration’s armature of legalese, embossings, seals and …
Read MoreFor as long as people have organized themselves into civil societies, corruption has placed its thumb on the scales of justice, diverted the flow of essential resources and helped turn the wheels of power. But while corruption may have indiscriminately left its mark on every age, it is not so even-handed in its distribution today. …
Read MoreAmong Parshat Mishpatim‘s many ethical ordinances is the provision for a refuge to shelter manslaughterers from those seeking vendetta justice.[1] While similar havens are explored in later discussions of arei miklat—biblical Israel’s “cities of refuge”—the asylum referenced here is specifically for the desert generation, for whom Rashi teaches, God designated “the encampment of the Levites” …
Read MoreExperiences and behaviors that we define as “spiritual” tend to be of a specifically inward nature. We generally associate spirituality—admittedly, an opaque term—more with thought, soul and self than with action, materiality and society. In other words, we are more likely to identify a reclusive monk as spiritual than an outspoken politician. The Torah provides …
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