A record number of activists are being killed in Latin America – and old methods of security aren’t working. How do we protect activists facing threats from shadowy actors and complicit governments?
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Nine NGOs signed a letter to UN Working Group outlining concerns, including absence of due diligence and transparency requirements, limitations on free, prior and informed consent application, lack of obligations for state-owned companies. NGOs also call for NAP for requirements on access to justice and actions to prevent attacks against human rights defenders.
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American Jewish World Service (AJWS), the leading American Jewish human rights and development organization, strongly opposes President Trump’s proposed FY18 budget, which would harm the most vulnerable people in the world by slashing crucial aid and development programs and weakening institutions critical to upholding human rights worldwide.
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American Jewish World Service (AJWS), the leading Jewish organization working to realize human rights and end poverty in the developing world, strongly condemns the ban on refugee resettlement and immigration, announced today by the Trump administration. Over three decades, AJWS has worked with many faith organizations, including Muslim partners worldwide, to pursue goals we share in common—ending poverty and advancing human rights.
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At Time When Voices of Intolerance are on the Rise Worldwide, Fifteen Jewish Leaders from Across the U.S. Affirm Commitment to Human Rights American Rabbinical Leaders Visit the Dominican Republic on Human Rights Educational Mission NEW YORK, NY – American Jewish World Service (AJWS,) the leading Jewish organization working to promote human rights and end …
Read MoreAnu Mokal was four months pregnant the night policemen brutally assaulted her at a bus stop in Satara, India. They beat her so severely that she suffered a miscarriage. When she later filed a complaint against them, no investigation took place, despite the presence of witnesses. Why? Because she was a sex worker, and the …
Read MoreIntroduction
Jacob’s life often seems like a soap opera, with one dramatic episode after another. Parashat Vayishlach contains many of these moments—the violent nighttime struggle with an unidentified assailant, the tense reunion with his brother Esau who had sought to kill him, the rape of his daughter and his son’s vengeful response, and the death of his beloved wife Rachel during childbirth. And yet, in the midst of all of this drama and loss, comes a description of Jacob experiencing peace and wholeness. An examination of this passage prompts us to reflect on wholeness and its opposite, not only for Jacob, but for ourselves and for all of humanity.
Read MoreParashat Toldot contains one of the Torah’s most troubling and dramatic scenes of deception: At his mother Rebecca’s urging, Jacob covers his arms and neck with animal skin, disguising himself as his hairier brother Esau in order to fool their aging, blind father into giving Jacob the blessing of the first born. When Esau returns and the ruse is up, the emotional consequences of the deception become clear. Esau cries a bitter cry “ad me’od—to the utmost” and Isaac too trembles violently “ad me’od.” Isaac is so shaken by the trickery that, according to Midrash Aggadah quoting Rabbi Chama bar Chanina, “This trembling was even greater than his trembling when he was on the altar [at the Binding of Isaac].”
Read MoreParashat Chayei Sarah opens with the death of the matriarch Sarah at age 127. The Torah describes the death of this important character in only two terse verses,[1] and the news is soon eclipsed by a lengthy discussion occupying the rest of the chapter—17 verses in all—about the negotiations for the purchase of her tomb.[2] …
Read MoreOne of the things I find most inspiring about studying Torah is that the biblical characters are human. They may be our valorized, mythical ancestors, but they also consistently make mistakes, leaving a record of paradigmatic human foibles from which we can learn. There is one biblical failure, however, that I have always struggled to …
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