May 2018 I was recently honored to join a group of Bay Area donors on an AJWS Study Tour to southern India. These trips are always powerful: there is no better way to understand the intricacies of AJWS’s strategy or to comprehend the intense struggles of our grantee partners than to meet these inspirational people …

We live in a time when the news flashes before our eyes—a rollercoaster ride of stories that appear and vanish almost hourly. In this landscape, many critical struggles for human rights never make the front page.

I think we are all ready for 2018. This year, we have witnessed storms that battered parts of the U.S. and the Caribbean, earthquakes in Mexico, famine in East Africa, and the horrific mass murder of the Rohingya taking place in Burma.

AJWS is partnering with the Osher Marin JCC to launch a special edition of our Books Beyond Borders club in Marin! Four times a year, we will feature a book and film pairing that connects to AJWS’s mission to promote human rights and end poverty in the developing world.

Earlier this year I had the privilege to speak at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival as part of a panel following a documentary called Little Stones, which follows the lives of four women using art to empower other women and girls in the developing world.