After Keji lost her parents to the violent, ongoing conflict in South Sudan, she and her siblings fled to Arua, Uganda — a city near the border that has become a major hub for refugees looking for a better life. But Keji and her brothers and sisters needed help rebuilding their lives after losing everything. …
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Late last year, I flew from my home in Uganda to Scotland to attend the Conference of Parties (COP26), an annual United Nations meeting in which countries around the world discuss ways to slow the onset of global climate change. I attended with support from AJWS, and I was one of the few women, one …
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As we prepare to celebrate Thanksgiving at a time of climate crisis, I am pausing to share my gratitude to Indigenous Peoples and others around the world who live close to nature, care for the earth and battle climate change. Through my travels for AJWS, I have been fortunate to meet, break bread with and …
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Millions of children around the world are suffering from violence, hunger and discrimination—from Rohingya children living in squalid refugee camps in Bangladesh, to girls in Uganda who are recovering from sexual abuse in the aftermath of Uganda’s civil war. Fortunately, AJWS’s grantees are restoring hope, dignity and human rights for children who face injustice all over the world.
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 policemen—who had charged her with soliciting clients at the bus stop—were just ‘doing their job.’
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 MoreWe are pleased to welcome guest writer, Sarah Mulhern, program associate at American Jewish World Service. Parshat Emor closes with one of the most famous and controversial pronouncements in the Torah: If anyone maims his fellow, as he has done so shall it be done to him; fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for …
Read MoreFollowing the burial of their father Jacob in Parshat Vayechi, Joseph’s brothers worry aloud: “What if Joseph still bears a grudge against us!?”[1] Despite the good grace Joseph had shown them upon their reunification, the debt they owe him for having sold him into slavery so many years prior still lingers. The eleven brothers feel …
Read MoreOver and over in the Torah, widows are singled out as a group meriting special protection by God. Along with the stranger and the orphan, the widow is recognized as an especially vulnerable member of society.[1] Tamar’s story, as told in Parshat Vayeshev, can help us understand why the Torah focuses specifically on the widow, …
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