Leading Jewish Human Rights Organization Applauds Introduction of the International Violence Against Women Act in the House of Representatives WASHINGTON, DC — American Jewish World Service (AJWS), the leading Jewish international human rights and development organization, released the following statement today after the International Violence Against Women Act (I-VAWA) was introduced in the House of …
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NEW YORK, NY—American Jewish World Service (AJWS), the leading Jewish international development and human rights organization, announced today that Dr. Sakena Yacoobi, founder and president of AJWS grantee and long-term partner Afghan Institute of Learning (AIL), was awarded the 2013 Opus Prize, which includes $1 million to support her organization’s work. AIL was founded in …
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NEW YORK, NY—American Jewish World Service (AJWS), the leading Jewish international development and human rights organization, was recently awarded a two-year, $500,000 grant from the Arcus Foundation to support AJWS’s work promoting the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) communities in Africa, Asia and Central America. The Arcus Foundation is a longtime supporter …
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Seynabou Male Cissé, leader of AJWS grantee Comité Régional de Solidarité des Femmes pour la Paix en Casamance*/USOFORAL in Senegal, recently won the Women’s World Summit Foundation (WWSF) Prize for Women’s Creativity in Rural Life. The annual prize celebrates the International Day of Rural Women on October 15. Every year, WWSF awards 10 notable women with …
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On September 21, the International Day of Peace, many of AJWS’s partners around the world were pushing for peace, justice and reconciliation in their communities and countries. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), where fighting has escalated due to a standoff between armed groups, civilians have increasingly become the targets of violence, particularly …
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 MoreIn Biblical times, a woman whose husband died childless would marry his brother in order to give her late husband a surrogate heir within the family line. This is the law of yibbum, which is what Tamar had in mind in Parshat Vayeshev when she remained a widow, waiting to marry Shelah, her father-in-law Judah’s …
Read More“I don’t understand why I keep making the same mistakes,” a patient of mine recently told me. He had called for a chaplain in the middle of the night because he felt overwhelmed by remorse. “I have been hospitalized five times now. I’ve lost my girlfriend, my friends, my law practice, all because of drinking… …
Read More“Is that the law? Now?” These were the words of Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf when he learned, six years ago, that a woman named Zafran Bibi had been sentenced to death by stoning.[1] Under the Hudood ordinances, fundamentalist interpretations of Islamic law, a woman convicted of adultery can be executed with only circumstantial evidence against …
Read MoreShmot begins with two stunning acts of civil disobedience in which five righteous women help birth a liberation movement.[1] Many millennia later, righteous women in Burma are leading a nonviolent resistance movement in a society only marginally less repressive than ancient Egypt.[2] Shifrah and Puah were midwives who “feared God”[3] and so did not follow …
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