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 …
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It’s hard to believe fall is here, and Rosh Hashanah has already come and gone. As my thoughts turn to the Jewish New Year, I begin to think about all the exciting ways American Jewish World Service will continue to deepen its work in developing world. Here’s what we’re working toward this year:
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This post is also featured on the blog of the Jewish Community Federation and Endowment Fund. This July, I traveled to Lucknow in northern India with American Jewish World Service and a group of 17 rabbis from across the United States. Our goal was to personally see and understand AJWS’s important international work. And, as …
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In August 2013, conflict ramped up in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where the Congolese rebel group M23 and the Congolese Armed Forces escalated fighting. At least 800,000 people have fled their homes in the DRC since the M23 launched its rebellion in April 2012 and laid siege to the city of Goma last December. …
Read MoreThe epic rivalry between Jacob and Esau, the twins born to Isaac and Rebecca, is vividly conjured in this week’s parshah. While Jacob was a simple man, content to stay inside, Esau was a hunter, a man of the outdoors. Whereas Jacob was smooth, the ruddy Esau was covered in hair. Most poignantly, the brothers …
Read MoreWhen read with modern sensibilities, Bereshit 24 is a traditional tale about a man who travels to a far-off land to find a woman to marry his master’s son. Imagine that you are that woman, going about your daily chores when a strange man approaches you. He gazes at you for a bit,[1] and finding …
Read MoreIn Parshat Lech Lecha, Abram and Sarai, the first Jews, “go forth” from their old lives into a relationship with the one God, and the Jewish story begins. Embedded within this story is a short interlude, the tale of Hagar, whose very name (ha-ger) means “the stranger,” the “outsider.” Both Hagar’s encounters with God and …
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