The AJWS community has a lot to say about what's happening in the world. Read our insights about the struggle for justice and human rights around the globe — and meet the activists on the frontlines of the fight to build a better world.
On September 23rd, 2013, the Dominican Republic’s Constitutional Court retroactively stripped the citizenship of Dominicans born to people residing in the Dominican Republic without legal status between 1929 and 2010.
The early days of the summer of 2016 have been bitter ones. Orlando, Baton Rouge, St. Paul, Dallas, Nice, Baghdad and Istanbul—the bloody streets of these cities tell the story. Immigrants vilified, African-American men murdered, and LGBT people massacred. From the campaign trail to angry Twitter feeds, people driven by intolerance, xenophobia, misogyny and racism have seized the day. Yet, I remain hopeful. As the Indian novelist and human rights activist Arundhati Roy put it, “Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.”
“Anyone who listens to a witness becomes one.”
More than a week after the passing of Elie Wiesel, I, a proud son of a Holocaust survivor, remain deeply saddened by his death.
I met Elie Wiesel 40 years ago when he began a four-decade teaching career at Boston University, where I was entering my senior year.
I was becoming discouraged in 1984 talking with leaders of American Jewish organizations about my dream to found an American Jewish organization that would make a professional and visibly Jewish contribution to the end of poverty in developing nations. They were not unsympathetic, but “we have other problems” was the phrase I heard over and over. Congregational and Hillel rabbis were more supportive and eventually encouraged me to talk with Elie Wiesel—“He will understand.”
“Because I remember, I despair. Because I remember, I have the duty to reject despair.” These profound words are those of Elie Wiesel, the Holocaust survivor, Nobel Laureate, author, and founding board member of American Jewish World Service (AJWS), who died on Saturday at age 87.
