In a garden in Casamance, Senegal, sprouts poke hopefully out of the soil. They are the simple beginnings of carrots, onions and radishes. But they represent so much more than food. The women who planted and nurtured them are recovering from years of fear and violence. Casamance, the southwestern region of Senegal, has been ravaged …
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“Neither war nor peace.” It is in these terms that the Casamancais describe the conflict that has long shaken this region of southern Senegal. With the lull of recent years, they hope to finally return to a lasting peace and economic development.
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As the global media focused on an historic transition of power in Washington D.C. last week, an even more dramatic presidential transition took place in the West Africa in The Gambia, with the support of its neighbor, Senegal.
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The world has watched in horror as migrants and refugees from the Middle East and Africa have embarked on treacherous journeys across the Mediterranean Sea to Europe. On this World Refugee Day, the international spotlight, rightly, shines on this vast crisis—and American Jewish World Service stands in solidarity with human rights organizations working in Europe to mitigate the devastation. But we also hope the world will remember the scores of people from other parts of the globe forced to flee their homes.
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Leading Jewish international human rights organization draws on lessons of Jewish history and underscores need to speak against bigotry New York, NY—In the wake of rising calls by politicians, elected officials and others to discriminate against Muslims—increasing in response to terrorist attacks undertaken by Islamist individuals and organizations—American Jewish World Service released the statement below …
Read MoreThe book of Leviticus begins with a call. The first word of this section of Torah, from which it gets its Hebrew name—vayikra—describes God calling out to Moses, inviting the prophet to enter in to the Tent of Meeting, the space in which Moses is able to communicate with God and exercise his role as …
Read MoreWe know the price of an air-conditioned hotel and a plane… [Short-term overseas volunteer trips to the developing world are] an act of affluent tourism masquerading as community service.” —Senior executive, the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers[1] Like this wary university administrator, I have harbored suspicions toward service-learning programs to the Global …
Read MoreThe Israelites’ first building project—the Mishkan—is about to be completed. We can recognize similarities between its construction and the building of our own communal structures: raising the funds, enlisting a contractor and choosing design elements. And yet, though modern communal leaders often ceremonially lay the cornerstone—complete with the entertaining and tellingly odd juxtaposition of dress …
Read MoreYosef’s get-out-of-jail free card, his ability to interpret dreams, thrusts the young son of Yaakov into a position of responsibility that would have been difficult to imagine when his brothers first sold him. After interpreting Paroh’s dreams as foretelling seven years of abundance followed by seven years of famine, Yosef, in a strikingly courageous act, …
Read MoreParshat Masei opens as the wanderings of the Israelites are coming to an end. The land east of the Jordan has been conquered and divided, and God is commanding Moshe regarding the procedures to be followed upon entering Israel. Included in these commandments is a verse that dictates that when the Jews enter Canaan, they …
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