The Lilith Blog

July 17, 2007 by admin

Not on Our Credit Cards

These days it seems to me like I could end the genocide in Darfur with a little Internet shopping. For example, I could start by purchasing a Green Day T-shirt that promises to end the violence in Darfur; or I could buy “colonial style leatherware” designed by George Clooney, Brad Pitt and Don Cheadle under the clothing label “Not on Our Watch.” But since clothing isn’t my thing, I could always buy “Instant Karma,” a CD recently released by Amnesty International as part of their Darfur campaign. The title of the CD (taken from a John Lennon song) illustrates the impatient attitude that characterizes 21st century consumer and cyber activism. The stylish Instant Karma website entreats me to sign a petition, of which only a line of its text is displayed (I had to click a link to actually read the petition).

Is this combination of consumerism, technology and compassion a brilliant fusion destined to save the world? Or, is it a shallow way of feeling like you’re doing your part to help the world, while getting a really sweet T-Shirt in the process?

By turning to Jewish texts, we can find some answers. Judaism continuously stresses that charity is not sufficient to Tikkun Olam, repair the world. Instead, Jews must be holy and engage in tzedekah, a Hebrew word derived from tzedek, meaning “justice.” Tzedekah is not limited to giving money to support charitable causes, such as buying a Darfur T-Shirt. According to the medieval Jewish scholar Moses Maimonides, one of the most important acts of tzedekah is helping a poor person get a job, instead of giving a poor person money. In other words, to pursue justice you must take out your work-boots and not only your credit card.

It is logistically difficult and incredibly dangerous to take out your work-boots by personally visiting Darfur, however, there are other ways to get actively involved with ending genocide. I recently spoke with Dan Feldman, a former Assemblyman of New York who informed me that in his opinion, the most powerful way to enact change is to personally visit your elected officials. He basically said that online petitions barely influence decisions because they are so easy to sign that they don’t indicate any true commitment to the cause.

I believe that consumer activism is a shallow solution to deeper problems that require our full attention. While it is important to monetarily support the issues we care about, we mustn’t feel complacent after purchasing a leather jacket, even if it dons the label “Not on Our Watch.”

Just yesterday, the U.S. reported that the Sudanese government has resumed bombing civilian targets in Darfur. This sort of widespread government-sponsored terror is not going to end with buying a T-Shirt from the comfort of our computers. Unfortunately, ending genocide is not as “instant” as our credit-card transactions.
—Sophie Glass

The Lilith Blog

July 13, 2007 by admin

The Silver Lining in the Katsav Cloud

So the verdict, er, that is, the plea bargain, is in. Israel’s now-former president Moshe Katsav, who faced rape charges that could have put him in prison for up to 20 years, has struck a deal, pleading guilty to lesser sexual harassment offenses in exchange for a suspended sentence and having to pay fees to two of the four women—all former employees—who have accused him of sexual abuse. Israelis are up in arms.
But that is a good thing. So say those who want to put a positive spin on the situation.

First, some really good news. As reported by Haaretz, the scandal has raised awareness, and a willingness to talk about, sexual harassment and abuse among Arab women:

The number of Arab women seeking assistance in dealing with sexual assault has risen as a direct result of the intensive media coverage of former president Moshe Katsav’s case, according to the Nazareth-based organization Women against Violence.

A definite, tangible benefit from an otherwise alarming situation.

But more idealistically, the fact that Israelis—not just women but as MK Shelly Yacimovich put it, perhaps hyperbolically, “an entire consensus of the entire public in Israel” [Ynet]—are so upset by the injustice of the deal shows that Israeli society is no longer tolerant, as it traditionally has been, of the philandering of powerful men and their abuse of women.

The same could be said of the recent uproar amongst female politicians in Israel over the Israeli Consul General in New York’s coordinating a photo spread of “Women of the Israeli Defense Forces” in the soft-porn men’s magazine Maxim, featuring hot bikini-clad (and just barely) Israeli women, as a publicity stunt to attract men aged 18-40 to Israel. The fact that women in Israeli put up a fight rather than turning a blind eye or shrugging their shoulders shows that such treatment of women will not be tolerated anymore and that feminist acitivism is alive and well in Israel.

As Education Minister Yuli Tamir said at a rally protesting the as-then impending plea bargain, “Perhaps this is the moment when all of us must tell the Israeli public—enough is enough. Women shall not be hurt, their dignity shall not be humiliated—not through acts, not through touching and not through kisses.”

But the outcry against the Katsav deal is about more than feminism and the women who were wronged. It’s also about injustice in the truest sense, that Katsav did not get his day in court. While Attorney General Menachem Mazuz has given his reasons for the decision not to try Katsav—the most valid being that he did not think the evidence would hold up and that Katsav would thus not be found guilty of the more severe charges—the Israeli people are effectively calling those reasons bullshit.

It seems like more than wanting to see Katsav hanged, they want to see him dragged through the wringer of a trial, to have him go through the system like any other criminal and let the courts decide. As one plaintiff’s attorney, Kinneret Barashti, said at the aforementioned rally, “I am pleased to see that everyone understands that this is not one person’s specific problem, but that this is a democratic state. . . . The case should have been transferred to the court.” [Ynet]

Jerusalem Post columnist Amotz Asa-El picks up on this aspect of the situation, though he comes to it from a different angle. Recalling the way in which Katsav won the presidency against Shimon Peres seven years ago through what he calls “a grand haredi lie,” Asa-El sees Katsav’s fall as a fitting correction to his rise, and a sign of the healthiness of Israeli democracy:

And yet, disgraceful as all this clearly is, and bruising though it is for the Zionist enterprise, it nonetheless survives it. For at the end of the day, the Jewish state—through its media, legal system and non-governmental organizations—has detected an ailment in one of its limbs and treated it.

He turns this scandal into an opportunity for the Israeli public to oust the corrupt forces who put the corrupt Katsav into power in the first place, asking “And if they remained indifferent to Katsav’s abuses of his secretaries, how will they treat other people’s daily abuse by pushers, pimps, loan sharks, bookies, bureaucrats, regulators, inspectors and cops?”

A good question. But if the reaction to the outcome of the Katsav case—the outrage and the willingness to recognize and produce the positive from within it—is any indication, the Israeli public will have a thing or two to say and do about that.

—Rebecca Honig Friedman

The Lilith Blog

July 11, 2007 by admin

Women and Dough

“For three transgressions women die in childbirth: for being careless regarding [the laws of] menstruation, the tithe from dough, and kindling the [Sabbath and festival] light.”– Bameh Madlikin / Mishnah Six

I do not personally feel bound to the traditional understanding of challah as a woman’s commandment. It bucks against my general inclination towards egalitarianism, and it also seems wildly superstitious to blame death in childbirth on neglecting to tithe a small piece of dough.

That said, I do feel connected to a community of Jewish women who, over centuries and changing contexts, so lovingly and carefully followed the commandment of making challah each week. I love the softness of swollen dough between my floured fingers. I love punching it down on Friday afternoon and releasing a heady mixture of yeast and sugar into my kitchen. I love braiding the stretchy strands and pulling two egg-browned loaves from the oven. I love that first fragrant breath of Shabbat. Throughout this process I merge with these women. I intuit the way they worked their weekly frustrations out in the dough, braided their secrets into its folds, and infused it with the sweetness of their wishes.

So although I purchase pre-baked challah more often than I make it, and cheer when my friend Avi brings his beautiful, seeded challot to a Shabbat potluck, I think Challah continues to be a binding force for women across Jewish tradition – as rich and complex as the dough itself.

–Leah Koenig

The Lilith Blog

July 10, 2007 by admin

The Four Questions About Genocide in Darfur

Asking questions is a core tenet of Judaism. “The Four Questions” during Passover is just one example of how Jews question and analyze our traditions and the world. The genocide in Darfur is not a straightforward situation and the news often glosses over explanatory details, leaving concerned individuals confused and overwhelmed. Let’s try to clarify this complex crisis in Darfur by answering four of the most common questions I hear regarding the genocide taking place in Darfur.

Is it really a genocide?

In 2004, the United States officially declared that the “conflict” in Darfur was a genocide because the situation met the criteria outlined by the Geneva Convention in 1951. Former Secretary of State Colin Powell said, “Killings, rapes, burning of villages committed by Janjaweed [militias] and government forces against non-Arab villagers… [were] a coordinated effort, not just random violence.” He then said, “genocide has occurred and may still be occurring in Darfur.” Unfortunately, the United States has not followed up its bold proclamation with bold action.

Despite the abounding evidence and the US declaration of genocide, The United Nations has concluded that genocide is not taking place in Darfur. The UN admitted that the Janjaweed were carrying out “war crimes” against the civilians of Darfur, and some individuals might have “genocidal intent;” nevertheless, the UN has ruled that the central government of Sudan is not guilty of intentionally carrying out genocide. If the UN officially proclaims that genocide is occurring, they are legally bound by the Geneva Convention to intervene. This mandated intervention, along with economic interests in Sudan, are some of the factors deterring the UN from calling the situation by what I believe to be its rightful name: genocide.

How Many People Have Died?

The real answer is that nobody knows. The New York Times lists the number of civilian deaths at 200,000 and the Washington Post estimates 180,000, while the Save Darfur Coalition calculates total deaths at 400,000. Because of the severe lack of security, there are practically no fact-finding missions or humanitarian aid groups able to survey the population. With scarce investigative teams and a limited NGO presence, countless Darfurians are dying without a trace.

Who are the rebels?

The rebels refer to the groups in Darfur that are fighting the Government of Sudan. Two of these groups, The Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) led an uprising in 2003 against the Government of Sudan (this uprising led to the Government’s genocidal retaliation). The rebels’ objectives range from completely seceding Darfur from Sudan, to gaining increased political representation and power within the central government. Excluding a brief unity in 2006, the rebel groups are divided into countless factions and are unable to form a strong front to stand up to the Government of Sudan.

What can I do to help?

Use your own strengths to be an advocate for the people of Darfur. For example, you can create photo exhibits to educate others, write personalized letters and make phone calls to your members of Congress, create a short video for Darfur or organize a fundraiser. For more specific ideas, visit the genocide intervention website.

–Sophie Glass

The Lilith Blog

July 5, 2007 by admin

New Data on Agunot Challenge the Cause, But Numbers Are Beside the Point

Israel’s Rabbinic courts released data last Tuesday that contradict the claims of groups who fight for the cause of agunot [women “chained” to men who won’t grant them a Jewish divorce].
The Jerusalem Post reports that, according to the courts, “at the end of 2006 there were only 180 women in Israel who could not divorce because their husbands refused to cooperate in cutting matrimonial ties” and that only 69 of them were officially “considered agunot by the courts”:

Agunot were defined as women whose husbands stubbornly refused to cooperate even after various sanctions had been taken against them by the rabbinic courts, including suspension of drivers’ licenses, prison sentences or restraining orders. Or women whose husbands had ran away to a foreign country.

But groups fighting for the rights of agunot define the term much more broadly, including women who have obtained Jewish divorces by “forfeiting some of their basic rights, such as alimony, child support or child custody” and “women who want a divorce but who have despaired of the rabbinic courts because the judges are considered partial to the husband.” This definition, they claim, puts the number closer to as many as 100,000 agunot worldwide.

Another important, and perhaps even more surprising, part of the court’s data is that there are 190 “chained men” (versus the 180 chained women) whose wives are holding up divorce proceedings, refusing to agree to a get. We’ll come back to that in a moment, but it needs to be noted that the strength of a chained man’s bonds is less than a chained woman’s, since her chains come from the Torah and his from a rabbinic addendum to halacha. As the JPost article explains, while neither chained woman or chained man is permitted to remarry without obtaining a get, if a woman has a child through an extra-marital relationship, that child is considered a mamzer [bastard], but if a man does the same the child is not a mamzer and will enjoy the same rights and status as any fully recognized Jewish person. So the relevance of the larger number of chained men than women is questionable.

We can argue endlessly about the numbers, what they really mean and how they are collected — and note that the 100,000 is a broad estimate of agunot worldwide and 180 a narrow count of “chained women” in Israel alone — but numbers are not the issue here, people are.

In principle, do 69 agunot matter any less than 100,000 do?
Should any less be done to fight for the rights of those 69 women than is currently being done?

The rabbinic court would have us saying, yes, less should be done. Because far more significant than any numerical data is the dismissive tone in which the courts’ “administrative head,” Rabbi Eliyahu Ben-Dahan, delivered the news:

“Women’s organizations who fight for agunot’s rights present baseless claims that they have no intention or desire to prove,” said Ben-Dahan. “I challenge them to bring proof that there are even a tenth of the numbers of agunot that they claim there are.”

Ben-Dahan could not have stated his purpose more clearly: this report was presented in order to stick it to feminist activists, to make them look stupid by undermining the claims on which their activism is based.

And in a sense, who can blame him? Agunah rights groups have certainly done their share of attacking the beit-din, accusing rabbinic judges of favoring men in divorce proceedings. Ben-Dahan is just trying to defend the courts against these attacks.

Yet his disdain for “women’s organizations who fight for agunot’s rights” reveals a much more problematic disdain for those very rights, and the plight, of agunot. Revealing that there are only 69 agunot does not make those 69 chained women feel any more hopeful about their situation.

Getting back to the plight of “chained men,” while the data may (may) show the rabbis to be less prejudiced in favor of husbands (without knowing the details of the cases we really can’t say), this revelation points to another problem: the courts are indeed failing to resolving divorce proceedings. Not only are 180 women stuck in frozen divorce proceedings, so are 190 men! That is not a victory to gloat over — it’s an admission of failure.

Israel’s rabbinic court would do well to introspect and try to fix its fast-tarnishing reputation by judging more compassionately and effectively, rather than going on the defensive and lashing out in the face of public criticism. The people whose lives it affects so profoundly, and whom it is supposed to treat justly, would certainly benefit.

–Rebecca Honig Friedman

The Lilith Blog

July 3, 2007 by admin

The Anti-Feminist Diet?

As a sustainably-conscious foodie, I’ve recently come across a lot of press about “The Localvore Challenge”. The basic gist of the challenge is: wherever you live, attempt to only eat foods that are grown within 100 miles of your home. Food enthusiasts and novices across the country are taking part in this challenge—most notably amongst the bunch is Barbara Kingsolver, who chronicled her family’s year-long localvore experiment in her book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.

Localvores rightfully point to heavily-processed and packaged, calorie-heavy convenience foods as the root of many social problems:

• Obesity, diabetes, and heart disease
• Americans’ obsession with grabbing food “on the go” instead of sharing meals with friends and family
• The dismal connection most Americans have with where their food comes from.
• The erosion and destruction of farm land through industrial agriculture, and the disappearance of small family farms

Eating locally is a beautiful way to eat healthily and also reconnect to the sources of our food and the people growing them. Jewish tradition also has something to say about being intimately tied to the source of our food:

Rabbi Achia ben Yeshaya said: One who purchases grain in the marketplace—to what may such a person be likened? To an infant whose mother died, and they pass him from door to door among wetnurses and [still] the baby is not satisfied. One who buys bread in the marketplace—to what may such a person be likened? It is as if he is dead and buried. But one who eats from his own (what one has grown himself), is like an infant raised at his mother’s breasts.— Avot de Rabbi Natan 31:1

Along with the press and acclaim, the Localvore Challenge has also received its fair share of skeptics. Sure, eating locally is possible – and even a treat – in most places during the fertile summer months when local produce is widely available at farm stands, farmers markets, and through community-supported agriculture projects. But how does someone living outside of California find fresh vegetables during the winter months without having it trucked in from warmer climates? And doesn’t this whole localvore thing assume that the consumer has enough expendable cash to pay a premium for locally-grown veggies?

(more…)

The Lilith Blog

July 2, 2007 by admin

Responding to Rape in Darfur

To state it crudely, rape is the “trademark” of the current genocide in Darfur, the western region of Sudan. Genocide historians have remarked that although sexual violence has been a brutal component of past genocides, the scope and magnitude of rape in Darfur is unparalleled. Pamela Shifman, a U.N. expert on sexual exploitation, commented that rape is being used to “terrorize individual women and girls…to terrorize their families and to terrorize entire communities. No woman or girl is safe.”

The majority of the sexual assaulters are part of the Janjawid militia, a tribe that the Sudanese government has enlisted to carry out the genocide. A Darfurian refugee from Mukjar confessed, “When we tried to escape they shot more children. They raped women; I saw many cases of Janjawid raping women and girls. They are happy when they rape. They sing when they rape and they tell that we are just slaves and that they can do with us how they wish.” In addition to frequently contracting HIV/AIDS and experiencing reproductive complications, women also endure societal ostracism after being raped.

It is clear that we must take action against sexual violence in Darfur. However, what sort of action will truly be effective and not just guilt-alleviation for those of us who are aware of the situation?

I believe that the most powerful solutions are the innovative ones that look beyond the problem itself and find solutions in unexpected ways. Solar Cookers Internationals is an organization that has creatively responded to this crisis by working with Jewish World Watch and the KoZon Foundation (a Dutch charity) to disseminate solar cookers to the Darfurian refugees living in Iridimi and Touloum refugee camps in Chad. With solar cookers, women and girls no longer need to leave the refugee camp to go out foraging for wood. The task of collecting firewood is physically exhausting, environmentally damaging, time-consuming and extremely dangerous. When women leave their refugee camp they face a high risk of being gang raped by the Janjawid and men risk murder. However, after completing a training workshop, Darfurian women and girls can acquire their own solar cookers to safely sterilize water and cook food without stepping foot outside the refugee camp, where the Janjawid and Sudanese soldiers roam and plan their next attack.

To ensure security for the 2.5 million Darfurian refugees, they ultimately need a robust international peacekeeping force. According to a recent agreement, the United Nations is planning on working with the African Union to provide a “hybrid” security force in Darfur. However, it is unclear when the United Nations troops will actually be deployed and the African Union is too under-funded and understaffed to deal with the crisis alone.

In the murky waters of failed international interventions, we must rely on the compassion, creativity and goodwill of individual groups. Thankfully, organizations such as Solar Cookers International have confronted the issue of sexual violence through their innovative solar cooker initiative, which has ensured that at least the women of Iridimi and Touloum refugee camps do not have to risk being raped merely to cook dinner.

–Sophie Glass

The Lilith Blog

June 29, 2007 by admin

Jew to Jewess: I've Got My Eye on You

When I started writing about women and Jewish life for the Jewess blog, I was really excited about the opportunity to create discussion about women’s issues in a Jewish context and to celebrate women’s contributions to the Jewish community and the world at large. I did not expect that some of my most avid and most vocal readers would be men.

On the one hand I certainly welcome male readers and find their interest flattering (the remnants of adolescence where any male attention is coveted, though, for the record I am very happily married). But on the other hand, I’m puzzled. Here I am working hard to create this forum for discussion by and about women in Judaism, and men are the ones who seem most interested in doing the discussing.

I have come, however, to realize and appreciate the significance of this phenomenon: Jewish men realize what Jewish women might not yet, that we are driving the future of Judaism.

On every front, women are keeping Judaism vibrant and moving it forward. In Reform institutions, women and girls are predominating so much that some have declared a “boy crisis” in the movement (see the last issue of 614: an HBI eZine); in the Conservative movement, women are playing more of an active role than ever in synagogue life and lay leadership; and no group has made more waves for progressive change in Orthodox Judaism than the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance (JOFA) and its supporters.

In Israel, Jewish women are at the forefront of the peace movement, building bridges with Palestinian women through groups like the Coalition of Women for a Just Peace, Bat Shalom and OneVoice, to name a few.

Even in the secular American world, Jewish women’s groups like the National Council for Jewish Women and Hadassah are on the forefront of the fight for reproductive rights (NCJW’s Plan A campaign for contraceptive use), stem-cell research (Haddassah led the lobby for recent bill that passed the House), and an end to hate (NCJW co-chairs the Hate Crimes Task Force), and others.

I would go so far as to argue that women are the driving force behind the increasing insularity and restrictiveness in the ultra-Orthodox world, though passively so. Recent restrictions imposed by the halachic arbiter Rav Yosef Sholom Elyashiv have been targeted particularly at women—banning them from pursuing higher education and imposing a modesty hashgacha on women’s clothing—and reflect an extreme fear that haredi women will be influenced by the freedom and status that women have gained in the secular, and even in the modern Orthodox, world. Unfortunately these ultra-Orthodox women are bearing the brunt of the reaction to the progress the rest of us are making.

But back to men. Whether they are our allies in these progressive fights—cheering us from the sidelines or fighting alongside us—or our adversaries—trying to reign us in or show us the errors of our ways—they realize that we are stirring things up, not to mention raising the next generation of Jews, and they know they’d better keep an eye on us.

—Rebecca Honig Friedman

The Lilith Blog

June 26, 2007 by admin

Dinner and a Revolution

The first time I saw Judy Chicago’s The Dinner Party was not at the Brooklyn Museum, where it is currently a featured exhibit, but on spring break at the New Orleans Museum of Art.  I was a freshman in college in the process of shedding the sheltered, suburban skin I’d developed throughout childhood and hungrily trying on new modes of existence.  I was excited to be alive-excited to be a vegetarian, excited to vote for Gore…or Nader, excited to protest against environmental injustices, and excited to be in an unknown city, with my new college boyfriend, on what felt like my first adult vacation. 

I stumbled upon The Dinner Party while wandering around the museum that afternoon in New Orleans.  Tucked into a wing of Chicago’s other work, I found a large triangular table covered with 39 ornately designed plates, each set with a napkin, goblet, and silverware, in honor of a famous historical or mythical woman.  The room was darkly lit-sacred and cathedral-like-with single spotlights beaming onto each renowned woman’s plate.  Walking the perimeter, I saw pre-historical goddesses and biblical figures like Ishtar and Judith mingling with Common Era heroines like St. Bridget, and more contemporary revolutionaries like Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony, and Georgia O’Keeffe.

At that point in my life, I didn’t yet know how to cook (let alone have any idea that food and cooking would become such an important part of my life), and had never thrown my own dinner party.  But as I walked around the place settings-wishing I could run my finger along the edges of the plates and peek inside the chalice-style goblets-I could sense a sort of electric power emanating out of the table.  I felt the shadows of these women around the table, sharing their stories of hardship and struggle, quietly murmuring consoling words to another over lost loves, and crying out with delight over triumphs.  Their stories were all their own and also part of a shared history.  And although I probably couldn’t have articulated it standing in that museum room six years ago, I somehow knew that all of their stories were mine as well.

Chicago has said that The Dinner Party (which was created in the five year span of 1974-1979) was “meant to end the ongoing cycle of omission in which women were written out of the historical record.”  But I think it does something more than that.  In choosing to create a dinner party as the vehicle for honoring these historical heroines, Chicago turned the notion of dinner as “women’s work” on its head.  She also, though less explicitly, confirmed the role of the dinner table in revolutionary work.  Dinner tables are the place, Chicago seems to say, where bread is broken together and community solidified.  And it is only after the community is strong that the seedlings of so many world-changing revolutions can be sown.  There is a line in the Talmud that says, “…[I]f there is no flour, there is no Torah…” which inextricably links nourishment, study, and life.   Chicago’s Dinner Party seems to extend this idea to say, “If there is no dinner, there is no revolution.”

I haven’t yet visited The Dinner Party exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum, and I’m curious how I will feel when I do (besides having the urge to throw a serious dinner party of my own!).  I’m no longer a freshman in college or struggling to piece together my independent identity.  I’m still excited by the world around me, but do not walk through it with the same wide-eyed intensity.  And to be honest, I am far less of a “revolutionary,” in the traditional activist sense, than I fancied myself six years ago. But I look forward to stepping once more into Chicago’s Dinner Party – I will reintroduce myself to these amazing women, and raise a glass to the future.

–Leah Koenig

The Lilith Blog

June 25, 2007 by admin

Training Our Instincts Toward More Distant Compassion

Ideally, we would have infinite hours in a day to tikkun olam, help repair the world. In reality, the amount of time we set aside for this mitzvah is limited. This begs the question: where should we direct our good intentions with the finite time and energy we have? Should we focus on our local community and the people we understand? Some argue that the more personal your connection to a person, the deeper your empathy and the greater your motivation to assist him or her. Another opinion is that we should direct our attention to the most clamant situations, irrespective of their geographic or relational distance.

For the past three years, since before I began college, I have been actively involved in STAND, a student movement that works to end the ongoing genocide in Darfur, Sudan. I have attended conferences and spearheaded my school’s chapter of STAND. At first glance, my efforts are directed towards the most dire situations (genocide), as opposed to the most immediate, local causes (hunger and homelessness in NY, immigration issues etc).

But if you take a second look, my Darfur related activism includes personal connections. To see the people of Darfur as the faraway “others” with no connection to my life would be denying several important bonds that we share. For instance, my family history includes my grandparents’ escape from the Holocaust. This painful and personal legacy of genocide ties me to Darfurians, who are currently enduring genocide. I imagine that the grandchildren of those who survive the genocide in Darfur will recall their ancestor’s stories, just as I, a third-generation survivor of the Holocaust, can recount my grandparents’ memories of surviving.

Additionally, my female identity ties me to the women of Darfur. The women of Darfur endure, and often die as a result of, sexual assault inflicted by the janjaweed militia and the Sudanese army. I have never experienced anything similar to the gruesome and horrific sexual abuse that these women have (baruch hashem). However, even in the United States I know that I am at risk for sexual assault and abuse. I never walk home alone in the dark and have learned how to spot and avoid sexually aggressive men. Living in this world as a woman is not entirely safe yet, and my fight to protect my body is intimately related to my fight to protect the women of Darfur.

These examples illustrate how even though I have never met a person from Darfur, nor have I had the opportunity to travel to Sudan I still feel that there are tangible links between my life and the life of a Darfurian. I believe the real challenge is not to choose whether to be a community activist addressing local issues or a “neediest cases” activist, often acting on behalf of people you have never met. The more important struggle is to turn these seemingly distant and harrowing crises into personal issues. The power of the media and our access to information allows us to see our own reflections in the faces of others, though they live thousands of miles away and speak foreign languages. With our limited energy, I believe that we must address the neediest cases with the compassion and attention to complexity that we instinctively grant to our neighbors.

–Sophie Glass