by Ari Averbach, student of the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies We struggle with the idea of “chosenness”. What does it mean that God chose us? Are we better or more worthy than other nations? Rabbi Mordechai Kaplan sought to reconstruct Judaism by (among other ideas) removing the pillar of chosenness. The movement that followed…
by Annie Turnbull (Cord Africa Programmes Operations Manager) We arrived in Farchana in Eastern Chad just a couple of days ago to visit projects funded by Jewish World Watch and implemented by Cord. Jewish World Watch first established a Solar Cooker Project in Chad in 2005, expanding their support for this work further when they…
Janice Kamenir-Reznik December 7, 2012 Today we visited the Farchana refugee camp. The camp is located in the remote and isolated Chadian village of Farchana not far from the border with Sudan. We have come to witness the latest installation of our JWW Solar Cooker Project in the Farchana Refugee Camp, to meet with our…
It sounds self-evident and maybe even trite to assert that aid workers are extraordinary human beings, but it is true. Today we spent the day in Ndjamena meeting with various members of our Solar Cooker Project (SCP) teams in preparation for our journey tomorrow to the refugee camp. The people on the teams come from…
by Gregory Metzger One day Dinah, Yaakov’s only daughter, goes out to ‘visit the daughters of the land,’ and is seized and raped by Shechem, son of Hamor, the chief of that land. Yaakov hears of the rape but keeps silent until his sons are back from the field. Hamor pleads that Shechem longs for…
On Saturday, an oil tanker exploded in Sange, a town just south of Bukavu in the South Kivu province of Eastern Congo. The BBC reports that 230 were killed — at least 60 were children. Nearly 200 others were injured, some burned severely. The situation is devastating: Many were killed in the fire that ensued,…
I returned home less than 40 hours ago. Images of Congo are still fresh in my mind: the children slaving in the Bunia goldmine, the rape victim who told us how her captors held her down in the field by driving a stake through her foot. I am driving to Wildwood school to report on our trip and our work. I am still jetlagged; still, in many ways, dazed from the dramatic contrast between my life and theirs. The images in my mind dance back and forth between the various people we met and the stories they told us. […]
It is ironic that one week ago I was standing at a gold mine in the very dangerous, remote Orientale Province in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Ironic because today I am chaperoning my daughter’s 4th grade trip to Sacramento, our state capital, to learn about the history of our state, including the history of…
In the capacity of translator, I happened to be invited by the Jewish World Watch team on mission trip to Congo from 2nd to 12th November 2009. Though I am living in Rwanda now, I am an Eastern Congolese by birth, member of the Banyamulenge (ethnic Tutsi) community established in South Kivu with Bukavu as…
Greetings JWW blog readers. My name is Mike Ramsdell. I have had the privilege of capturing this “Congo journey” in still and moving images. I am pleased that Janice has asked me write a guest blog for two reasons. The first is so I may shamelessly plug my most recent film — THE ANATOMY OF…