The holiday of Yom Kippur offers a time for reflection, a time to see ourselves as inextricable from a larger community, sharing responsibility not only for our own lives, but also those of others.
I think of the concept of shared responsibility often in our work at Jewish World Watch — not in the promises we make to a deity on high, but rather as the foundation for our response to people who cry out for help, usually people who believe they will never be heard.
In your hearts and in your deeds, the community of Jewish World Watch proves daily that you feel responsible to offer solace and aid to the survivors of genocide and mass atrocities living in refugee camps a world away from our comfortable lives in the United States — people who could never imagine the violence committed against them might feel to us as if it were to our own extended family. Jewish World Watch was founded 14 years ago on the mandate to do what we can to help rebuild those lives, to support resilience among people who have been persecuted simply for being born who they are.
Together we stand up for the Rohingya of Myanmar, nearly a million of whom fled genocide over just the past year and now find themselves facing monsoons in makeshift refugee camps in impoverished Bangladesh. We offer sustenance to the Darfuris of Sudan, who have survived for 14 years in camps in Chad, unable to return home and without enough food to amply feed their families. We give lifesaving support to the people of South Sudan who’ve fled ethnic warfare and are camped in settlements in Uganda, and to the Syrian doctors who in the midst of civil war we are providing essential medical supplies to help them care for the wounded and ill. We also continue to offer essential rehabilitative aid to survivors of sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and to young boys there who were once child soldiers and now want only to get an education and reintegrate into their communities.
We can say, “We are here for you” in concert with all of you, because you have been so generous in your support of Jewish World Watch. You are at the heart of our advocacy and education programs and you have funded our many amazing projects that offer hope to survivors. You show up, you give and your generosity tells the world’s most vulnerable people today, and every day, that we will do what we can to make a difference.
Today, as we approach Yom Kippur, the Holy Jewish Day of Atonement, I send my profound gratitude to all of you for sustaining Jewish World Watch, this amazing organization, in so many ways.
Thank you for your many gifts, and thank you for being a part of a community that reaches around the world.
May the coming year be a sweet one, and for those who are observing the holiday, may your fast be easy and meaningful.
Susan Freudenheim
Jewish World Watch Executive Director