American Jewish World Service

Last updated
American Jewish World Service
AbbreviationAJWS
FoundedMay 1, 1985;38 years ago (1985-05-01)
FoundersLarry Phillips,
Larry Simon
Founded at Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
Type 501(c)(3) [1]
22-2584370 [2]
Legal status Nonprofit organization
PurposeTo fight poverty and pursue justice in the developing world. [2]
Headquarters New York, New York, U.S.
Coordinates 40°45′02″N73°59′08″W / 40.750656°N 73.985623°W / 40.750656; -73.985623
Robert Bank [3]
Revenue (2018)
$64,741,672 [2]
Expenses (2018)$52,454,406 [2]
Employees (2017)
128 [2]
Volunteers (2017)
30 [2]
Website ajws.org

American Jewish World Service (AJWS) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit international development and human rights organization that supports community-based organizations in 19 countries in the developing world and works to educate the American Jewish community about global justice. [1] [4] It is the first and only Jewish organization dedicated solely to ending poverty and promoting human rights in the developing world. Its headquarters are in New York City. [5] AJWS has received a Four Star rating from Charity Navigator since 2002. [6]

Contents

Mission

Inspired by the Jewish commitment to justice, American Jewish World Service works to realize human rights and end poverty in the developing world.

Strategy

AJWS has a two-pronged strategy: It provides over $38 million annually to more than 450 social justice organizations in 19 countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean, and they advocate for laws and policies in the United States that will improve the lives of people around the world.

AJWS's international grantmaking and U.S. advocacy focus on five central issues: civil and political rights, land, water and climate justice, sexual health and rights, ending child marriage, and disaster relief. [7]

Grantmaking

AJWS's grant-making is guided by the beliefs that grassroots organizations are best placed to envision, articulate and implement their own plans for the development of their communities, and that community development cannot take place when human rights are denied. In addition, AJWS believes women are critical drivers of community development and change, and that marginalized communities that are vulnerable to poverty and human rights violations are powerful agents of change and development when mobilized from within.

Advocacy

AJWS works to promote awareness and influence U.S. international policies and funding in relation to human rights, global health and poverty, by rallying members of the community to advocate for policies that will improve the lives of millions of people in the developing world.

AJWS's current advocacy priorities include retaining the centrality of human rights within U.S. foreign policy through funding, diplomacy and policy. This includes supporting the HER Act, [8] which would legislatively repeal the Mexico City Policy, the Burma Human Rights and Freedom Act, [9] which would sanction human rights violators in Burma, and working to stop, delay and mitigate new policies that undermine human rights abroad. Internationally, AJWS works to increase the quality and quantity of funds supporting grassroots groups so that said funds are flexible, longstanding and feminist in their approaches.

History

AJWS was established in Boston, Massachusetts, on May 1, 1985, when Larry Phillips and Larry Simon, together with a group of rabbis, Jewish communal leaders, activists, business people, scholars and others, came together to create the first American Jewish organization dedicated to alleviating poverty, hunger, and disease among people across the globe. [5]

In her book, If I Am Not For Myself: The Liberal Betrayal of the Jews , Ruth Wisse argues that AJWS is one of a group of left-of-center Jewish organizations and publications founded in the 1980s without explaining why a new, specifically Jewish organization was needed to address causes already being addressed by well-established, American charities to which many Jewish were already contributors. Wisse argues that the actual motivation was a need felt by highly educated Jews to counter rising antisemitism on the left by performative acts of "public avowals of kindliness and liberalism. " [10]

The organization's first key achievement was its response to a volcano disaster in Armaro, Colombia, in 1986. In 1990, after moving headquarters to New York City, AJWS launched five new international development projects in Mexico, Honduras, and Haiti, which provided training programs in sustainable agriculture. [5] In 1991, then AJWS President Andrew Griffel was elected to the Executive Committee of InterAction, a consortium of over a hundred international humanitarian organizations.

Shortly after the September 11th attacks, AJWS responded by receiving donations and making grants to groups that provide support to families of low-income workers. In 2004, AJWS responded to the Indian Ocean tsunami, and co-founded the Save Darfur Coalition. In 2006, AJWS helped organize a rally in Washington, D.C., against genocide, [11] and has since conducted a series of other rallies throughout the country. [12] In 2010, AJWS responded to the earthquake in Haiti, raising nearly $6 million for Haitian-led recovery efforts, and in 2011 launched Reverse Hunger: Ending the Global Food Crisis, a campaign to reform U.S. food aid policy. In 2013, AJWS launched the “We Believe” campaign, a national advocacy campaign that called on the U.S. government to promote human rights in the developing world by ending violence against women and girls, stopping hate crimes against LGBT people, and ending child marriage. In recent years, AJWS has responded to the East Africa hunger crisis and the Rohingya refugee crisis by providing immediate humanitarian aid and long-term, sustainable support to affected populations. [13] [14]

Leadership

AJWS's current president and chief executive officer is Robert Bank. [15] Bank has spent his career championing human rights as an attorney, activist and leader. He joined AJWS as executive vice president in 2009, and he had previously served in New York's municipal government and in the leadership of GMHC—one of the world's leading organizations combating HIV/AIDS. Robert has been honored with GMHC's Lifetime Achievement Award and the Partners in Justice Award from AVODAH: The Jewish Service Corps. [16] Bank became president and chief executive officer in July 2016, succeeding Ruth Messinger, who presided over the organization for 18 years.

Ruth Messinger was formerly Manhattan Borough President and the Democratic nominee for Mayor of New York City in 1997. In late 2005, The Forward named Messinger in its annual "Forward 50" list of the most influential American Jews. [17] Messinger returned to the Forward 50 in 2009, also the year she was invited to the White House to discuss the crisis in Darfur with President Barack Obama. Currently, she sits on the United States State Department's Religion and Foreign Policy Working Group and co-chairs the Sub-Working Group on Social Justice.

Impact

AJWS provides over $38 million annually to 450 social justice organizations in 19 countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, to address some of the gravest global problems, including genocide, AIDS, violence against women and girls, hatred of LGBT people, and consequences of natural and human-made disasters. [5] Since its founding, AJWS has provided more than $360 million to support thousands of social justice organizations in the developing world that have taken on such challenges. [5]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Extreme poverty</span> Condition characterized by severe deprivation of basic human needs

Extreme poverty is the most severe type of poverty, defined by the United Nations (UN) as "a condition characterized by severe deprivation of basic human needs, including food, safe drinking water, sanitation facilities, health, shelter, education and information. It depends not only on income but also on access to services". Historically, other definitions have been proposed within the United Nations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jewish Council for Public Affairs</span> Nonprofit organization

The Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA) is an American Jewish nonprofit organization that advocates for progressive and liberal policies. Founded in 1944 as the umbrella organization for local Jewish advocacy arms known as community relations councils, for almost 80 years it represented approximately 125 local Jewish federations and community relations councils and was the coordinating body for 15 national Jewish organizations.

The National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA, usually identified as the National Council of Churches (NCC), is the largest ecumenical body in the United States. NCC is an ecumenical partnership of 38 Christian faith groups in the United States. Its member communions include mainline Protestant, Eastern Orthodox, African-American, evangelical, and historic peace churches. Together, it encompasses more than 100,000 local congregations and 40 million adherents. It began as the Federal Council of Churches in 1908, and expanded through merger with several other ecumenical organizations to become the National Council of Churches in 1950. Its Interim President and General Secretary is Bishop Vashti Murphy McKenzie.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">GMHC</span> New York City–based non-profit AIDS service organization

The GMHC is a New York City–based non-profit, volunteer-supported and community-based AIDS service organization whose mission statement is to "end the AIDS epidemic and uplift the lives of all affected." Founded in 1982, it is often billed as the "world's oldest AIDS service organization," as well as the "nation's oldest HIV/AIDS service organization."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee</span> Relief organization in New York City

American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, also known as Joint or JDC, is a Jewish relief organization based in New York City. Since 1914 the organisation has supported Jewish people living in Israel and throughout the world. The organization is active in more than 70 countries.

Canadian Jews, whether by culture, ethnicity, or religion, form the fourth largest Jewish community in the world, exceeded only by those in Israel, the United States and France. As of 2021, Statistics Canada listed 335,295 Jews in Canada. This total would account for approximately 1.4% of the Canadian population.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ruth Messinger</span> American politician

Ruth Wyler Messinger is a former American political leader in New York City and a member of the Democratic Party. She was the Democratic nominee for Mayor of New York City in 1997, losing to incumbent mayor Rudy Giuliani.

New Jewish Agenda (NJA) was a multi-issue membership organization active in the United States between 1980 and 1992 and made up of about 50 local chapters. NJA's slogan was "a Jewish voice among progressives and a progressive voice among Jews." New Jewish Agenda demonstrated commitment to participatory (grassroots) democracy and civil rights for all people, especially those marginalized within the mainstream Jewish community. NJA was most controversial for its stances on the rights of Palestinians and Lesbian and Gay Jews.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism</span>

The Religious Action Center (RAC) is the political and legislative outreach arm of Reform Judaism in the United States. The Religious Action Center is operated under the auspices of the Commission on Social Action of Reform Judaism, a joint body of the Central Conference of American Rabbis and the Union for Reform Judaism. It was founded in 1961.

CCJO René Cassin – more commonly known as René Cassin – is a charitable human rights NGO that works to promote and protect universal human rights, drawing on Jewish experiences and values. The organisation does this by campaigning for change in defined human rights areas through a combination of advocacy, policy analysis, public campaigning and education and building the capacity of activists and lawyers to promote and protect human rights. The organisation works in human rights areas that bear some relation to Jewish experience, such as discrimination, asylum, and genocide. The organisation holds special consultative status with the United Nations as a constituent organisation of the Consultative Council of Jewish Organisation (CCJO). The CCJO's first President was René Cassin, a principal drafter of the UN Declaration of Human Rights, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1968 in recognition of his work for human rights as a jurist, academic and statesman. The CCJO has been an active supporter of efforts to increase the effectiveness of the UN's human rights treaties and institutional mechanisms in the intervening decades. From the 1940s to the 1970s it was involved in the creation of the United Nations human rights instruments, which form the basis of the UN's human rights activities today.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Save Darfur Coalition</span> Advocacy group based in Washington, D.C.

The Save Darfur Coalition was an advocacy group that called "to raise public awareness and mobilize a massive response to the atrocities in Sudan's western region of Darfur." Headquartered in Washington, D.C., it was a coalition of more than 190 religious, political, and human rights organizations designed to campaign for a response to the atrocities of the War in Darfur, which culminated in a humanitarian crisis. By 2013, reports indicated that the conflict had claimed approximately 300,000 lives and had displaced over 2.5 million people.

The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, formerly called the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, is an umbrella group of American civil rights interest groups.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elliot Schrage</span> American lawyer and business executive

Elliot J. Schrage is an American lawyer and business executive. Until June 2018, he was vice president of global communications, marketing, and public policy at Facebook, where he directed the company's government affairs and public relations efforts. He then served as vice president of special projects at Facebook.

Menachem Creditor is an American rabbi, author and musician. He is the Pearl and Ira Meyer Scholar-in-Residence at UJA-Federation New York and the founder of Rabbis Against Gun Violence. His work has appeared in the Times of Israel, the Huffington Post, the Jewish Week, the Jewish Daily Forward, the Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times.

The Jewish Funds for Justice (JFSJ) was an American charity based in New York. In 2005, Simon Greer became its President and CEO. In 2011, Progressive Jewish Alliance merged with Jewish Funds for Justice and became a new organization, Bend the Arc.

Day for Darfur is an international advocacy campaign that works to bring together activists in cities around the globe in calling for action on the crisis in Darfur, western Sudan.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jewish Council on Urban Affairs</span> American nonprofit organization

Jewish Council on Urban Affairs (JCUA) is a nonprofit organization based in Chicago that mobilizes the Jewish community of the region to advance racial and economic justice. JCUA partners with diverse community groups across the city and state to combat racism, antisemitism, poverty and other forms of systemic oppression, through grassroots community organizing, youth education programs, and community development.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lee Bycel</span>

Lee Bycel is an American Reform rabbi, rabbinic educator and social activist. He served as dean of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Los Angeles for 15 years, as western regional executive director of American Jewish World Service, and, in 2017, retired from Congregation Beth Shalom of the Napa Valley. He is an adjunct professor of Jewish Studies & Social Justice with the Swig Program in Jewish Studies and Social Justice at the University of San Francisco.

Mohammed Ahmed Abdallah is a Sudanese physician and human rights activist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">T'ruah</span> US-based human rights organization

T'ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights, often referred to as T'ruah, is a left-wing nonprofit organization of rabbis who act on the Jewish imperative to respect and protect the human rights of all people in North America, Israel, and the Palestinian Territories. Approximately 2,000 American and Canadian rabbis and cantors, very predominantly non-orthodox in denomination, are affiliated with T'ruah. T'ruah was founded as Rabbis for Human Rights-North America (RHR-NA) in 2002. On January 15, 2013, RHR-NA ended its formal affiliation with Rabbis for Human Rights in Israel, and was renamed T'ruah. The name T’ruah is based on one of the sounds of the shofar acting as a call to take action.

References

  1. 1 2 "American Jewish World Service Inc". Tax Exempt Organization Search. Internal Revenue Service. Retrieved January 25, 2020.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Form 990: Return of Organization Exempt from Income Tax". American Jewish World Service. Internal Revenue Service. April 30, 2018.
  3. ↑ "Robert Bank". American Jewish World Service. Retrieved January 24, 2020.
  4. ↑ "American Jewish World Service, Inc." Entity Information. New York State Department of State, Division of Corporations. Retrieved January 24, 2020.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 "Our Story". American Jewish World Service. Retrieved 2019-06-19.
  6. ↑ "Rating for American Jewish World Service". Charity Navigator. Retrieved 2019-06-19.
  7. ↑ "What We Do". American Jewish World Service. Retrieved 2019-06-19.
  8. ↑ Nita, Lowey (2017-01-24). "Text - H.R.671 - 115th Congress (2017-2018): HER Act". www.congress.gov. Retrieved 2018-07-16.
  9. ↑ John, McCain (2018-02-12). "Text - S.2060 - 115th Congress (2017-2018): Burma Human Rights and Freedom Act of 2018". www.congress.gov. Retrieved 2018-07-16.
  10. ↑ Wisse, Ruth (1992). If I Am Not For Myself: The Liberal Betrayal of the Jews. Free Press. p. 28 ff.
  11. ↑ "History". Archived from the original on April 8, 2009. Retrieved February 20, 2009.
  12. ↑ Rachel Silverman (May 4, 2006). "At Save Darfur Rally: 'Never Again, Again'". Jewish Journal. Archived from the original on February 21, 2011.
  13. ↑ "The Crisis in East Africa". American Jewish World Service. Retrieved 2018-07-16.
  14. ↑ "The Rohingya Crisis". American Jewish World Service. Archived from the original on 2018-07-16. Retrieved 2018-07-16.
  15. ↑ "Promoting Human Rights in the Developing World, with American Jewish World Service's Robert Bank". Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs. Retrieved 2019-06-19.
  16. ↑ "Robert Bank". American Jewish World Service. Retrieved July 9, 2018.
  17. ↑ "Ruth Messinger". The Forward. Retrieved 2019-06-19.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.