Valley Synagogues Help Raise Awareness of Suffering in Darfur, Congo

co-founder and president Janice Kamenir-Reznik was honored Tuesday at the organization’s biennial Global Soul fundraiser at Sinai Temple.

A multimedia presentation at the event highlighted the efforts that the agency, under Kamenir-Reznik, has undertaken to alleviate conditions in such places as Darfur, Chad and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Jewish World Watch has built schools and medical clinics, and established programs that empower women in refugee camps to help themselves.

 “The work that Janice Kamenir-Reznik has done has really been important to me,” said Los Angeles City Councilman Paul Krekorian. “And just this last week in the council, Paul Koretz and I recognized Janice with a commemoration in front of the council.”

Docents led guests through a photo gallery that illustrated the lush beauty of Congo and Sudan while describing the mass atrocities to which their populations have been subjected. Reportedly, more than 45,000 people die every month in Congo, with 5.4 million deaths to date. Some 400,000 reportedly have been killed in Sudan and 3 million refugees displaced.

The video on this page shows some of the 700 guests in the “activism” room engaged in advocacy. They were able to record messages to refugee school children and to insert words of comfort and encouragement into an interactive art piece. Visitors were given postcards to send to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, urging her to put pressure on the Sudanese government to stop victimizing the people of Darfur.

More postcards were available to send to electronics manufacturers urging them not to use materials in their products, particularly minerals, that are from "conflict" areas. Tantalum, tin, titanium and gold used in cell phones, computers and cameras are extracted from Congo “on the backs of women and girls,” said Kamenir-Reznik. The story of "conflict" minerals mining was detailed in a previous Patch .

Violence against women is a problem even for refugees in camps in Chad, the presentations noted. Jewish World Watch’s solar cooker project aims to keep women from having to leave the camp to hunt for firewood, risking being attacked and raped. The solar cooker allows them to use the power of the African sun to heat up pots using a reflective solar collector, manufactured by women in the camps.

Rachel Andres, director of the solar cooker project, cited a study showing trips outside the camp by women have been reduced by 86 percent as a result of the use of solar cookers.

Jewish World Watch was co-founded six years ago by Kamenir-Reznik and Rabbi Harold M. Schulweis of Valley Beth Shalom synagogue in Encino in response to the genocide in Darfur. Taking literally the biblical admonition, “Do not stand idly by while your neighbor bleeds” (Lev.19:16), the two founded a coalition of synagogues from all Jewish denominations.

Since then, as the organization’s mission statement says, “It has grown from a collection of Southern California synagogues into a global coalition that includes schools, churches, individuals, communities and partner organizations that share a vision of a world without genocide.”

Jewish World Watch has raised more than $5 million for relief and development projects in Sudan and Congo. The $400,000 target for Global Soul was exceeded, thanks to generous activist donors, money that will go toward educating the community, advocating for an end to genocide and atrocities, and developing resources and relief projects for survivors.

Schulweis expressed the motivation behind his founding purpose and passion during his presentation of honors to Kamenir-Reznick:

Yesterday we were passive pawns; today we are interveners. Yesterday we were recorders of history; today we are makers of history, shapers of tomorrow: What can be, what ought to be, what should be, is our collective dream of kiddush he-chayim—the sanctification of life out of the smoldering embers of hellish desecration.

 

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