Click for Darfur events or other kindness events and ideas

• Darfur Summary
• Why should the Jewish people especially help?
• How you can help!
• Example letter and issues
• Jewish Sources

Darfur is located in the West of Sudan. Africas largest country with 34m people. Arabs and Black Africans had a long history of living peacefully together.

Following civil war between North and South Sudan where 2million poeple died, in April 2003, after years of exclusion, groups of Darfuris (Black Muslims) rose up against the Khartoum government in Sudan (Arabic Muslims).

The Khartoum government (Arabic Muslims) responded by launching air strikes and arming the JANJAWEED (Arab Militias) who loot, slaughter and rape on a mass and indiscrirmate scale. Since 2003, it is believed that 400,000 have been killed. 2million are displaced and living in Refugee camps.

The Khartoum govenment is funding the genocide by the extraction of oil - from $128m in 2000 to $2.3bn in 2006. This was as a result of the Chinese investment in the region who need the vast amounts of oil for their economy and are potentially the only country that can put pressure on the Khartoum government (the same government who put a teacher in prison for calling a teddy bear Mohammed) to stop.

Meanwhile the British government is sending Darfuris assylum seakers back to Kartoum to face possbile death.

As Jews, we often talk about the terms 'Never Again' when we refer to the holocaust. We have numerous talks about the threat of anti-Semitism and from a halachic point of view there are numerous Jewish sources.

Yet, spiritually, if we want to want to feel peace and love in the world then we must act with peace and love. We must be the change that we want to see in the world. We must give love to receive love and give peace to receive peace.

Remember our own holocaust and persecution is important but we have a chance to make a difference now. This genocide is happening now. Right now! The 'Never Again' slogans are being ignored. Call it the universal law of attraction, karma, or creating positive angels. If we help and shine our light, then we can help the world and protect ourselves. It might not be us this time, but maybe one day it may be and now is our chance to help the Darfuris.

• Particpate in Global Day for Darfur Events and arrange for members of the community and friends to attend.
• Write to your MP on their website or at either
  • House of Commons, London, SW1A OAA
  • House of Lords, London, SW1A OPW
  • Chinese Embassy, 49 Portland Place, London, W1B 1JL
• Organise a letter writing evening (see example letter below)
• Help with Sudan Disvestment targetting companies that assist with the Darfur Situation
• Raise funds for Darfur
  • Drum for Darfur
  • Sponsored events
  • Supper Quiz
  • Film Screening (hire out a local cinema, or hall or event your own home and sell tickets)
  • Sports tournament where the players where Protect Darfur t-shirts and wrist bands
• Pray for Darfur. See Darfur Prayer by Chief Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks and ask your Shul or Shteible or local Kiruv Organisation to use it
• Remind other Jews that it was us, the Jewish people who were the victims of a genocide in 1939-1945. The world said "never again" but it is happening again, right now. Apathy was one of the biggest factors in Nazi Germany. People just didnt care and now, right now, WE CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE.
• Textual study on the Jewish Responsibility to act in times of distress.
• Arrange for a Darfuri survivor to come and speak to your community about their experiences.
• Encourage schools to run assemblies on Darfur. See UNHCR
• Encourage youth groups, lodges, mens clubs, womens groups, bars, cafes to have events and discuss Darfur
• Write an awareness article for Darfur to your local paper, website, student newspaper, lodge magazine etc.
• Call up your local radio station and ask them to mention Darfur.
• Start a local society if there isn't one
• Help out with this website. We are open to ideas to raise awareness. Please contact Jewpro if you can help with this section.
• Contact other Jewish organisations who are helping
  • The Jewish Council for Radcial Equality
  • Make Poverty History Jewish Coalition
  • ReneCassin
  • Tzedek
  • World Jewish Relief
  • Ve'ahavta
  • Israel for Darfur
  • HaeDarfur
  • Beth Shalom
  • American Jewish World Service
  • Jcore
  • The Pears Foundation - Download their booklet

• Download a sample letter
• 'no fly zone' over western Sudan to stop air strikes on civilians in Darfur
• Implementations of sanctions by the EU and UN against th 17 individuals identified by the UN Interantional Commission of Inquiry to prevent them from travelling and freezing their assets to stop them benefitting from the conflict
• Deployment of UN peace keeping force to Chad to prevent violence spilling over from Darfur and to stablise Border areas where fleeing Darfuris have been masacred
• Deployment of UN peace keeping force to stengthen the existing African Union mission in Sudan
• Prevent the removal by the British Government of Darfuris in Britain back to Sudan. See UNHCR

You shall not stand idly by the blood of your neighbour; I am God.
Vayikra, 19:16

Whenever a person can save another person’s life but fails to do so, he transgresses a negative commandment, as [Lev.19:16] states: “Do not stand idly by the blood of your neighbour.” Similarly, [this commandment applies] when a person sees a colleague drowning at sea or being attacked by robbers or a wild animal, and he can save him himself or can hire others to save him. Similarly, [it applies] when he hears [others] conspiring to harm a colleague or planning a snare for him, and he does not inform him and notify him [of the danger].
Rambam, Laws of the Murderer and Protecting Life, 1:14

Traditionally, our sense of involvement with the fate of others has been in inverse proportion to the distance separating us and them. What has changed is that television and the Internet have effectively abolished distance. They have brought images of suffering in far-off lands into our immediate experience. Our sense of compassion for the victims of poverty, war and famine, runs ahead of our capacity to act. Our moral sense is simultaneously activated and frustrated. We feel that something should be done, but what, how, and by whom?
Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, The Dignity of Difference, (2006), p30

For this reason the first human was created to teach that anyone who destroys a single soul is considered as though he had destroyed the entire world. Anyone who saves a single soul, is considered as though he has saved an entire universe.
Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:12 (according to the Kaufmann mishnah)

And God created man in his image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
Bereishit; 1:27

Whoever can prevent his household from committing a sin but does not, is responsible for the sins of his household; if he can prevent the people of his city, he is responsible for the sins of his fellow citizens; if the whole world, he is responsible for the sins of the whole world.
Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 54b

If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself what am I? If not now, when?
Hillel - Pirkei Avot, 1:14

Sources taken from:

• www.ajws.org/uploaded_documents
• http://91.186.164.174/downloads/Darfur%20Report%20Final.pdf

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