every year on yom kippur the president of jewish world watch speaks to the congregation about the organization and shares stories of her most recent venture.
the jewish world watch is an organization that was created as a response to the genocide in darfur several years ago. since its start, the members have traveled to darfur and congo each year, visiting and talking with the refugees and survivors as well as implementing and evaluating projects developed to help the refugees.
this morning, the woman commented that at the end of each visit, there is always at least one person who calls her over asking “who are you?”, “what are you doing here?” and like questions. she shared this story: she was asked by the pastor of a church in congo the question of who she was. she was baffled by the bewilderment of this man as he knew the old testament backwards and forward but did not know that jews or israelites existed beyond the pages of the text. before she left, he said how excited he was to go home and tell his wife that israelites exist, and they look just like africans. his recognition of the human race over the racial differences is beautiful.
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