2008 Woodie Awards
Yeshiva Leads Protest Against Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing
Not Now Not Ever Plays Central Role Three Days After Yom HaShoah
Commentator Staff
Issue date: 5/16/05 Section: News
On Sunday, May 8, 2005, just three days after Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Commemoration Day, hundreds of people, many of them students from Yeshiva and colleges across the region, gathered in Central Park to protest the ongoing genocide in Darfur, Sudan. The Yeshiva student-run organization, Not Now Not Ever, worked with student organizations from Columbia, NYU, and other student-led human rights groups across the northeast to organize the mass protest. Event co-sponsors included the American Anti-Slavery Group, Yeshiva University, Human Rights First, the Genocide Intervention Fund, the Anti-Defamation League, and the American Jewish World Service.
Speakers at the rally included Yeshiva University President Richard M. Joel, General Secretary of the Darfur Rehab Project, Yahya Osman, and Former Manhattan Borough President and current Director of the American Jewish World Service, Ruth Messinger. Messinger visited Darfur over the summer and saw the effects first hand. "It's Rwanda in slow motion...There are specific steps to be taken to stop these atrocities. But what is most needed is our indignation, our insistence that this ethnic violence will stop."
The rally was planned to coincide with Yom HaShoah. Commenting on that connection, Cindy Bernstein, co-organizer and Director of Communications for the rally said, "part of remembering the Holocaust is not ignoring violence...that has taken place in many parts of the world since then."
Stern College for Women senior and co-organizer of the rally, Rebecca Stone, introduced the speakers, saying, "We cannot be silent...genocide must not be allowed to take place, Not Now Not Ever." Avi Posnick, also an organizer of the rally echoed Stone's remarks. "As Jews, we know all too well the effects of genocide and ethnic cleansing. Never again means never again for anyone, anytime and anywhere. To be silent now while genocide is happening would be wrong, hypocritical and immoral."
Experts estimate that between 300,000 and 500,000 people have been killed in Darfur, Sudan in the last two years. About two million more have been displaced at the hands of the Sudanese government and janjaweed, Arab militias supported by the Sudanese regime. The United States Congress and State Department have called the violence in Sudan genocide. The organizers hope that their efforts will bring the United States and governments around the world to pressure the Sudanese government to end the genocide.
Speakers at the rally included Yeshiva University President Richard M. Joel, General Secretary of the Darfur Rehab Project, Yahya Osman, and Former Manhattan Borough President and current Director of the American Jewish World Service, Ruth Messinger. Messinger visited Darfur over the summer and saw the effects first hand. "It's Rwanda in slow motion...There are specific steps to be taken to stop these atrocities. But what is most needed is our indignation, our insistence that this ethnic violence will stop."
The rally was planned to coincide with Yom HaShoah. Commenting on that connection, Cindy Bernstein, co-organizer and Director of Communications for the rally said, "part of remembering the Holocaust is not ignoring violence...that has taken place in many parts of the world since then."
Stern College for Women senior and co-organizer of the rally, Rebecca Stone, introduced the speakers, saying, "We cannot be silent...genocide must not be allowed to take place, Not Now Not Ever." Avi Posnick, also an organizer of the rally echoed Stone's remarks. "As Jews, we know all too well the effects of genocide and ethnic cleansing. Never again means never again for anyone, anytime and anywhere. To be silent now while genocide is happening would be wrong, hypocritical and immoral."
Experts estimate that between 300,000 and 500,000 people have been killed in Darfur, Sudan in the last two years. About two million more have been displaced at the hands of the Sudanese government and janjaweed, Arab militias supported by the Sudanese regime. The United States Congress and State Department have called the violence in Sudan genocide. The organizers hope that their efforts will bring the United States and governments around the world to pressure the Sudanese government to end the genocide.