In the three years between 2002 and 2005, some 450,000 died in the Darfur conflict in the western Sudanand another 2.5 million were displaced as the fighting, disease and starvation raged.
The American Jewish World Service is one of the chief humanitarian agencies reaching out the war-torn region, and its executive director, Ruth Messinger, is coming to West Virginia University on Tuesday (Feb. 20) to talk about that effort.
Shell discuss,Bearing Witness: Crisis in Darfurat 7:30 p.m. in the Mountainlairs Gluck Theatre.
Messinger, who in recent years has traveled to refugee camps in Darfur, likens the scale of death and misery there to that of the suffering inflicted during Nazi Germanys Third Reich in World War II.
Darfur, she says, is a history lesson that better be heeded.
The expression, �€~Never again,cannot be reserved only for Jews,she said.Bitter history has taught us that indifference must never be the response to genocide.
Messinger will also highlight other work her agency is doing in trouble spots on the globe besides Darfur. Based in New York City, the American Jewish World Service is currently funding development and relief projects in 38 countries. Some 400 volunteers from her agency are in place in those countries, working and overseeing those respective projects.
She spent 20 years in public service in New York City before signing on with the agency. Shes a former borough president of Manhattan and was an unsuccessful Democratic candidate for mayor in 1997.
Shes a recipient of the Albert D. Chernin Award for public service from the Jewish Council for Public Affairs and has also been awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion.
For the five yearsrunning, she has made Forward Magazines50 Most Influential Jews of the Yearannual list.
Her visit is sponsored by: Tree of Life Congregation; WVU Department of History; WVU Department of Geography and Geology; WVU Hillel House; the WVU student chapter of Amnesty International and the Monongalia County Ministerial Association.
