Tufts Against Genocide - Remembering Rwanda: Annie Lobel '11

I studied post-conflict development and the aftermath of civil war and genocide during my junior year in Rwanda and Northern Uganda. It was an incredibly eye-opening, transformative and at times difficult experience. I lived with host families while living in both countries. I learned to love cold basin baths, having electricity only sometimes, having very little personal space, learning how to slaughter a chicken ceremoniously, learning how to speak some Kinyarwanda and Acholi, and learning that there really isn't much different between myself and people my age half way across the world. What I took away from my time in East Africa was the power of humankind - the acute awareness of people's strength to do good, but at the same time, their ability to commit evil – as happened in the 1994 Rwandan Genocide. This is not an event of distant history. No, it happened during my lifetime. And the repercussions of such a tragedy are still very present. Genocides are frequently spoken about as “unthinkable” events; yet they are “thinkable,” because they have happened and keep happening.

I of course am not Rwandan nor Ugandan myself, but when studying the Rwandan Genocide in Rwanda, although it happened to a certain group of people, I realized that this issue of genocide is far from an issue of one ethnic group. It is an issue relevant to all of us. Whether we are the people being persecuted, the persecutors, or the bystanders, we are responsible. We are responsible to take a stand and to educate ourselves and our peers about the histories of genocides, the ongoing occurrences of genocide, and how to take steps to stop such inexcusable massacres.

There are about 200 different memorials commemorating the 1994 Rwandan Genocide in a country the size of Vermont. Much of my classroom time was spent visiting, studying, and experiencing these memorials. Memorials in Rwanda are unique in that many of them have just been left as they were in 1994 - a huge statement making sure future generations do not dare forget what took place for 100 days killing nearly one million people.

Let me tell you - studying war and genocide in East Africa was really tough for me at times, but also I have never done anything so rewarding. I wish that everyone my age could be exposed to the realities of what humans can do to each other. Once you see it, smell it, respond to it and are no longer able to hold back tears, there is no way you can ignore it.

I remember returning to my Rwandan host family's home after my visit to the memorials, and my host sisters greeting me so warmly. I just wanted to cry. I wanted to ask so many questions but I didn't even know where to begin, what was appropriate, and whether they would want me inquiring or not. My host dad had told me he lost several of his siblings at the high school I had just visited, and now that I had visited I understood much more of what he was talking about. I was and still am amazed by his and his family's strength, love, and inspiration.

Although my host family felt unique to me, truth is they were not unique in that in Rwanda, everyone has been directly affected by the genocide. Everyone I met had lost a brother, mother, cousin, grandparent, or best friend. Nobody escaped the horrors of the genocide.

Let me tell you - returning to Tufts was not easy. It was a bit isolating even. I knew I had changed but my world at home had not changed very much. What I had thought was a "perfect fit" at home no longer fit as perfectly as I remembered. Reverse culture shock returning to the States was way harder than the culture shock when I first left home. When my peers would ask me "how was abroad?" no one sentence answer was ever satisfying to me. There was so much I wanted to communicate to my friends, peers, and family, and the frustration that no one would even begin to understand where I was coming from was frustrating and disheartening. I did realize that the frustration was not productive unless I turned it into something. People were trying to understand, they just needed guidance. Ever since I returned to Tufts I felt this need to take action, to do something about all of this, to educate my peers and help make them want to learn more, and to help other people understand that this should not happen again - we cannot let it happen again.

It was incredible to return to Tufts and eventually find and connect to like-minded students and to put together the Tufts Against Genocide (TAG) Committee with the incredible support of Tufts Hillel and the inspiration of the Cummings Challenge.

TAG's kick-off event was a panel of five survivors of Genocide - we had a survivor from the Rwandan Genocide, the Holocaust, the Bosnian Genocide, the Cambodian Genocide, and the son of Armenian survivors - each told his or her story. The purpose and message of our panel was to remind the Tufts community that genocide does not discriminate. It is relevant to all of us. We were hoping that by portraying a range of cultures and ethnicities on stage, listeners would be affected by the visual as well as people's stories. The event was incredibly moving, educational, and inspiring. We had no idea if 30 people would show up - we were delighted when a full auditorium of 250 people filled our audience to hear the firsthand accounts of these inspiring speakers.

After this event, a number of Tufts students have inquired how to get involved in this movement of bringing more genocide education to campus. Since the panel we have had a few other events, such as a Holocaust film screening, discussion, and dinner, as well as a Rwandan Genocide film screening during Genocide Awareness Week. 

We as college students have taken a stand and want to be part of a movement to make sure that now and in the future when people say "never again," that this "never again" will become a reality.

This is the beginning of something way bigger than just a committee of Tufts students. We want to get the whole campus involved. We want to get other campuses involved. We are not asking everyone to go on and work in memorials or attend graduate studies in genocide education. No. What we are asking is that everyone - no matter if they are a student, teacher, athlete, doctor, engineer, philanthropist, or waitress - we want this subject to be on the forefronts of everyone's mind. It is relevant to all of us. And it takes the next generation of leaders to care and to take action against stopping any and all future genocides.

Read by the River: Emma Gaines '11

This year, Tufts Hillel held the 11^th annual literacy carnival Read by the River (RBTR).  I have participated in RBTR for all my four years at Tufts, and I’ve been on the executive organizing committee for three out of those four years.  RBTR has always been one of my favorite things about my Tufts experience, including the planning process and the carnival itself.  From late nights spent drawing decorations at Hillel, to the smile on a child’s face when I hear my 5^th consecutive book report on Diary of a Wimpy Kid, I love everything about RBTR!

I’ve always been involved with doing community service with children, and in high school I even worked on some literacy oriented projects.  At Tufts, one of my majors is Child Development.  I think that RBTR is a perfect community service opportunity for me to contribute to the community in the ways that I most want to and am most qualified to.  Although it is easy to get caught up in painting murals or ordering the popcorn for the carnival, when it comes down to it, RBTR is all about the kids. 

For this reason, we are always thinking about ways to make RBTR better for the kids.  We’ve made a lot of improvements just during my time at Tufts – extending our literacy community service initiative beyond just the day of the carnival to a full year commitment and expanding to Somerville, for example.  There have also been little changes that go a long way for the kids – for the first time this year, before the day of the carnival, children drew a picture from their favorite book and wrote about why they loved reading, and we hung these up at the day of the carnival for everyone to see. 

This year we thought of another new improvement for RBTR, which was a parent’s booth.  Thanks to Lauren Estes’ dual leadership, this idea was the brainchild of both the RBTR board and the Hillel organization Vitality, which works to promote health and wellness on Tufts campus.  The idea became a reality, and the booth provided educational information to parents both on literacy and health related issues, and also gave out goody bags with health related products such as toothbrushes and hand sanitizer. 

I think the parent’s booth is a sign that in little ways, RBTR can always change and find more ways to best serve the children who loyally come year after year and have a wonderful day at the carnival.

Talk About Full Circle: Sonni Bendetson, A'09

There’s a tradition at Tufts Hillel that when we say the motzi on Friday nights, everyone reaches their arm toward the center of the table and puts a hand on the challah.  At two Shabbat dinners recently, for the first time, several of those hands belonged to young adults with special needs.  As I looked around the room at students, professors, Hillel staff and even President Bacow connected to one another and reciting the motzi in unison, I realized that, at that moment, no one could really tell who had special needs and who did not.

That was a highlight for me: watching my college world merge with my professional world around an issue that is deeply important to me. And Repair the World made it happen. 

I grew up with a younger brother who is hard of hearing, and it only took witnessing one teasing comment from another kid, a family friend who called my brother “ear boy” because of his hearing aids, to ignite my passion for advocating for people with special needs at a very young age.  In high school I became involved in the Gateways Teen Volunteer Program, which trains high school students to be one-to-one aides for students in a Sunday school for children with special needs.  I wrote my college essay about my experience in this program, and went on to study Child Development at Tufts, graduating in 2009.

After graduating college, I took a job as Program Associate at Gateways: Access to Jewish Education, the same organization that runs the Gateways Teen Volunteer Program. During one of my first days on the job, I attended a meeting with a group of parents who wanted Gateways to design a Jewish education program for their young adult children with special needs, who were all about my age.  I was thinking about the role Judaism had played in my life for the past few years and realized that, like most Jewish young adults in the US, my campus Hillel had shaped my Jewish identity as a young adult, providing a forum to explore Judaism through education, socialization, volunteerism and spirituality.  Then it occurred to me that people with special needs were simply not a part of this experience, and that if I had not found a way to incorporate this population into my definition of my Jewish community in college, then most other people probably hadn’t either.

I wanted to create a program that would meet the needs of Jewish young adults with disabilities, as well as begin to address issues around the inclusion of people with special needs in the greater Jewish community.  Lucky for me, Tufts University, my alma mater, was poised and ready to take on this mission. Tufts Hillel, through their Repair the World initiative, partnered with Gateways, Boston’s central agency for Jewish special education, to pilot this innovative new program that aims to challenge- and change- the way we view, treat and interact with people with special needs in our community.  Now the greater goal is to develop emerging adults who are not only aware of people with special needs, but who value and expect a community that is inclusive of all Jewish people.

With the support of Gateways and the partnership of Tufts Hillel, we recruited volunteers and have run the first two installments of the program with huge success. Everyone in the program- the volunteers and the young adults with special needs- have had fabulous evenings.  “The best part,” according to Marie, a bright young woman with Down Syndrome who is enrolled in the program, “was when we did the Kiddush together. The whole table and the whole room, it was like one big community and I felt part of it.”

The next installment of this program is slated for April 8 at Tufts Hillel.  For more information on this or any Gateways program, please contact Sonni Bendetson at 617-630-9010, ext. 109 or at sonni@jgateways.org. 

Gateways Shabbat: Lauren Stanzler '14

This semester several students from Tufts are volunteering with a program called Gateways as the start of a new partnership with Hillel. Gateways is an organization based in Boston that provides access to Jewish education for children and young adults with special needs. With this organization, we are hosting several students with special needs to our Shabbat services at Hillel. The participants, mostly from the Boston area, are around college-aged and they are extremely enthusiastic to be part of this program.

I got involved with Gateways because I thought it would make my Shabbat experience very special. I think everyone deserves a chance to celebrate Shabbat with their community. I wanted to grant this opportunity to members of my faith who may not always have access to a Shabbat service. I also hope to form friendships with the young adults with special needs. Although I don’t have much experience working with people with special needs, I thought it would be rewarding to interact with them, especially on Shabbat.

Before the first Shabbat service with Gateways, the Tufts students involved in the program attended a training session. During this session we discussed how to interact with the participants and how to make them feel comfortable in a new environment. We also went over the schedule for the program and simulated situations that might occur during the service. The training was a great experience that made me feel prepared and excited for my interactions with the participants.

The first Shabbat was a success. My friend and I were paired with our “buddy,” a girl from Boston who was excited to be at Hillel. Before services began, we discussed the meaning of Shabbat. Both the volunteers from Tufts and the participants from Gateways agreed Shabbat stands out form the rest of the week because it is a time for relaxation and reflection. It was easy to connect with the participants, as they were thrilled to be at services and amongst such warm and supportive college students. I particularly enjoyed eating dinner with my “buddy,” who joked around with me because I am not familiar with the geography of my hometown, Boston. Overall, the Gateways program made my Shabbat a very special experience. I look forward to the next one!

Storytelling: Rebecca Matyas ‘13

Once upon a time, there was a quiet village. Then, one terrible day, a fearsome dragon began to terrorize the villagers. Luckily, a brave hero stepped in to slay the dragon and return peace to the countryside…

Last week, I attended community organizing training focusing on storytelling by the Jewish Organizing Initiative (JOI). Two professionals from JOI spent the afternoon us, a group of Jewish student leaders, both board members and others, who wanted to learn tools to make a difference in the world. We learned about structuring our personal stories in the most effective way to express ourselves, with a clear beginning, middle, and end like the story of dragon and the village. Then, we discussed ways that storytelling can be useful in inspiring people to action, making connections with others, and helping others find connections with each other. Finally, we practiced our own stories and gave each other constructive criticism.

Storytelling is a tool that I use a lot as a CEI intern, especially in one on one coffee dates. For instance, many of my engagees are uncomfortable in Jewish settings where they feel they are “not Jewish enough.” I believe that no one should feel inadequate or excluded because of their beliefs or choices, so I will often tell a story about a time that I had doubts about aspects of Judaism, where a certain belief or custom did not seem like something I wanted to incorporate into my own practices. Hearing how I reconciled my personal Judaism within a broader Jewish context has been comforting or validating for several of my engagees because it allows them to see how their doubts or choices contribute richness to their own Judaism without detracting from “how Jewish they are.” With this validation, people can feel more comfortable exploring their options without being deterred contexts outside their comfort zones.

I use my stories to connect with people of all different backgrounds and encourage them to tell me their stories so that I can learn what they are passionate about and help them find opportunities to take ownership of their Judaism in ways that are important to them. While storytelling was a tool I was using regularly, I really enjoyed the workshop because it helped me reexamine the tools that I use every day and will allow me to be more intentional and successful in my own storytelling.

Lisa Ling Raising a Moral Voice: Nat Schils '12

This past Tuesday Lisa Ling, an internationally renowned journalist, came to Tufts for the Merrin Distinguished Lecture which is presented annually by Tufts Hillel. Even though I had heard that Lisa Ling had covered fascinating stories around the world, gaining access to previously closed off locations and speaking about ignored or taboo topics, I was blown away by the breadth of her experience. She spoke about her time in Afghanistan, where she saw boys as young as fourteen wielding guns like trained military men. She met with American couples traveling to China to adopt baby girls. She spent time at a maximum-security penitentiary, traveled in North Korea, and explored the disturbing truths of prostitution in the United States.

Apart from her stories, however, what struck me most during her speech was when she talked about the dangers of “American style glasses” through which we often dilute complex issues into black-and-white, wrong vs. right, simplicity. Lisa Ling recounted numerous experiences when her oversimplification of a complex issue was blown apart when she started investigating a story at the ground level, interacting with community members and those who had first-hand knowledge and experience with the issues. One example she used was of a policy in Australia that allows women with children under the age of five to bring their children with them if they are jailed. While this policy may seem akin to child abuse and endangerment at first, Lisa Ling came to see another side of the story through her investigative work. She shared statistics about the increased risk that children with one or more incarcerated parent will themselves end up in jail, as well as the decreased incidents of violence at jails when children are present. While many in the audience may still not have agreed with this policy, it definitely brought to light the importance of complete knowledge before making hasty, and potentially inaccurate, assumptions about the lives and decisions of other people.

In continuation with this theme of knowledge before judgment, Lisa Ling also stressed the importance and power of listening. While many people are surprised by Lisa Ling’s ability to infiltrate seemingly closed-off areas, she attributes her success to her commitment to listening carefully and to spending time with people in order to gain their confidence and trust. Rather than promoting monetary action and donations to support a cause, Lisa Ling encouraged audience members to bring global stories to light and to spread awareness about different conflicts that exist both in our own backyards and around the world. By spreading awareness, we can decrease our dependence on “American style glasses” as we begin to think differently about complex issues like environmental justice, female empowerment, and the rights of children. Perhaps it is a human instinct to simplify what the world presents us, especially in today’s increasingly technology-dependent world in which we are constantly bombarded by information and images. I hope that we can all remember Lisa Ling’s words and the importance of being open as we continue to explore global and domestic stories in Tufts classrooms and in the wider world.

Connecting with the Boston Jewish Community: Sofi Shield '14

On November 21st, I went with a group of other Moral Voices members to Temple Shalom in Medford to help them make pies. We went in two shifts, both of which were welcomed with open arms (and freshly baked donuts!) by the appreciative temple members. Making pies was a fun activity, but connecting with the Jewish community in Boston was definitely what I think the overall achievement and reward from the outing. The temple members were all interested in who we were and eager to engage us in conversation, and we also enjoyed ourselves playing with the little children who were running around the social hall.

Making a connection with another Jewish community in the area is something that I think is very important for Moral Voices and Tufts Hillel. Whether we pair up for events in the future, or are just there to support each other, I am very happy to have been able to be a part of establishing this relationship. In fact, three freshman(Simmone Seymour, Ariel Bronstein and myself) went back to help out on December 5th for the Temple Shalom Hannukah party. After being offered copious amounts for delicious latkes and sufganiyot, we headed to our stations. The three of us helped in running the children’s games. “Bowl to Knock over the Greeks,” “Dreidel Darts,” and “Pin the Candle on the Menorah” were all featured activities and the kids would play turn after turn, eager to beat their score from the previous round. At one point,a blind lady asked to bowl and Ariel guided her through the game time after time as the lady smiled, laughed, and told us how much fun she was having. Around the same time, and older man came up to us and asked if we were Tufts students. He introduced himself as Herb, class of 1958, his wife (who was also there) also a Tufts graduate. He is very involved with both Temple Shalom and the Tufts community,and was definitely a valuable, interesting person to meet when trying to bridge the two.

Overall, these two events were fun experiences that were valuable for Moral Voices as a group, and for everyone on an individual level. We had fun, baked pies, played with adorable children, ate good food, and helped out the community in which we live, connecting Jewish groups in the Medford-Somerville area.