Ruth Messinger

This year during Shavuot, the Jewish holiday that marks the early summer grain harvest and the giving of the Torah, I am reminded of my commitment to alleviate hunger. Reading about the ancient systems of food aid from the Book of Ruth, I cannot help but reflect on the current...

Like many people in my generation, I first associated tzedakah, the Hebrew word for charity, with the pushke -- the little metal box given out in Hebrew school, rusting on my parents' windowsill. I learned in the 1950s that Jews were supposed to collect pennies in the pushke to plant...

Today marks two years since Haiti's devastating earthquake. Though the tragedy was billed a "natural disaster," an earthquake is not enough to explain the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives and the destruction of millions of homes. It isn't enough to explain the acute food shortage immediately following the...

Last spring, my organization, American Jewish World Service (AJWS), asked its supporters to set an empty place at their Shabbat tables. This was a gesture to show solidarity with the hundreds of millions of people who go to bed hungry every night.

As I prepare for Passover,...

After my teenage granddaughter returned recently from a service experience in Uganda, sponsored by American Jewish World Service, she remarked that she would never again say she's "starving" on her way to the fridge. In Uganda, she had the chance to meet people living on a few dollars...

Each year on International Women's Day, I take time to reflect on the many inspiring and courageous women I've had the privilege to meet in my travels as president of American Jewish World Service (AJWS), an international development and human rights organization that supports grassroots projects in 36...

Fr. Michael A. Evans, S.J., National Director, Jesuit Refugee Service/USA, co-authored this piece.

In early December, less than a year after the devastating earthquake that sent Haiti reeling into a downward spiral of death, destruction, displacement, and cholera, the Department of Homeland Security quietly announced to a small group of...

The referendum on independence for Southern Sudan has come off with minimal violence, and it seems that Sudan's president Omar Hassan Al-Bashir will accept the inevitable outcome: Southern secession. The Obama administration is rightfully pleased with how the referendum has been carried out, but this is not the time to...

It has now been one year since an earthquake ravaged Haiti, a nation that continues to struggle along the path to recovery. In fact, with streets still covered with rubble, municipal services in very short supply and a cholera epidemic that is overwhelming Haiti's limited healthcare infrastructure, it is not...

As the G20 meets in Seoul this week, global leaders must not forget their responsibility to fix the global financial system for the world's poorest. Many impoverished countries face crippling debts -- often due to odious loans made to brutal and corrupt dictators or to shocks out of their control...

Recently, at the United Nations Summit on Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), Secretary Gereral Ban Ki-moon acknowledged that "the world has failed to invest enough in the health of women, adolescent girls, newborns, infants, and children. As a result, millions of preventable deaths occur each year, and we have made less...

It appears that Haiti's "15 minutes of fame" are up. With few exceptions, the journalists who flooded the zone following the earthquake are nowhere to be seen. And the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee's harsh criticism of the rebuilding effort six months after the earthquake is a sign that patience...

Five months after the earthquake, security in Haiti's refugee camps remains dire. In some camps, gangs and opportunists have hijacked the aid distribution system, charging high prices for food or demanding sex in exchange for access to aid.

As the New York Times recently reported more than...

A recent New York Times piece painted a stark picture for the future of Uganda and the global fight against AIDS. Despite the incredible achievements of U.S. foreign aid in combating the AIDS epidemic, advocates and health providers are worried that the US is turning away from this...

According to the latest UN figures, 1.3 million Haitians have been left homeless by the quake. Some of these Haitians are no longer sleeping in abandoned cars but in flimsy structures fashioned from plastic sheeting and salvaged wood--a minuscule improvement, to say the least. Over 218,000 survivors are living in...

In the midst of Genocide Prevention Month, I cannot help but be inspired by a passage from the excellent memoir of Stephen D. Smith, who along with his brother, James, spearheaded the establishment of the The Holocaust Centre in Laxton, England. Smith wrote: "If one thing we learn...

As many of us have been paying close attention to the long-awaited passage of health care reform last week, it was easy to miss something else that was absolutely extraordinary. Former President Bill Clinton said at a recent Senate hearing that he regrets the impact in Haiti of the free...

March is Women's History Month in the United States -- a time when Americans take a long look at our often uncomfortable history, acknowledge the significant progress we've made, and honor the women and men who helped push women's issues to the forefront. And, in the vein of Women's History...

One week after the earthquake in Haiti, I continue to be saddened and deeply shaken. Haiti is the most marginalized country in the Western Hemisphere, plagued with crushing levels of poverty and disease, which makes this natural disaster all the more devastating. Haiti is also a country that is very...

The UN recently reported that more than 1.2 billion people worldwide are undernourished. This number is staggering by itself, but what makes it even more appalling is the fact that, last year, enough food was produced on our planet to feed humanity nearly twice over. If we have so...