Why Is Darfur a Jewish Issue?
For the past few years, the government of Sudan, the largest country in Africa, has been and continues to perpetrate the first genocidal campaign of the twenty-first century. At least 400,000 civilians in the Darfur region of western Sudan have been killed, and 2.8 million people have been displaced since the violence began in 2003.

Why do Jews care about the atrocities occurring in Darfur? It sounds like a strange question now that the Jewish community has taken a clear leadership role in public and political efforts to end the genocide taking place in that faraway land. Yet it behooves us to remind ourselves what is at stake––not just for the people of Darfur but for ourselves. The answers lie within our own experiences. Beyond the fact that we know first-hand from Judaism's recent history the atrocity to human life that is a genocide, the very core of our tradition teaches us that apathy at the plight of others is as cardinal of a sin as any other. "You shall not stand by the blood of your neighbor. You shall not stand idly by while your neighbor bleeds” [Lev.19:16]." The torah might as well be speaking to us directly, on this day, at this moment. As Martin Luther King Jr. said, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."