 April 2005
American Friends Service Committee Peacework Magazine Sara Burke, Jaime Lederer Pat Farren, Founding Editor 2161 Massachusetts Ave. Telephone number: Fax number:
pwork@igc.org Peacework has been published monthly since 1972, intended to serve as a source of dependable information to those who strive for peace and justice and are committed to furthering the nonviolent social change necessary to achieve them. Rooted in Quaker values and informed by AFSC experience and initiatives, Peacework offers a forum for organizers, fostering coalition-building and teaching the methods and strategies that work in the global and local community. Peacework seeks to serve as an incubator for social transformation, introducing a younger generation to a deeper analysis of problems and issues, reminding and re-inspiring long-term activists, encouraging the generations to listen to each other, and creating space for the voices of the disenfranchised. Views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of the AFSC. |
Let My People Go! By the American Anti-Slavery Group, 198 Tremont St., #421, Boston, MA 02116, 800/884-0719, www.iabolish.com/passover, and the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, www.rac.org. At this time of Passover, we recall in the Seder that "in every generation, we are commanded to view ourselves as if each one of us was personally brought forth out of Egypt." The purpose of such memory is to remind us of the feeling of being enslaved. More than that, however, this command, combined with the rejoinder to "remember the stranger, for we were strangers in the land of Egypt," is a call to action. It is a call for us to rise up against slavery and tyranny in our own time.
In Sudan, Africa's largest country, on-going civil war and inter-ethnic conflict have revived government-sponsored black chattel slavery, where southern Sudanese women and children are abducted as slaves by government-armed Arab militia forces. Over 100,000 remain in bondage, serving as domestics and concubines. Rabbi Joel Soffin of Temple Shalom in Succasunna, NJ wrote the following prayer to be included in the Passover Seder: On this holiday, when we are commanded to relive the bitter experience of slavery, this prayer requires a fourth matzah in addition to the traditional three. Recite while holding the Fourth Matzah: "We raise this fourth matzah to remind ourselves that slavery still exists, that people are still being bought and sold as property, that the Divine image within them is yet being denied. We make room at our seder table and in our hearts for those in southern Sudan and in Mauritania who are now where we have been. We have known such treatment in our own history. Like the women and children enslaved in Sudan today, we have suffered while others stood by and pretended not to see, not to know. We have eaten the bitter herb; we have been taken from our families and brutalized. We have experienced the horror of being forcibly converted. In the end, we have come to know in our very being that none can be free until all are free. And so, we commit and recommit ourselves to work for the freedom of these people. May the taste of this 'bread of affliction' remain in our mouths until they can eat in peace and security. Knowing that all people are Yours, O God, we will urge our government and all governments to do as You once commanded Pharaoh on our behalf: 'Shalach et Ami! Let My People Go!'" This Passover, as we recall our own enslavement, we recommit ourselves to fight for the freedom of all who are enslaved, wherever they are.
For more information about modern-day slavery
and Jewish responses, visit www.iabolish.com/passover. 
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