This Friday, we will celebrate the first night of Passover—the festival of Jewish freedom.
In the Haggadah, we learn that God liberated us from slavery in Egypt “with a strong hand and an outstretched arm.” With that freedom comes responsibility. The Haggadah reminds us to tell and retell the story of the Exodus, for without our freedom, “our children, and our children’s children, would still be enslaved to Pharaoh in Egypt.”
For more than a century, AJC has been inspired by the message of freedom which Passover embodies. And every year, at our Global Forum in Washington, D.C., we inspire our audience as we advocate for a world in which democracy and human rights reign supreme for the Jewish people and for all nations.
Just as each Passover seder has its own character, so does every Global Forum. This year, our distinguished cast of world leaders includes Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle and Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich, Greek Defense Minister Dimitris Avramopoulos and a senior U.S. Administration official. Top experts and analysts will guide you through a maze of issues—from Iran’s drive to obtain nuclear weapons to the Presidential election later this year—at our unique panels. And AJC staff experts will be on hand to assist you in becoming the best advocate you can be.
There’s more. In keeping with the theme of freedom, we’ll be staging a dramatic re-enactment of AJC’s decisive role in the struggle for civil rights here in the United States. And we’ll be paying tribute, along with leaders of the French Jewish community, to the victims of the recent atrocity at a Jewish school in Toulouse, where three young children and a rabbi were murdered simply because they were Jews.
As the Haggadah tells us, we have so much to be thankful for — when we sing “Dayenu,” we marvel at the extraordinary story of Jewish survival. But the Haggadah also warns us not to take our freedom for granted. That’s why I invite you to join the AJC family, where the word “freedom” lies at the heart of everything we do, every day of the year.
AJC’s Global Forum 2012 is the ideal place to begin your journey with us. Please click here to register.
