CAMP DARFUR taught high school students about past genocides and how to help stop the ongoing slaughter in Darfur.

 

JONATHAN EMANUEL PHOTO

Camp Darfur puts Purim spin on genocides

By STEVE BILOW

article created on: 2009-04-01T00:00:00

On March 11, Congregation Beth Israel hosted a Jewish Community High School event of global importance. Together the “Beth Israel’s Never Again Committee” and Neveh Shalom’s corollary—“Neveh Shalom says Never Again,” brought to life the photographs, stories and documentation of five of the world’s greatest moral tragedies. Other program supporters included Congregation P’nai Or, Moishe House Portland, the Oregon Holocaust Resource Center, and the Portland Chapter of Amnesty International.

Presented with enthusiasm and deep poignancy to more than 150 sixth- through 12th-graders from Beth Israel, Neveh Shalom, Havurah Shalom, Shaarie Torah and P’nai Or, the jointly sponsored event brought Camp Darfur, a project of Los Angeles based “Stop Genocide Now,” to Portland’s Jewish community.

Camp Darfur is a mobile educational projects consisting of five tents, each providing information about a major genocide: Armenia, the Holocaust, Cambodia, Rwanda and Darfur. Situated among the tents were activity tables where students could take immediate action, including calling the 1-800-GENOCIDE hotline, signing postcards, and sending their own personal video messages to the people of Darfur.

Jewish ethics and values were tied into the event through discussion of the correlations with the Jewish story of Purim. Equally powerful, one activity consisted of a model of Jerusalem’s Kolel where visitors were able to write their prayer for the people of Darfur and to place them in the wall. In an act of devotion to the cause, Keara Cummings, a member of Beth Israel, employee of the Jewish Federation of Greater Portland and recently accepted rabbinical student, will be carrying these prayers to Israel where they will be, in a time-honored tradition, placed in the wall with fervent hope for a cessation to the violence.

With the recent issuance by the International Criminal Court of an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Al-Bashir, the violence in Darfur has not only increased but has been exacerbated by the expulsion of the most needed international aid agencies. Coupled with the already large numbers of more than 450,000 dead and 2.5 million displaced Darfuris, escalation of U.S. and International intervention is said to be critical. Portland’s Camp Darfur visit provided over 150 students and a wide range of adults with a forum to better understand the reasons why.

Not satisfied with simply providing exhibits, activities, and discussion; event coordinators Julie Lipson and Sara Greenstein further deepened the experience with the presence of two survivors of Pol Pot’s Cambodian killing fields. Chann Noun who arrived in the United States at age 24 after enduring a childhood of prison camps and agrarian slave labor, and Van Touch, each spoke directly with groups of young people. Together they shared their stories, their opinions and their lives with candor and passion.

Camp Darfur remained in place and open to the public on Thursday, March 12. There, in an environment slightly more subdued but equally potent, adults, children and university students were able to have their own experience of Camp Darfur.

Steven Bilow is a Vice President of the Oregon Area Jewish Committee.