321ACTION: February 3, 2025
Happy first week of February. Over the weekend, we celebrated the return of three more Israeli hostages kidnapped on Oct. 7, 2023, including the Israeli-American Keith Siegel, whose wife Aviva spoke at JWI’s Women to Watch conference in December. You can watch a clip from her moving remarks here.
On the domestic front, we’re carefully watching potential changes to funding for programs that support and protect women and girls around the world. As we told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency this week, federal grants are the lifeblood of efforts to combat violence against women.
And finally, following two recent school shootings, we are alarmed by a ProPublica analysis of the online communities in which both recent shooters frequently posted, forums where young people inspire one another to violence.
Ready to make a difference?
Here are three ways to get started:
3. Prepare for a Potential Funding Freeze
There is great confusion about the future of federal grant funding, including for programs that protect and support domestic violence survivors and their families. Every year, Congress determines how much money is to be spent on each federal grant, and the Executive branch is supposed to distribute the funding. However, last week, the Executive branch ordered that almost all Congressionally funded grants be suspended, and even grants that were not supposed to be impacted became inaccessible. Although an administrative injunction from one judge and a temporary injunction from a second have temporarily halted the first planned federal funding freeze, we are anticipating that the fight to protect these programs is not over.
We are particularly concerned about a funding pause for grants administered by the Office on Violence Against Women, which supports programs that address domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault and stalking, grants administered by Office of Family Violence Prevention and Services, and grants administered by the Office for Victims of Crime.
We are collecting stories documenting the potential impact of a funding freeze. If your organization receives federal funding, or if you benefit from such an organization, please fill out this form to share how you would be impacted.
2. Host a Refugee Solidarity Shabbat
Several recent moves by the new U.S. administration— including the suspension of admission of asylum seekers and refugees, reinstating the global gag rule prohibiting foreign organizations receiving U.S. funds from mentioning abortion, blocking U.S. aid to crisis-affected communities, and withdrawing from the World Health Organization — have “endangered the lives of millions of women and girls around the world for years to come,” as the Women’s Refugee Commission put it.
Women and girls are disproportionately affected by the asylum and refugee suspensions in particular. Women and girls seek refuge in the U.S. from systemic sexual violence, trafficking by organized crime, forced marriage, female genital mutiliation/cutting, domestic violence, or other forms of gender-based violence or persecution for which no remedy is available or accessible in their country of origin. They are also particularly vulnerable to exploitation and predation while they are fleeing violence.
We’re partnering with HIAS on Feb. 28 for Refugee Shabbat, an opportunity to express solidarity with the global Jewish movement for refugee protection and welcome.
1. Learn about the Online Community Inspiring School Shooters
“In this online world, the currency that buys clout is violence.” This is one of the most startling lines from a recent ProPublica analysis, which found that two recent school shooters in Nashville, Tenn. and Madison, Wis. were part of the same online community that glorified extremist ideologies, from white supremacy, antisemitism, misogyny, and racism to neo-Nazism and pedophilia. Not confined to one particular social media platform, users trade memes and exchange advice on successfully committing violence.
“This network is best described as an online subculture that celebrates violent attacks and radicalizes young people into committing violence,” the researcher told ProPublica. “Many of the individuals involved in this network are minors, and we'd like to see intervention to give them the help and support they need, for their own safety as well as those around them.”
+ In case you missed it...
• JWI endorsed the bipartisan HEAL Act, which would empower the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum to conduct a study on Holocaust education efforts in public schools nationwide.
• Prior to the rescission of the memo freezing federal funding, JWI was quoted in the Jewish Telegraphic Agency about the potential devastating impact of the move on efforts to combat violence against women