How Do You Choose Who To Help And How? How About Myanmar?

I got an email from the American Jewish World Service (AJWS) the other day asking for donations to help people in Myanmar after the earthquake.  Below is a link.   But I'll put it here too.   But first let me tell you why I think this is a good investment.  

There are so many worthy people who need help in this world.  The LA fire victims, particularly those in the Palisades area lost their homes and everything in them.  But these were also relatively affluent folks many of whom had great family and friend support networks.  Though not all of them.  

And there are many people who need a bit of help to pay the rent because of an unexpected expenditure - car repairs, surgery, an unexpected plumbing bill.  

How can you tell who is truly needy and  and who is just using Go Fund Me as a way to raise cash because they can?  

I don't know the answers to these questions. 

But I can vouch for the American Jewish World Service (AJWS)which is raising money to funnel to partner organizations on the ground who can help victims of the Myanmar earthquake.  I can somewhat relate to that 7.7 quake.  In 2018 Anchorage had a 7.2 quake.  I grew up in LA and experienced a few big quakes, but nothing like the 7.2 quake which severely shook the house and seemed to last forever.  Anchorage managed reasonably well, in large part because Anchorage had had a 9.2 quake in 1964 which caused the town to enact very strict earthquake-minded building codes.  I wasn't in Anchorage in '64, but it was North America's strongest recorded quake.

I've also been to Myanmar on three occasions - all on short, day visits from Thailand.  But I'm not claiming any special knowledge there.  

But I can vouch for the American Jewish World Service.  I spent two three month periods as a volunteer

Some of the people I worked with In Chiang Mai

for AJWS in Chiang Mai in Northern Thailand.  While I didn't work with a group dealing with Myanmar, AJWS was supporting such groups.  They've been assisting organizations in Myanmar for over 20 years now.

My experience with AJWS was that they very carefully selected organizations to assist, organizations that were doing serious work to help - in the case of my organization - Thai farmers, many of whom needed protection from land speculators and even theft of their land via dishonest government land managers.  

They also helped promote CSAs - Consumer Supported Agriculture.  This is where consumers pay for their vegetables in advance to help support farmers before they have crops to sell.  They also helped farmers switch over to organic farming.  In Thailand they label even more specifically - farming that doesn't use pesticides and farming that doesn't use chemicals.  

The 5 things the project focused on:
Land, Water, Forest land, Debt, and
 Prices of products.

Spending six months (two three month stints) working daily in an organization that AJWS supports in Thailand gave me a good sense of how AJWS operates, at least in that situation.  And as a former Peace Corps volunteer in Thailand, I arrived with a working fluency in Thai.  My spoken Thai was better than anyone's spoken English, so most interactions were in Thai.  And my earlier three years in Thailand meant I had some sense of Thai culture and history.  And that I had lived in Thailand before some of my colleagues were born.  

  Does AJWS Do Missionary Work?

Jews don't have missionaries trying to bring non-Jews into the fold.  The only thing I know of that is vaguely like that are some orthodox Jewish organizations that try to bring other Jews, less observant or even secular Jews, back into the fold.  But not non-Jews.  Non-Jews who want to convert, go through relatively extensive training in Judaism before that happens.  I've found that because of this, converts sometimes know more about Judaism than some people born Jewish.   

So, while "Jewish" is in the name of this organization, that is really the extent of the Judaism the receiving organizations get.  They know that the help they are getting is from a Jewish organization.  There is no proselytizing, no bible reading, nothing really about Judaism that AJWS offers to the organizations and people they assist.  

However,  Jewish values do underlie why AJWS does what it does.  From their website:

"For many AJWS supporters, tikkun olam—the Hebrew phrase for repairing the world—is the essence of what it means to be Jewish. Jewish teachings to help the poor, care for the stranger, and recognize the inherent dignity of every human being animate our commitment to build a better world. The Jewish tenet that all human beings are created b’tzelem Elohim—in the Divine image—underscores our belief that all people are infinitely valuable and deserving of respect."

All this is the lead-in to the email I got from AJWS the other day asking for donations to help AJWS's partner organizations in Myanmar help people affected by the earthquake.  

 Dear Steven,

This situation has no precedent.

A devastating earthquake unleashed destruction across Myanmar. More than 2,700 lives have been lost. Twice that number have been injured. Hospitals, schools, mosques, and apartment buildings have been destroyed. And the need for humanitarian assistance continues to soar.

But the little support offered by the U.S. government has been slow to arrive.

AJWS partners on the ground in Myanmar are ready to respond, but they need more resources — and there is no time to waste. When this 7.7-magnitude earthquake struck on Friday, our partners immediately began to provide food, water, and temporary shelter to thousands displaced by this disaster, including many from ethnic and religious minority communities overlooked by others. But with the first major natural disaster to take place since his election, President Trump’s dismantling of U.S. foreign aid agencies has delayed and diminished an American response when need is greatest.

The task now lies with us, Steven. We must rush emergency, life-saving support immediately. And we’re asking you to help.

  Give Now      [When you check out the link, you'll find the donations levels suggested are not the even numbers you see generally.  They're multiples of 18.  Here's why:

"Chai (חי) is the Hebrew word for "life." It also has the numeric value of 18. This is why many Jews typically give charity (and gifts) in multiples of 18 (e.g. 18, 36, 54, 72 etc.). We are thus symbolically blessing both the recipient and the giver with good, long lives." From Chabad]

The situation could have been very different. With a history of swift, significant action, the U.S. once led humanitarian response when people were in need. As the wealthiest nation on earth, we rushed emergency aid, saving lives and restoring order when communities were devastated by hurricanes, droughts, and earthquakes. While the AJWS community is pushing for this aid to be restored, the crisis in Myanmar demands that we act now. 

Please rush your gift right away and help AJWS and our partners on the ground in Myanmar to deliver lifesaving aid to communities whose entire existence has been upended by this earthquake.

In a country already devastated by civil war, AJWS is prepared to deliver humanitarian aid in this challenging environment, and we’re eager to bring support to as many people as possible. In Myanmar, AJWS must be ready to address humanitarian needs in a way that reflects our values, not this administration’s priorities.

I am in constant communication with frontline activists working around the clock and will update you as the situation changes. Until then, each of us is in your debt.

Jeffrey Stein

Senior Program Officer for Civil and Political Rights

American Jewish World Service

Some Of The Best Commentary At The Moment

Time is passing on fast forward.  Today is April Fools Day, 2025, but it's hard to come up with anything crazier than what the US president and his team of thugs do every day.  But a few things that happened on this day:

Cory Booker completed his 24 hour plus speech to Congress.  

Wisconsin voters reelected the left-leaning Susan Crawford  to the Wisconsin Supreme Court with 55% of the vote (with 95% of the votes counted) despite (or maybe because of) Elon Musk's various schemes to shower those who voted for her opponent with millions of dollars.

The GOP retained the two Florida seats, vacated so Matt Gaetz could be nominated (unsuccessfully) for Attorney General, and Michael George Glen Waltz could become the U.S. national security advisor and just last week managed to invite Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg into a Signal chat to plan an attack on the Houthis rebels in Yemen.  These are heavily Republican districts - Waltz got 67% of the vote in 2024 - but his replacement only got 56% of the vote this time.  That's still a decisive margin.  

The first video is an interview with Atlantic editor, Jeffrey Goldberg,  byAnne Applebaum, one of his writers at the New Orleans Book Festival.  Those who are attentive to the news, already know most of the information. 

In the second video, Goldberg is the moderator and asks questions of four of his writers, in conversation with Atlantic staff writers  Anne Applebaum, McKay Coppins, Elaina Plott-Calabro, and Adam Serwer.

This one is bubbling with insights about what is happening in the second Trump administration.  Serwer, especially, boils things down to what seem like accurate takes to me. 

Some of the key points:

• speed of destruction - in the first administration, Trump had traditional Republicans keeping him from straying too far beyond the normal boundaries.  Not this time.  Those around him believe in their mission to tear down the evil bureaucracy.
• institutions were slow to accept how much things would change and for the most part hadn't prepared strategies to resist.

I would add that destroying the government in the information age, isn't about destroying buildings, but messing around in the computers - to destroy files, to steal data, to identify 'enemies.'  

If DOGE were blowing up buildings, I suspect Congress would be trying to stop them.  But what they are doing is basically off camera and beyond most people's ability to conceive as 'destroying the United States" as we know it.  People know something bad is happening - particularly when they are directly affected, like when they themselves, or people they know well, lose jobs, their benefits, or people they know get disappeared.  But most of us still haven't felt the real impact yet.