Recently, the organizations that ran immersive Jewish service learning experiences, in larger numbers, specifically AJWS (internationally) and Bend the Arc (domestically), either have stopped or are about to stop doing them. From my perspective this creates an educational challenge and an opportunity – one that sacred service leaders should embrace.
If plausible deniability of responsibility is enough of a justification for inaction, then what motivates people to act? In telling the story of Swiss Border Guard Paul Gruninger who actively disobeyed Nazi legislation by helping Jews illegally cross the border into Switzerland, Press notes that it was Gruninger’s ability to humanize the Jewish people rather than seeing them as evil, as many Nazi officials had sought to impress upon the lower guard and the people, that empowered him to act.
