Forbes Honors Trebuchet’s Director Jennifer Selendy Among America’s Top Lawyers 2025
Forbes has named Jennifer Selendy, founding partner of Selendy Gay PLLC and one of Trebuchet’s two directors, to its prestigious list of America’s Top Lawyers for 2025. This recognition celebrates attorneys with exceptional legal records, reputations for excellence, and leadership in shaping the legal landscape.
Selendy was recognized for her role in high-stakes litigation. She currently represents Albertsons in a $6 billion merger dispute with Kroger and, in 2024, secured a $1.1 billion trial victory for Fortis Advisors in a landmark earnout case against Johnson & Johnson—the largest such damages award in Delaware history.
Beyond her courtroom achievements, Forbes also highlighted Selendy’s humanitarian leadership as co-founder of the 30 Birds Foundation, which has successfully relocated more than 500 Afghan girls and their families to safety in Canada.
Earlier in 2025, Forbes also recognized both Jennifer Selendy and founding partner Faith Gay among America’s Best-in-State Lawyers for their influence in the New York legal market.
Read more from Selendy Gay: Forbes Names Jennifer Selendy to 2025 List of America’s Top Lawyers
Full list on Forbes: America’s Top Lawyers 2025
AI Resistance Art & Symbols of Resistance: A Visual Archive
Boston Plaza Demonstration
More…
A Graphic composed by Mentor Ehren Brav
Leveraging the power of AI image generation... Feel free to distribute - I certainly will be.
Christina Goldbaum's latest: Syria, Lebanon, and more
Recent articles, videos and podcasts from on the ground in some of the most fragile places in the world by wonderful alum and Convisero mentor Christina Goldbaum, winner of the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting for the New York Times.
To access the latest news from her: https://www.nytimes.com/by/christina-goldbaum#latest
Christina Goldbaum Wins 2025 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting
Christina Goldbaum, a young journalist at The New York Times and member of Convisero, has been awarded the 2025 Pulitzer Prize in Explanatory Reporting, alongside colleagues Azam Ahmed and Matthieu Aikins. The prize honors their remarkable work in the New York Times series titled “How the U.S. Lost Afghanistan.”
The award-winning reporting reveals how the United States, years before the fall of Kabul, laid the groundwork for the unraveling of its two-decade war in Afghanistan. Through in-depth investigations and frontline accounts, the series demonstrates the consequences of misaligned strategy, internal dysfunction, and long-ignored warnings.
Explore the full Pulitzer-winning series here:
How the U.S. Lost Afghanistan
Courtesy of The New York Times
In one of the centerpiece reports, Goldbaum and colleagues gained rare access to Sirajuddin Haqqani, one of the most powerful and controversial figures within the Taliban, offering a close view into the inner workings of the regime now governing Afghanistan.
Read the story: Sirajuddin Haqqani Is a Taliban Hard-Liner and Power Broker
A Voice for Critical Truths
Goldbaum’s recognition marks a significant moment not only for foreign reporting but for a new generation of journalists pushing boundaries in international investigative work. Her reporting has consistently centered the lived realities of those caught in conflict, while critically examining U.S. policy decisions with rigor and clarity.
Goldbaum has become known for her fieldwork in difficult and often dangerous conditions. Her work in Afghanistan stands as a testament to the power of explanatory journalism to illuminate complex geopolitical failures with humanity and urgency.
For more on Pulitzer Prize winners and featured stories, visit: Pulitzer.org
To explore more of Goldbaum’s international reporting, follow her work at The New York Times
Rabbi Adina Allen’s Rosh Hashanah Sermon
The Divinity of Difference
Congregation Netivot Shalom, Rosh Hashanah, Day 1
September 23, 2025 / 1 Tishre, 5786
Rabbi Adina Allen
We have all developed out of the same universal processes into a cosmological sea of complexity and motion. -- Julia Morley
Today we tremble at the edge of creation. The shofar’s ancient cry carries us back to the beginning, the earth is birthed anew. Science, too, sings of that beginning — its own liturgy for life, a poetry written in cells. Cells create by one dividing into two -- energy arcs across the split, and something astonishing happens: complexity stirs, possibility awakens. Out of division comes life.
Life itself begins in the moment of division!
And it’s not only science that makes this claim. Across centuries, our rabbis were tracing the same pattern in their own medium — not in a lab under a microscope, but in the beit midrash within Torah herself.
In an attempt to understand humanity’s origins, our sages asked: Why does Torah not start with the letter Aleph, the first letter? Aleph, tradition teaches, is the numerical equivalent of one. It is the silent breath of Anokhi at Sinai — the unvoiced, undivided ground of existence from which all creation flows. Wouldn’t it make sense for Torah to begin there — in the unity of oneness beneath all things? Yet, our sacred story opens Beresheit bara Elohim. Torah begins not with Aleph -- one, but with Beresheit, Bet, the numerical equivalent of two.
“When you multiply anything by one it remains what it was before” teaches the Be-er Mamorim¹. “While Bet, which is equivalent to the number two, is the first number to represent multiplicity and expansion.” From the very first beresheit moment, Bet is both a divider and a multiplier: light is pulled from the darkness, earth is separated from heaven, the seas are rolled aside so that land can emerge. Aleph underlies all of existence, but creation begins with Bet. Bet which is division, which is difference, which is the ever-unfolding multiplicity of life.
This core truth runs throughout Jewish tradition. Every tractate of the Talmud — what is perhaps the most ingenious creative enterprise of the Jewish people — begins not on page one, but on page two — daf bet. While perhaps a printer’s decision way back when, we can imagine this beginning with bet as a way of kindling that beresheit, creation energy within Talmud, a way of encoding it as a kavanah. For without the bet energy there is no Talmud, no dialogue, discussion or debate without that initial division that bet initiates.
While we may celebrate this in the Talmud, enjoying the twists and turns that the discourse takes, in the actual experience of our lives, division and difference tend to unsettle us. Think about a time when you heard a close friend express a view different from yours, different from what you might have expected them to say. Questions might swirl (what did they mean by that? Did I really hear them right?), discomfort might arise (with the person, with the thought of engaging in a potentially tense moment of confrontation/conflict, imagining we might lose this friendship or even our place in community), we may become tight, protective, unsure how to proceed from this place of separation. In these moments it can feel like uniformity or acquiescence is the safest way to avoid a potential rupture.
Yet, Torah shows us the problem with uniformity. Soon after that opening bet of Beresheit -- the unfolding of the multiplicity of life -- the story of the Tower of Babel can be read as a rejection of the plurality of creation. The story begins powerfully, poignantly describing what had become of life on earth: vayehi kol ha aretz sefat echat u’devarim achadim. And so it was that the entire world was of one language — sefat echat — and of the same words — u’d’varim achadim. We might pass over this line quickly, not feeling anything is amiss, or, on the other hand, might read this as something praiseworthy, the people coming together in unity, all able to speak with one voice – yet our commentators insist something here is deeply wrong.
What is it that was so troublesome about this situation? If there was an issue, we might assume that it is what the people were saying, that the content of their words was cruel or incorrect. But the text in fact never explains what the words themselves are -- there are no specific statements to parse. Noticing this omission, HaaEmek HaDavar suggests: it wasn’t because of the content of the words that the Holy One was distressed… it was that they all thought the same thing…” The tower is destroyed by God and the people are scattered to disrupt the uniformity of thought and speech and create a world of difference.
We can feel the echoes of Babel reverberating in our world today -- both the longing for unity and the consequences of enforced conformity. In these heartbreaking and polarizing times, with so much on the line, we tend to double down on our desire for the safety and power that we imagine lies in uniformity. Yet, the enforcement of sefat echat u’devarim achadim attempts to create a pure, simple and unified world without difference and disagreement that denies reality in all of its dynamic, diverse, divergent pieces -- denies the reality of both the outside world, and equally denies each of our complex inner worlds.
Judaism is a tradition that places immense value on words, yet when we attempt to enforce sameness of speech -- slogans, hashtags, rallying cries, tropes -- we do words a disservice. Used in this way the words themselves become inert, deadened, wishful thinking or weapon-like. Like the bricks of the builders of Babel, they become our attempt to be like God, shaping the world in our image and likeness, reaching towards heaven only to become ever more disconnected from the actuality of life here on earth.
But the consequences extend further, deeper. Sefat achat creates a world of enforced sameness, obscuring what is uncomfortable or inconvenient, erasing the fullness of human expression, and reducing God’s image to a single, diminished reflection. Out of fear of giving offense, we echo back what we think is wanted, swallowing the words, the questions, the longings that don’t align. But what we swallow does not disappear — unless it has some way to be expressed and explored, it hardens inside us, blocking authenticity, draining the very energy that might have opened us to one another, to God, to the very differences we long to bridge. The walls may rise higher, but the life within is stifled, and all it was meant to shelter begins to wither.
Bayo Akomolafe, contemporary philosopher and writer whose work I have turned to often in these times, writes, “When a crack appears in the mighty wall, the only thing more worrisome than allowing it to breathe, is sealing it up — for the crack call[s] into question…the nobilities we cherish, the stories we assume to be true. The crack…is a reminder that it is often the fixity of the postures we take on that prove more dangerous than the threats we presume to withstand.”
I know this not only in theory, but in the marrow of my own life, as I know many of us do. This summer I fell out of step with some beloved friends and respected colleagues, part of a larger feeling that those I once felt in sync with were marching to a single drumbeat and I could not bring myself to move in time. There were words they wanted me to say, and ways they wanted me to say them, but I could not. To have spoken their words would have been to silence something true inside me. The weight of that difference was heavy — the pressure to align, to smooth things over, to get on board. And it was painful, and lonely, to wonder if my voice, in its dissonance, still had a place. I needed wisdom that could help me stay with that tension without collapsing into despair, or defensiveness, or disingenuous deference. And that is why the story of Babel speaks to me so piercingly now.
As I read the line sefat echat u’devarim achadim, of one language and one speech, the cadence of the words evokes for me the final line from Aleinu — words we will soon pray as a central part of the musaf Amidah — Adonai echad u’shmo echad — “God is one and God’s name is one”. The parallel is striking: the phrases have the same insistent beat, but with entirely different thrust.
In Aleinu, God is one and God’s name is one -- this is the realm of the Aleph. The domain of oneness is God’s domain. In Babel sefat echat u’devarim achadim — the language is one, the words are one -- this is meant to be the realm of Bet, the realm of humans, serving God, not trying to play God (or be God), in which plurality and difference are essential. The attempt to do away with division and enforce sameness of speech is us playing at being God, is us misunderstanding how to know God, is us forgetting that it is through allowing and tolerating differences in beliefs and positions among us that we understand that God’s oneness that we wish for is, in fact, full of infinite multiplicity, infinite possibility, in ways as humans we cannot fully grasp. What is true is that we don’t know and we cannot prescribe oneness based on our human, incomplete knowing.
Consciously or unconsciously, we all long for oneness — with God, with each other, with the whole of creation, within our own selves. Yet, like our forebears of Babel, our attempts at feeling and finding this oneness become distortions, driving us further from this goal. We build towers of our own — imagining we can control or change other people, or convincing ourselves that if only everyone shared our view, unity could be secured. Yet Babel teaches that this is a distortion of the gift God gave us. Our realm here on Earth is not the silent stillness of Aleph, but the messy, chaotic, creative unfolding of Bet: alive with dissonance and difference.
The Tikkunei Zohar teaches that today, Rosh Hashanah, coincides with the second day of creation - the first time there is division, when the lower waters are split from the upper waters. Rosh Hashanah, then, is both the day that marks the first separation and it is the day that celebrates the creation of the world. It is no coincidence that in our sacred mythology these two facets of existence go hand in hand. Just as the splitting of a cell creates our very selves, the opening Bet of Torah creates the world and all that unfolds from there. Division, dissonance and difference among us is hard and painful, it can break our hearts and can break us apart. And yet, it is in tolerating the cracking of ideas, stories and relationships on which we have relied that breakage can reveal a birthplace for new beginnings.
The world is pulsing with the fierce possibility of this moment. Today, the shofar pierces our defenses, the prayers stir our memories, the liturgy brings us face to face with our deepest longings for the future and the deepest part of ourselves. The world is waiting for you to bring forth what only you can; for each of us to make space for what only others can bring.
Hayom Harat Olam. Today the world is created anew.
Ken yehi ratzon.
Sherman’s Letter to Rabbi Adina Allen
Dearest Adina,
You have written powerfully and compellingly, yes as you indicate from your “marrow!.”
Your message is open and so needed.
Suppression of one’s doubts and fears is dangerous and self defeating - retreat into blind reassurance and uniformity now is ostrich like behavior - never understood it as anything other than cowardice.
You understand our tradition is unique scholarly and psychological ways. Thank you! You teach and inspire.
Bayo is a fascinating integral reference, deliberately illustrative of your erudition and courageous voice, in a very thoughtful provocation. His citizen-subject Minatour essay on democracy is surely relevant.
I’m hoping you have shared it with others of our community. I intend to with my family and friends.
Digesting your essay will ease the fast and refine the senses. So happy you were my student. And continue to illuminate my life
Love,
Sherman
Scholars at Risk Releases Free to Think 2025
Scholars at Risk (SAR) has published Free to Think 2025, its annual survey of attacks on higher education. Covering July 1, 2024–June 30, 2025, the report documents 395 incidents across 49 countries and territories, underscoring that pressures on universities are intensifying in both authoritarian and traditionally liberal contexts.
Key findings at a glance
Widening geography of risk: While violence and repression persist in authoritarian settings, SAR notes a marked rise in constraints within democracies where elected leaders have moved to curb university autonomy and academic freedom.
Country snapshots:
Afghanistan: The Taliban has removed women, minorities, and dissenting voices from universities under the guise of staffing changes.
Serbia: Faculty who supported student-led anti-corruption protests faced research restrictions and threats to salaries and university funding.
United States: Since January 2025, federal actions—ranging from executive orders and funding revocations to investigations and policy directives—have targeted admissions, hiring, research agendas, speech policies, and finances. Incident counts rose sharply compared to pre-2023 levels.
Bangladesh: Student protests against a government-jobs quota met force described by the UN human rights office as “brutal, systematic repression,” with mass injuries and significant fatalities among students.
Campus protest rules: New restrictions on demonstrations appeared in multiple settings, including India and the U.S., often tightening “time, place, and manner” policies and penalties.
Global trendlines: Data from the Academic Freedom Index (AFi) shows continued contraction of academic freedom in numerous countries, including some listed in this year’s report.
Why it matters
SAR emphasizes that universities function as engines of research, innovation, and informed public discourse. Attacks—ranging from violence and imprisonment to policy interference and travel limits—erode teaching and research quality, chill speech, and undermine democratic institutions.
SAR’s call to action
The report urges:
Awareness: Read and share the report; invest in training, measurement, and monitoring of academic freedom.
Solidarity: Build coalitions among institutions to anticipate and withstand pressures.
Protections: Adopt and implement legal frameworks such as the Principles for Implementing the Right to Academic Freedom (2024).
Method and scope
Incidents are verified through multiple sources and categorized (e.g., killings/violence/disappearances, wrongful imprisonment/prosecution, travel restrictions, loss of position, and systemic “other” constraints). SAR notes that lower reported counts in some countries may reflect successful repression, self-censorship, or data scarcity, not improved conditions.
Read the full report: Free to Think 2025 — Scholars at Risk Academic Freedom Monitoring Project
Professor Jan Bastiaans and the Ibogaine Saga (1988–1993)
Professor Jan Bastiaans
A newly shared first-person account by Boaz Wachtel traces the formative years (1988–1993) of the modern ibogaine movement in the Netherlands and the role of Dutch psychiatrist Professor Jan Bastiaans—a pioneer in trauma treatment—alongside activists Howard and Norma Lotsof, Robert “Bob” Sisko, and Wachtel himself. The narrative charts ibogaine’s emergence from obscurity to intense medical and public scrutiny, its collision with controversy, and its evolving scientific reassessment decades later.
From “Stringer” discovery to a nascent movement
Origins: Ibogaine—an alkaloid from the West Central African Tabernanthe iboga, long used in Bwiti ritual—surged into Western awareness in 1962 when New Yorker Howard Lotsof, then a young heroin user, reported abrupt cessation of withdrawal and cravings after a single ibogaine experience.
Early circle (“The Group”): Lotsof and his spouse Norma, Bob Sisko (Robert Rand), and Boaz Wachtel collaborated across the U.S. and the Netherlands to collect case histories, engage researchers, and press regulators to study ibogaine’s anti-addictive potential.
Why Bastiaans mattered
Background: Professor Jan Bastiaans, renowned for treating WWII survivors’ trauma (the “KZ-syndrome”) with psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy (notably LSD), recognized early the depth of trauma among people with substance use disorders.
Entry into ibogaine work: Introduced via addiction researchers Charles Kaplan and the Rotterdam Junkiebond network, Bastiaans observed and later supervised a series of detoxification attempts in the Netherlands, lending clinical gravitas to otherwise grassroots efforts.
Hypothesis: Bastiaans intuited that ibogaine’s value might extend beyond blunting withdrawal and cravings to addressing underlying trauma, anticipating later frameworks (e.g., Gabor Maté’s trauma–addiction linkage).
Scientific sparks and institutional attention
Preclinical signals: Late-1980s animal studies (Kaplan and colleagues) indicated ibogaine could attenuate opioid withdrawal.
U.S. traction: By the early 1990s, these reports, plus scattered human case series, helped spur the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse to fund preclinical work and approve a Phase I dose-escalation protocol (University of Miami). Funding constraints halted that trial after one subject.
A tragedy—and its fallout
Fatal incident: During a Netherlands treatment effort, a young woman died; toxicology suggested recent heroin smoking and possible potentiation of opioid toxicity in temporal association with ibogaine.
Consequences: No criminal charges followed, but Professor Bastiaans—then 77—saw his medical license suspended over administrative issues tied to experimental treatment permissions. He died in 1997, embittered by professional censure.
Cautionary note: The account underscores safety risks (including QT-interval prolongation) and the dangers of unsupervised or ad hoc use—concerns echoed in later literature. (Current clinical protocols in some countries pair stringent screening and cardiac monitoring with magnesium mitigation strategies.)
Biology that intrigued clinicians
Distinct pharmacology: Unlike classic serotonergic psychedelics alone, ibogaine is described as interacting with multiple receptor systems and neurotrophic pathways (e.g., BDNF, GDNF, NGF), fueling hypotheses about neuroplasticity and addiction circuitry modulation.
Therapeutic framing: Some practitioners characterize ibogaine experiences as psychologically arduous but potentially reorganizing—aligning with Bastiaans’s focus on trauma processing and “liberation” from entrenched patterns.
Decades later: renewed scientific attention
Stanford/Nature Medicine (2024): A prospective observational study led by Nolan R. Williams reported large, sustained improvements in PTSD, depression, and anxiety among U.S. veterans with TBI following a magnesium–ibogaine protocol delivered in Mexico, alongside reductions in substance use. Imaging analyses suggested changes consistent with “younger” brain age on follow-up.
Interpretation: While not definitive clinical proof, findings revived interest in ibogaine’s potential trauma-related benefits—a line of thought Bastiaans had emphasized long before it was mainstream.
What this history contributes
A window into early, risky innovation: The account documents a bottom-up push—imperfect, controversial, and sometimes unsafe—that nonetheless helped seed formal research questions.
A complex legacy: Bastiaans’s ibogaine chapter mirrors his broader career: bold clinical intuition about trauma, pioneering use of psychedelic-assisted approaches, and intense professional blowback.
Present context: Any contemporary exploration of ibogaine remains bound by medical, legal, and ethical safeguards. The story highlights the importance of regulated, evidence-based research and rigorous clinical oversight, especially in populations at high risk.
The Power of Education and the Beloved Community
Graduation Celebration with College Unbound
The Institute for Nonviolence Chicago, in partnership with College Unbound (CU), recently celebrated the graduation of six staff members who earned their bachelor’s degrees earlier this summer. This marked the second graduating cohort from the program, which is designed to remove barriers that often prevent Black and Latino learners from pursuing higher education.
CU provides a flexible, student-centered model tailored for adult learners balancing work, family, and personal responsibilities. The Institute supports over 20 staff members currently enrolled through tuition assistance, reducing financial obstacles to degree completion.
Samuel Castro, Director of Strategic Initiatives & Partnerships and a graduate of CU, reflected on the achievement:
“They say we can’t do it because we come from the hood…Can’t nobody tell me what I can’t do in life.”
Education as a Pathway to Safer Communities
According to Chicago’s Violence Reduction Dashboard, the city has seen a 37% decrease in shootings compared to last year. Leaders in the community link this decline, in part, to the professionalization and growth of the community violence intervention (CVI) field. The CU program supports this development by fostering student-led research and exhibitions that strengthen the work of CVI practitioners.
Representative La Shawn K. Ford, speaking at the commencement, described education as “a ticket out of poverty,” underscoring the link between higher education and violence prevention.
New Opportunities and Community Impact
Graduates of the program have expressed ambitions ranging from advancing CVI efforts in Chicago to founding nonprofits that support youth, employment, and community resources. Their achievements are inspiring others in their families and neighborhoods to pursue higher education, helping to address socioeconomic disparities while contributing to safer communities.
Continuing the Work
The CU partnership demonstrates how investment in education can have far-reaching social impacts, particularly in communities most affected by gun violence. Support for tuition assistance not only empowers staff to complete degrees but also contributes to broader goals of equity, opportunity, and peace in Chicago.
Graduation highlights and graduate reflections can be viewed here.
Voltus Named #1 Aggregator in Wood Mackenzie’s 2025 Virtual Power Plant Report
San Francisco-based Voltus, Inc., a leading operator of virtual power plants (VPPs) and distributed energy resource (DER) platforms, has been recognized as the #1 aggregator in North America by gigawatts under management (GWUM) in Wood Mackenzie’s 2025 Virtual Power Plant Market Report. This is the third consecutive year that Voltus has received this distinction, underscoring its leadership in advancing energy flexibility.
Key Recognitions from the Report
Top Aggregator by Scale: Voltus reported more than 7.5 GWUM, showing significant growth across PJM, MISO, and the data center sector.
Largest Portfolio of C&I Programs: The company continues to provide the broadest set of cash-generating opportunities for commercial and industrial (C&I) energy users in the U.S. and Canada.
First-to-Market Innovations: Voltus has consistently pioneered access to Operating Reserves programs across grid operators.
Data Center Leadership: By collaborating with hyperscalers and utilities, Voltus is showcasing how increasing data center demand can be balanced with VPP-driven grid flexibility.
Company Leadership Speaks
“Voltus's position as the largest aggregator stems from our unwavering commitment to maximizing value for our customers,” said Dana Guernsey, CEO of Voltus. “Every innovation we develop—from our AI-enabled platform to industry-first programs like Carbon Response—is designed to create new revenue streams and optimize returns. Our advocacy efforts have unlocked access to previously closed markets, directly translating to greater opportunities for our customers.”
Ben Hertz-Shargel, Ph.D., Global Head of Grid Edge at Wood Mackenzie, noted: “The North American VPP landscape has grown rapidly, and Voltus continues to distinguish itself as a market leader. With its scale, advocacy, and innovation, Voltus demonstrates the type of leadership that is shaping the next phase of VPP adoption.”
About Voltus and Its Team
Voltus connects distributed energy resources to electricity markets, enabling more affordable, reliable, and sustainable energy. Its partnerships team plays a key role in scaling access to these opportunities. Nathaniel Teichman, who has served as Director of Partnerships (Oct 2023 – Jul 2025) and now as Senior Director of Partnerships (since Jul 2025), helps drive collaborations that expand Voltus’s customer reach and impact across North America.
Learn more about Voltus here.
Read the full announcement here.
In Modi’s India, Journalists Face Jail or Silence
A new episode of Making Peace Visible highlights the erosion of democratic freedoms in India and the dangerous reality for independent journalists under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government.
Press Under Pressure
According to reporting by Suchitra Vijayan, more than 75% of India’s news organizations are now owned by just four or five corporations, all led by allies of Modi. This concentration of ownership has reshaped the media landscape into one that largely aligns with the government’s agenda. Journalists who dare to criticize the government face harassment, detention, imprisonment, or even assassination.
About the Speaker
Suchitra Vijayan is a journalist, attorney, and author of How Long Can the Moon Be Caged? Voices of Indian Political Prisoners (co-authored with Francesca Recchia) and Midnight’s Borders. She is the founder and executive director of The Polis Project, an independent journalism and research organization documenting authoritarianism and state oppression. Raised in Chennai, India, Vijayan now lives in New York City.
Her reporting draws attention to regions like Kashmir, where the government has systematically targeted the free press.
Listen and Learn More
This episode, first published in November 2023, offers a stark warning about the fragility of press freedom, not just in India but globally.
Listen to the episode and explore further here: Making Peace Visible – Suchitra Vijayan
Bearing Witness: Physicians for Human Rights Israel Amid War and Atonement
As the Jewish calendar turns to a season of forgiveness and atonement, the stark reality in Gaza tells another story — one of destruction, displacement, and famine. Against this backdrop, Physicians for Human Rights Israel (PHRI) continues its urgent work documenting violations, supporting vulnerable communities, and advocating for systemic change.
Testimonies from Gaza
PHRI has been gathering and analyzing testimonies from displaced women in Gaza who experienced pregnancy and childbirth under conditions of starvation, destroyed infrastructure, and lack of access to healthcare. These accounts reveal unimaginable suffering, raising questions of survival that resonate deeply with families everywhere. Documenting and sharing these stories remains critical in exposing the human cost of war.
Deaths in Custody
In parallel, PHRI is documenting the alarming number of Palestinians who have died in Israeli custody since October 7 — now approaching 100 cases. The causes range from violent injuries and medical neglect to harsh detention conditions. In many cases, families may never learn how their loved ones were taken from them.
Support for Status-less Women
PHRI’s Open Clinic continues to serve women without residency or citizenship in Israel, including those seeking pregnancy terminations. A forthcoming position paper will call for systemic reforms to ensure that the public healthcare system provides these essential services. For many of these women, who face daily survival struggles and past traumas, access to such care is a matter of dignity and justice.
A Call for Solidarity
PHRI emphasizes the urgent need for international attention, support, and advocacy. As Deputy Director Lee Caspi wrote: “We need you at our side in this new year, as darkness continues to close in on us, so we can continue bringing forward the victims’ voices and demand justice, care, and compassion.”
Support their work: Physicians for Human Rights Israel (PHRI)
Special Report: Linking Education and Public Safety in Chicago
Chicago street rivals become graduates and mentors through College Unbound program. Source: Fox32 Chicago.
A recent Fox News Chicago special report has spotlighted an innovative partnership between the Institute for Nonviolence Chicago and College Unbound, showing how higher education can play a vital role in reducing crime.
Chicago’s Equity Dashboard reveals significant disparities in degree attainment: Black and Latino residents hold fewer college degrees compared to their white counterparts. In neighborhoods such as Austin, West Garfield Park, and Back of the Yards—areas long affected by disinvestment—those rates are even lower.
Research demonstrates a clear connection between education and safety: individuals with a Bachelor’s degree are five times less likely to be incarcerated. Recognizing this, the Institute for Nonviolence Chicago has partnered with College Unbound to ensure its community violence intervention (CVI) team members can pursue degrees while continuing their full-time work.
Currently, over 20 staff members are enrolled in the program, turning their lived experience into academic credentials and applying that knowledge to frontline work in combating gun violence. As CEO Teny Gross noted, “We’re investing in our staff to make Chicago safer for everyone.”
Watch the full report here: Fox News Chicago Coverage
Navigating Humanitarian Realities: OCHA oPt’s Mapping Resources
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the occupied Palestinian territory (OCHA oPt) offers a valuable collection of interactive and thematic maps that aid understanding of humanitarian conditions. These maps shed light on issues ranging from movement restrictions and displacement to access to essential services.
Understanding the Maps
OCHA oPt’s Maps section organizes visual data into several categories and filters:
Themes such as access to services (health, education, water, sanitation), displacement, casualties, destruction of property, and movement and access issues like blockades or checkpoints.
Areas covering geographic zones including the West Bank (including Area C and East Jerusalem) and the Gaza Strip.
Types of maps, including barrier maps, closure maps, situation maps, thematic maps, and reference maps.
Years, offering a timeline of changes from 2015 onward.
Featured Maps & Highlights
Recent featured products include:
West Bank Access Restrictions Map | July 2025, detailing areas where movement is limited.
Population and Internal Displacement since 7 October 2023 | Gaza Strip, showing displacement patterns after renewed conflict.
Gaza Strip Access and Movement | July 2024, illustrating constraints on mobility and humanitarian access.
Gaza Strip: Humanitarian Access Constraints, updated as of June 2024.
These visual tools help stakeholders—from aid agencies to community leaders—analyze and respond to evolving humanitarian needs.
Learn more here: https://www.ochaopt.org/maps
The 2025 Goldziher Prize Opens for Submissions
The Goldziher Prize has announced its 2025 call for entries, seeking journalists and digital creators whose work illuminates stories of solidarity between Jews and Muslims. At a time when discourse is dominated by violence, polarization, and the rise of both Islamophobia and antisemitism, the prize seeks to highlight overlooked narratives of cooperation, connection, and hope.
Beyond the Binary of Conflict
Mainstream coverage often reduces Jewish–Muslim relations to a framework of conflict. The Goldziher Prize encourages storytelling that moves past this binary to explore the deeper truths — the relationships sustained by shared history, high-level diplomacy, everyday acts of decency, and a stubborn hope for something better.
The 2025 competition specifically invites journalism and opinion pieces that may grapple with contradictions and uncertainties but ultimately broaden public understanding. From accounts of international negotiations to local community collaborations, the prize values work that sparks curiosity and challenges stereotypes.
Honoring a Legacy
Named in honor of Ignác Goldziher, a 19th-century Hungarian scholar of Islam who championed cross-cultural understanding, the prize reflects his legacy of dialogue and respect. By awarding monetary prizes to journalists and creators worldwide, the Goldziher Prize continues to recognize excellence in storytelling that brings to light new and nuanced perspectives.
In spotlighting these stories, the organizers hope to expand collective vision and trace pathways toward resolution in an era overshadowed by division.
For more details on the prize and entry guidelines, visit The Goldziher Prize.