Rabbi Corey Helfand
A graduate of the Hyman Brand Hebrew Academy is one of 14 influential Jewish leaders who traveled through Guatemala for a week as part of the prestigious Global Justice Fellowship run by American Jewish World Service (AJWS), the leading Jewish organization supporting human rights and efforts to fight poverty in developing countries.
Rabbi Corey Helfand, the rabbi of Peninsula Sinai Congregation in Foster City, California, returned to the U.S. this month after meeting leaders of nonprofit groups working to advance human rights in Guatemala, one of the Central American countries that residents are fleeing to seek asylum in the United States.
The fellows arrived as Guatemala faced widespread condemnation for clamping down on the human rights of indigenous people and rural farmers. During a week in the country, the fellows met with advocates fighting for legal protections for human rights activists at risk of violence, forensic anthropologists working to identify remains from the decades of internal armed conflict, a council of indigenous elders, and an artists’ collective that uses street performance to reintegrate indigenous cultures into public spaces and help communities heal from decades of trauma.
This is not Rabbi Helfand’s first association with AJWS. He went to Ghana with AJWS more than a decade ago while in rabbinical school on what he described as a service-oriented trip. The six-month fellowship he’s involved with now reflects what he called “a seismic shift in thinking by American Jewish World Service” away from service-oriented trips and toward forming partnerships with people in the developing world.
“The thinking with these fellowships is that for a six-month period we create a very deep and meaningful relationship with AJWS where we learn about the developing world, we learn about the work that is being done there by the partners of AJWS,” Rabbi Helfand explained.
The new approach allows the fellows, in this case a group of rabbis and a cantor, to better understand what’s happening on the ground. They meet people who are struggling to make life better for their families against tremendous odds — in countries where human rights are not respected and where the poor have little chance of advancing. They also meet courageous defenders of human rights.
“We can understand what it is they are struggling with rather than impose our own assumptions,” the rabbi said.
“So rather than presuming what they need we actually find out what they need and give them the resources and tools to put that in place,” he continued. “When we return to the U.S., we become ambassadors for those people about their developing world, specifically in Guatemala but really all over.”
Rabbi Helfand, who became a Bar Mitzvah at Congregation Beth Shalom and is the son of Richard and Vicki Helfand, said he didn’t know much about Guatemala before his visit. He was familiar with MayaWorks, a group of female artists who create Judaica by hand — including kipot that are popular at weddings and other simchas — and other items to financially support their families and become fully contributing members of their communities (mayaworks.org). So, he said, he departed California with his “eyes wide open.”
The fellows learned from Guatemalan human rights advocates about working to improve life in Guatemala and how American Jews and others can support this work. The fellows, who were joined on the trip by AJWS Global Ambassador Ruth Messinger, also met with leaders at the U.S. Embassy.
While in Guatemala, Rabbi Corey Helfand (third from right) and other AJWS fellows met with forensic anthropologists at the nonprofit Center for Forensic Analysis and Applied Sciences. The anthropologists are trying to identify remains from the genocide so they can be returned to their families and communities.
Rabbi Helfand learned that Guatemalans suffered during their own genocide, which has “eerie parallels” to the Holocaust. The fellows met a group of forensic anthropologists who are going into Guatemalan indigenous communities and unearthing mass graves.
“People dug their own graves, like during the Holocaust, and were thrown in or killed and buried there,” he explained, noting the group met the anthropologists on the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.
“One of the forensic anthropologists, in lifting up the humanity of every life, said something to the effect of ‘You know you lost 6 million, we lost 250,000, and that’s not even a fraction of what you lost,’ ” Rabbi Helfand recalled.
“That story that happened to them is very similar, if not identical, to a story that happened to us,” Rabbi Helfand said, “and despite the physical distance, our stories are intertwined.”
The rabbis did not visit Jewish people in Guatemala. In fact the Jewish population is very small there. According to the estimates of Hebrew University demographer Sergio DellaPergola’s World Jewish Population, 2016, study, Guatemala is home to between 900 and 1,500 Jews.
“As Jews, there is a moral imperative that we often think about helping other Jews, and I think that’s true,” explained Rabbi Helfand.
But that’s not what AJWS does. This fellowship, Rabbi Helfand said, reminds him that Jews have a desire to see themselves as strangers, which is “deeply embedded in our Passover narrative.”
“This is a call to action to be able to listen and to see all of the strangers that are around us, and I think that’s a deep and innately Jewish value and quality of what it means to be Jewish.”
An important takeaway for Rabbi Helfand from this trip comes from AJWS’ Messinger.
“She says we can’t retreat to the luxury of being overwhelmed, of doing nothing in this world when there is so much going on,” he said. “We have to act. I think this was a great reminder that you can act locally and you can act globally. Sometimes seeing challenges in the developing countries provides the motivation that you need to be able to start doing the work at home.”
That’s the next step for Rabbi Helfand and the other fellows. They are learning how best to advocate in support of international policies that advance the human rights and well-being of some of the world’s poorest and most oppressed communities.
Next month the fellows will travel to Washington, D.C., to educate members of Congress and other government officials about pressing international human rights issues.
“These influential Jewish leaders are witnesses to the fact that human rights in Guatemala are under siege, in some cases forcing people to make the arduous journey to seek a new life in the U.S.,” said Robert Bank, President and CEO of AJWS. “Our fellows share what they learn when they go into their communities and to the halls of Congress. Together, the fellows are issuing a powerful call to Americans to support human rights and end poverty in Guatemala and the rest of the developing world.”
While in the nation’s capital, Rabbi Helfand will share his observations about the history of human rights violations.
“We are going to be lobbying for two particular issues: One is a bill that is before the House and the Senate defending human rights in Guatemala; the other calls for accountability for the genocide in Myanmar, also called Burma,” he said.
He explained that a bipartisan bill seeking to punish Burma for genocide overwhelmingly passed the House but is stalled in the Senate.
“So we’re trying to move that along to get the support of our congressional leadership to condemn the violence and the genocide to the Rohingya people in Burma,” said Rabbi Helfand, who will celebrate his 10th anniversary with Peninsula Sinai in August. The Conservative congregation of about 370 families has almost doubled in size since he became its rabbi.
The skills this rabbi from the MidwestRabbi Helfand is learning as part of this AJWS fellowship are transferable to a variety of situations.
“The tools we are learning about advocacy you could use at a city level, at a state level, to be able to make a difference in issues of immigration or climate change or water shortages or domestic violence or abuse,” Rabbi Helfand said. “AJWS is investing in us to become global change agents through advocacy and policy.”
Rabbi Helfand said this fellowship experience has been “transformative.” He added, “Making a difference doesn’t mean you have to get on a plane and travel for hours. But the people we met in Guatemala inspired us to act wherever we are.”
Rabbi Helfand is married to Jenny Ackerman. They are the parents of Eden (9), Matan (7), and Jonah (4).
By Barbara Bayer / Editor