Tag Archives: Rwanda

Jew of the Week: Anne Heyman

Mother of Rwanda’s Orphans

Anne Heyman with Rwandan President Paul Kagame

Anne Heyman with Rwandan President Paul Kagame

Anne Elaine Heyman (1961-2014) was born in South Africa and moved to the US with her family when she was 15. After doing a year of high school in Israel, she studied at the University of Pennsylvania, and then got a law degree from Columbia University. She was soon Manhattan’s assistant district attorney, focusing on fighting white-collar crime. In 1994, she began devoting her time to philanthropic causes, first volunteering with an organization that assists the elderly, as well as Hillel, Young Judea, and the Jewish Community Centers of America. In 2005, she learned that the Rwandan genocide left over a million orphans. Inspired to make a change, she realized she could apply the same model that Israel used in caring for orphans following the Holocaust. Heyman raised $12 million and convinced the Rwandan government to give her 144 acres of land on which she built a village for orphans (called Agahozo-Shalom). To power the village, Heyman built a solar plant – one of the largest in sub-Saharan Africa – which provides electricity for the rest of Rwanda as well. To help her, she brought in Israeli Ethiopian Jews to serve as councilors and teachers. The orphans, some of whom didn’t even know their names, were given a home, an education, a trade, and a new family. They affectionately called Heyman “Mom”, “Grandmother”, and “Angel”. Over 500 teenagers continue to live and prosper in Heyman’s village today. Sadly, Heyman passed away a year ago in a tragic horse-riding accident. Her husband and children are continuing her important work.

Words of the Week

I see Israel as one of the great outposts of democracy in the world… as a marvelous example of what can be done… how desert land can be transformed into an oasis of brotherhood and democracy.
– Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Jew of the Week: Irwin Cotler

Irwin Cotler

Irwin Cotler

Irwin Cotler (b. 1940) was born in Montreal and studied law at McGill University. After continuing his education at Yale, he returned to McGill as a law professor, and directed its Human Rights Program for over 25 years. As an expert on international and human rights law, Cotler served as a counsel for famous political prisoners like Nelson Mandela, Maher Arar, and Natan Sharansky. He has advised the Middle East peace process, and was involved in the Camp David Accords that brought peace between Israel and Egypt. In the 1980s, he served as President of the Canadian Jewish Congress, while also working to combat apartheid in South Africa. In 1999, he was elected as a Canadian Member of Parliament with a landslide victory that gave him 92% of the vote, described as “the most stunning electoral victory in this century.” Between 2003 and 2006, he served as Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, and has been lauded for his work in ensuring human rights and citizen privacy, particularly in the face of increasingly restrictive anti-terrorism legislation. He has worked against discrimination, anti-Semitism, and racism, appointing two women to the Supreme Court (making Canada’s the most gender-representative in the world), and appointing the first aboriginals and visible minorities to appellate courts. He issued the first national initiative against racism, worked to bring justice to victims of the Rwanda massacres, and even to indict former Iranian President Ahmadinejad for inciting genocide. Cotler reverted more wrongful convictions than any other minister in history. Having been re-elected as MP no less than 5 times, Cotler recently announced that he will not seek further re-election, and is ready to retire, though he intends to remain very active in social justice and peace activism. Awarded ten honourary degrees and the Order of Canada, Irwin Cotler is described as a key global player “in the struggle for justice, peace and human rights.”

Words of the Week

And God said: “. . . Abraham shall be a great people . . . Because I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him that they shall keep the way of God, to do righteousness and justice.”
– Genesis 18:17–19