Ruth W. Messinger to Deliver Spindel Lecture March 9

Story posted March 02, 2010

Ruth_Messinger.jpg

Ruth W. Messinger, president of American Jewish World Service, will deliver Bowdoin College's 2010 Harry Spindel Memorial Lecture at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 9, 2010, in Kresge Auditorium, Visual Arts Center.

Messinger's talk, titled "Jews as Global Citizens: Our Responsibility in the World," is open to the public. Admission is free.

Ruth W. Messinger was named president of American Jewish World Service (AJWS), a faith-based international human rights organization that works to alleviate poverty, hunger and disease in the developing world, in 1998. In addition to its grant-making to over 400 grassroots projects around the world, AJWS works within the American Jewish community to promote global citizenship and social justice through activism, volunteer service and education.

Prior to AJWS, Messinger worked for 20 years in public service in New York City, where she served for 12 years on the New York City Council and eight as Manhattan borough president. She was the first woman to secure the Democratic Party's nomination for mayor in 1997.

Messinger is continuing her lifelong pursuit of social justice at AJWS, helping people around the world improve the quality of their lives and their communities.

Considered a national leader in the movement to end the genocide in Sudan, Messinger was among leading anti-genocide, peace and human rights advocates called upon to advise President Obama and the new special envoy for Sudan, General J. Scott Gration, in March 2009.

In recognition of her leadership, she was recently appointed to the Obama administration's newly formed Task Force on Global Poverty and Development.

She is also involved in organizing faith-based efforts to secure human rights around the world.

Rosalyne Spindel Bernstein and Sumner Bernstein established Bowdoin College's Harry Spindel Memorial Lectureship in Judaic studies and contemporary Jewish affairs in 1977 in memory of Mrs. Bernstein's father, Harry Spindel, as a lasting testimony to his lifelong devotion to Jewish learning. Past speakers and presenters have included Jonathan Safran Foer, Tony Kushner, Art Spiegelman, James Carroll, Lucy Dawidowicz, Irving Howe, Arthur Hertzberg, Grace Paley, Elizabeth Holtzman, Barney Frank, Michael Walzer, Daniel Boyarin, Sandi DuBowski, Susannah Heschel, and Robert Bernheim '86.

« Back | « Go to Featured Events | Go to Events Calendar