In the summer of 2005, Jarah Greenfield found herself in the middle of a hot-button debate on government-sanctioned torture, a controversy that pitted the Bush administration against members of Congress on both sides of the aisle.
Greenfield was working as a summer rabbinic intern for the education and advocacy group Rabbis for Human Rights–North America. As part of the committee that established RHR-NA’s initial Jewish campaign, “Honor the Image of God: Stop Torture Now,” she traveled to Washington, D.C., to meet with Sen. John McCain, the Arizona Republican who had spearheaded the effort in Congress to stop American torture of foreign detainees.
The group offered support for the McCain amendment to the 2006 Defense Appropriations Act that forces all US agencies to comply with the Geneva Conventions against the use of torture. In December 2005, with both the House and the Senate in favor of the amendment, the White House agreed to McCain’s conditions.
Greenfield says the meeting with McCain was an interesting lesson for her. “When you’re talking about something that’s a true human rights issue, you can cut across political boundaries in a way that cuts to the humanity of every individual—no matter what race, what gender, what political affiliation or what religion,” she says.
Her work with RHR-NA didn’t end with her return to RRC for the fall semester. She still is actively engaged in the organization’s campaign to ensure that the U.S. implements the provisions of the McCain amendment. And in spring 2006 she helped the group coordinate its participation in the big Washington protest against the genocide in Darfur, Sudan. The season also found her at work helping plan the first national conference for rabbis and rabbinical students on the subject of human rights, slated for December 2006 in New York City.
Greenfield, who grew up in Miami, FL, came to RRC in 2004 having worked as the interim and assistant principal of B’nai Jeshurun Hebrew School in New York City. She also had spent a year studying at the Drisha Institute for Jewish Education.
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