Schechter students arrange for eyewitness to describe horrors of slavery in Sudan

by Johanna Ginsberg
NJJN Staff Writer

The relief that follows exam day was short-lived for high school students in Rabbi Daniel Siegel’s Freedom and Responsibility course at Solomon Schechter Day School of Essex and Union in West Orange last November.

The exam covered slavery in Sudan, and for every question it asked students to answer, it raised several more.

“We realized the horrors were still going on, and we had to do something,” said Hannah Grossman, 17, of West Orange.

Grossman, along with several other students, were moved by the struggles of the slaves and decided to do something about it. Led by fellow student Neil Newman of Livingston, they organized a fund-raiser and a letter-writing campaign to put pressure on local politicians, which has yielded over $600 and 150 letters. And on Thursday, Jan. 12, they will bring former Sudanese slave Simon Deng, now a resident of New York, to speak at the school.

Simon Aban Deng, a native of the Shiluk Kingdom in southern Sudan, was abducted at age nine and spent several years as a domestic slave in northern Sudan. Today he is an American citizen, working as a lifeguard on Coney Island and speaking about his own experiences, something he began doing only two years ago and still finds difficult.

Asked to offer details about his past in advance of the talk, Deng referred a reporter to his biography printed at iabolish.com, the Web site for the Boston-based American Anti-Slavery Group. According to the site, government-condoned Arab militias “routinely raid black African villages in impoverished southern Sudan, slaughtering the men and taking women and children to the north as slaves.”

“It’s not an easy thing to speak about, but it’s something that needs to be said,” Deng told NJ Jewish News. “If I don’t overcome that, then what is going on, nobody will know. If victims do not come forward and say exactly what happened, other persons will not know. It’s a call to every human being to stand up and say it is evil, and we should stop it.”

Bringing Deng to campus was important to Newman. In addition to the fund-raising, he said in an interview at a Starbucks coffee shop in Millburn, “another main goal is to spread awareness. It’s really important to let people know what is going on.”

Joining him and Grossman on the project were Naomi Michaelis of West Orange and Alix Winter of Westfield. They are all 17-year-old seniors.

They have looked to Siegel for support and advice, a role he said he is used to playing. Not only is he their teacher, but he has been involved with students doing special projects and good works in his role as the school’s director of special programs and gemilut hasidim (deeds of loving-kindness).

“I try to make my teaching focus on action. Jewish education should be transforming,” said Siegel. “The kids see that in my own life and in the work I do with other kids.” (Siegel is, by the way, no relation to poet and activist Danny Siegel, the founder of the Millburn-based Ziv Tzedakah Collective.)

Siegel said direct-action projects teach students how to overcome the obstacles often confronting advocates. In this case, they had to negotiate speaking fees with an outside organization and coordinate Deng’s visit with the school administration.

Siegel designed the course Freedom and Responsibility specifically for seniors. “I want to give them a sense of freedom and its role in Judaism, and also for people around the world. I want them to explore what their responsibility is as they go off to college,” he said. “What I like is that after they leave school, they will do this kind of thing in college.”

The students agreed that this project has made them feel more committed to future efforts. “After starting this, I feel more compelled to take more active roles in greater issues,” said Newman.

And Michaelis added, “This project draws attention to Africa, which is typically ignored. Working on something like this makes you pay attention to what’s going on outside of the little bubble we have here.”

Simon Deng will speak with ninth, 11th, and 12th graders on Jan. 12. For more information, contact Siegel at 973-669-8000, ext. 361, or dsiegel@ssdseu.org.

Johanna Ginsberg can be reached at jginsberg@njjewishnews.com.

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