In this episode, we hear from Dr. Charles Jacobs and his efforts for almost three decades to free slaves in Africa.

 

Once named by The Forward as one of America’s top 50 Jewish leaders, Charles Jacobs is a journalist and long-time social activist who over two decades has founded human rights and pro-Israel organizations to deal with unmet challenges. Some of these have become national institutions.

• CAMERA — In 1989, responding to widespread mainstream media bias against Israel, Charles co-founded with Andrea Levin the Boston branch of CAMERA — Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America — now the organization’s national office. Today, CAMERA is the pre-eminent Middle East media watch organization in the United States.

                                    

• American Anti-Slavery Group — In 1993, responding to reports of modern-day human bondage, particularly in Africa, where Arab and Muslims were enslaving African blacks, Charles, along with African Christians and Muslims, founded the American Anti-Slavery Group which brought international attention to the enslavement of tens of thousands of mostly-Christian Africans in Sudan by militias armed by the genocidal Islamic regime in Khartoum. Charles flew several times, illegally, into Sudan on rescue missions that freed thousands of slaves. On September 18, 2000, Coretta Scott King and Boston Mayor Thomas Menino presented Charles with the first ever Boston Freedom Award for his abolitionist work. Jacobs has testified before Congress on three separate occasions, and on October 21, 2002, was invited to the White House signing of the Sudan Peace Act, where he spoke with President Bush. The AASG was instrumental in influencing the president to change U.S. policy on Sudan and enforcing a north-south peace treaty which ended the slave raids and created the world’s newest state: South Sudan.


• The David Project — In the summer of 2002, in response to the sudden emergence of a new global anti-Semitism, Charles co-founded The David Project to promote a fair and honest discussion of the Middle East conflict, and which evolved into a Center for Jewish Leadership. The David Project currently educates thousands of pro-Israel students each year, preparing them for the rhetorical battles on the nation’s campuses.

• Americans for Peace and Tolerance — In September of 2008, in response to the threat of Islamic radicalism’s rapid penetration of American society, and the failure of civic and political leaders to deal with the threat, Charles, along with Professor Dennis Hale and Sheikh Ahmed Mansour, founded Americans for Peace and Tolerance. APT works to expose and challenge radical left and radical Islamic campaigns which threaten America and the Jews. APT campaigns have helped rid MIT and Northeastern University of radical campus imams. An anti-Israel “scholar” was demoted at NEU because of an APT video campaign. APT also works cooperatively with the Muslim reform movement.

 

• Charles has been widely published, including in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Jerusalem Post, and the Encyclopedia Britannica. He has appeared on local and national television and radio, including CNN, CBS, Fox News, NPR, and PBS.

Charles, who received his doctoral degree in social policy from Harvard, lives with his wife in a suburb of Boston.

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