“What would I do if I were in that situation?”
If everyone asked themselves that question, Gerri Miller believes, the genocidal crisis in Darfur would be over.
Miller, a Tiburon resident and past chair of the Jewish Community Relations Council in Marin, believes that “once you really take in what’s going on and know the extent of the atrocities, it motivates you to not just sit by.”
Miller is referring to the situation in Darfur, Sudan, where the native population is being exiled, persecuted, raped and killed by a government-mandated militia, the Janjaweed. The crisis has been going on over a year now.
With the help of some friends, Miller has organized the “Dear Sudan, Love Marin” campaign to try and raise at least $40,000 in humanitarian aid. The effort is based on a similar campaign in Petaluma, and another one was started in Contra Costa County as well.
In the past year, more than 400,000 people have been killed in western Sudan, with an estimated 15,000 people dying every month. At least 2 million have been driven from their homes, the majority of them living without adequate food or sanitation.
Miller first read about the Darfur situation in an issue of j. last summer.
She called the S.F.-based JCRC and was put in touch with some people there working on the issue with the Bay Area Darfur Coalition.
Miller had been taking an interfaith dialogue class in Marin, and someone there told her about the “Dear Sudan, Love Petaluma” campaign that aimed to raise $10,000 to provide food for 55,000 — the population of Petaluma — Sudanese refugees who were forced from their homes.
When Miller heard that, she felt Marin County could raise even more, and set her sights on raising $40,000. She also wanted it to be an interfaith effort, rather than mostly a church-driven effort as in Petaluma.
The first place she went was her own synagogue, Congregation Rodef Sholom in San Rafael, and got both rabbis to sign on. Then she went to the Westminster Presbyterian Church in Tiburon and got its two spiritual leaders to endorse it. Rabbi Lavey Derby of Congregation Kol Shofar also signed on.
Her goal is threefold: The first two are to raise awareness about the genocide and to raise money for humanitarian relief.
“The third goal is trying to spread the campaign to other communities,” said Miller. “If we could do it, others could do it, and this could be a way to have a major outcry across the nation, even internationally.”
Lately, members of the committee have been staffing a table at the Sunday Marin County Farmers Market in San Rafael, where they’ve been collecting donations and having people fill out stamped, addressed postcards to the president, asking him to take a more active role in the crisis.
She also got help to put up a Web site — www.dearsudanlovemarin.org
While Miller has been busy galvanizing Marin to take action, Marilyn Hirsch of Walnut Creek has been doing the same in Contra Costa County. A member of Temple Isaiah’s Social Action Committee, Hirsch said she was motivated largely by seeing the film “Hotel Rwanda,” about the Rwandan genocide in the mid-’90s, and feeling like it was happening again, in Sudan, with little reaction from the rest of the world.
Both women have planned vigils for the fall, with one in Danville’s Oak Hill Park on Oct. 9 and events in Marin on a monthly basis.
The next Marin event is set for Sept. 18.
Elsewhere in California, a few months ago Betsy Marder, a recent graduate from Pitzer College in Claremont, went with four friends on a road trip from San Diego to Sacramento, speaking in high schools and synagogues about the crisis.
Marder is the daughter of two local rabbis — Janet Marder, spiritual leader of Los Altos Hills’ Congregation Beth Am, and Sheldon Marder, spiritual leader of the Jewish Home in San Francisco.
Not every school they approached allowed them to speak, but she said a good number of them did, and a few synagogues they approached told them their leadership recently addressed the issue.
“Most people really didn’t know what was happening, which was kind of surprising, but in the end, not really, since it’s not really covered in the media,” said Marder.
Especially with high school students, she said, “you sometimes have to force them to be concerned with things happening far away; they’re wrapped up in other things.”
A “Grand Italian Buffet” will take place to benefit the “Dear Sudan, Love Marin,” campaign at 4 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 18, at the Almonte Club House 105 Wisteria Way, Mill Valley. $50 suggested. Information: [email protected] or (415) 927-4920.