I want to tell you about a Jewish hero of mine. Her name is Maya Paley, and you’ve probably never heard of her.
Maya Paley is a young Jewish woman living in Los Angeles. In 2010, when she was 27 years old, she worked in Israel on a social justice fellowship, researching the plight of the more than 60,000 African asylum seekers currently living in a state of limbo in Israel. These refugees are caught in a legal Catch-22 in which they are often held in detention centers or left to fend for themselves on the streets of Tel Aviv, without legal permission to work or the ability to apply for refugee status.
Maya’s experience getting to know some of these refugees touched her heart and ignited her passion for justice. This past summer, back in the U.S., she and her friend Stephen Slater launched a grass-roots effort to raise consciousness about this troubling situation and to press the Israeli government to act justly. Their gutsy, social media-savvy campaign, called Right Now, is already making a difference. Look for them on Facebook.
Martin Luther King, Jr. concluded what was to be his final sermon on February 4, 1968 with a reflection on what he would want said about him at his funeral. Preaching on the evils of the “drum major instinct,” the egotistic drive in humans and in nations to be “out in front,” King concluded: “If you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice. Say that I was a drum major for peace, that I was a drum major for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter.”
In her own way, Maya Paley is following in the footsteps of the great drum major for righteousness. I have never met Maya Paley in person, but her feisty brand of activism gives me hope that the dream of Martin Luther King, Jr. lives on.
Who are your heroes today?