Rabbi Marla Feldman is the Director of the Commission on Social Action of Reform Judaism. Rabbi Feldman is an accomplished spiritual leader, lawyer, writer, and activist for social justice.

“This article appeared originally on www.beliefnet.com, the leading website for faith, spirituality, inspiration & more. Used with permission. All rights reserved.”

The Jewish community has been in a leadership role in efforts to address the genocide taking place in Sudan. To me, The question of why Jews should care about Darfur is a very strange one because I take it as intuitive that, of course, we will care when genocide is taking place around the world, when there are travesties of justice taking place, when people are being annihilated and villages are being destroyed, refugees are dying by the hundreds every day for lack of medical care and food and sanitation and refugee camps.

Of course, we care. So, I take it as a given. And yet, we do get this question all the time. And I think the answer is two-fold.

In large part, the answer, I think, lies within our historical experience, the Jewish community's historical experience. Jews empathize with the victims of ethnic cleansing because we have been victims ourselves.

We work to aid the weak and desperate refugees because not so long ago, we were refugees and very few individuals helped us. While some did and we acknowledge them and we honor them, far too many others did not. And that historical memory stays with us.

I think also from a religious perspective, there's very clear mandate in our tradition to care about the weak and the vulnerable. Jewish tradition commands, you shall not stand idly by the blood of your neighbor.

In our global village, we're all neighbors. And so, we can't be bystanders and stand by when children are targets of soldiers, when women and girls are raped as part of a military strategy. We can't stand idly by as villages are being destroyed or offer empty promises when people are being terrorized into leaving their homes. That's what happened to our community and we know better.

In the cases of Bosnia and Kosovo, the Jewish community was front and center in efforts in those travesties. In the case of Africa, there are fewer groups with a lot of political clout and experience in organizing that would be natural leaders in this issue, in which case the—it's even more important that the faith community step up and bring its experience to the table and organize these coalitions on Sudan.

So, in many ways, the Jewish community was an instigator to the Save Darfur Coalition and many of its efforts. But it is certainly not alone. The Jewish community is on board on this issue across the religious spectrum—Reform, Conservative, Orthodox, Reconstructionist. In almost every community that I know of where the Jewish community has organized around this issue, it has been across the religious spectrum within the Jewish community. The Jewish Council for Public Affairs—an umbrella organization which represents the broad spectrum of the American Jewish community—has been working side-by-side with the American Jewish World Service to organize the American Jewish community.

The first and most immediate step for Jews is to take part in the rally in Washington on April 30. As Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel said when he marched in Selma, Alabama with the civil rights marchers in the 1960s, he felt as if his feet were praying. We should all be praying with our feet on Sunday, April 30, at the Rally to End Genocide in Washington, DC. For those who can't come to the rally, the Million Voices Campaign is an effort to garner a million signatures and postcards to deliver to elected officials to let them know that we want them to intercede on behalf of the victims in Sudan, that we want them to take action in the international arena, to work with our partners at the United Nations, with NATO and wherever there is help to be had in supporting the African Union troops and relief efforts on behalf of the victims.

So, if you can't be there at the rally, sign a postcard, send it in. Find other ways to let your elected officials know that you care about what's happening in Darfur and you want them to use their resources to help.

And third, educate yourself and others about what's going on. I think when people hear about genocide, they care.

In the Jewish community, we're commemorating Holocaust Memorial Day throughout the country. And we'll be doing a lot of serious thinking about our role in the world today and what we've learned from our past.

One of the things that Elie Wiesel has said is that the real crime that took place in the Holocaust was the crime of indifference, that one was either a victim or a perpetrator or a bystander. And we can't let that happen again.

So, if we've learned anything from our past, it's that we can't be bystanders. We have to speak up. We have to educate ourselves and others. And when we do that, people will not be bystanders. They will step up. They will rally. They will speak out. They will let their elected officials know that we care.