Since October 7, many of us in the British Jewish community have found ourselves confronting immense pain, fear, and complexity – as well as reflecting deeply about what it means to be Jewish in a fractured world. For some, this has meant turning inward to support our own. For others, it has also sparked a renewed urgency to clarify what we stand for and whom we stand with, and to raise our voices in defence of human dignity, wherever it is under threat.

And yet, many people around the world are suffering in crises that barely register in our consciousness.

Take Sudan, where a brutal conflict has been escalating since April 2023. Some 13 million people have been displaced. Hundreds were massacred at the Zamzam displacement camp in Darfur. Famine is setting in. A few months ago, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces launched drone strikes on Port Sudan, a city previously considered one of the last remaining humanitarian lifelines.

Yet, how many of us have read a single headline about Sudan, a country that former US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called “the worst humanitarian situation in the world by far”?

There is a term to explain why some tragedies dominate our headlines and command our financial support, while others remain practically invisible: media salience. The more airtime an issue gets, the more urgent and important it feels to us.

And it’s both a zero-sum game and a vicious cycle. The more one crisis captures our attention, the less space there is for others. So, when something is not in the news, the public assumes it’s not a priority. As a result, devastating but less publicised crises, such as Sudan, are pushed to the margins of our collective awareness.

This is not simply a failure of compassion. It’s human psychology. But it is also a reflection of our priorities. Consider the UK’s policy choice to cut its international aid budget from 0.5 per cent of gross national income to 0.3 per cent by 2027. In a world of escalating needs, our media and our government have chosen to step back; it is a telling choice indeed.

But as Jews, we are called to resist this trend.

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Sudan is Burning: Continue reading

‍Emma Weleminsky is UK Community Manager of OLAM. This article was originally published in The Jewish Chronicle on September 11, 2025. The above excerpt has been reprinted with permission.