Jewish Currents Gave Omar Shakir the Hero's Exit He Didn’t Deserve

Omar Shakir's resignation from Human Rights Watch made headlines. Jewish Currents, where Shakir sits on the advisory board, published the most detailed account, framing it as a story of principled dissent against cowardly leadership. The story does more work than it appears, as it blames individual executives while leaving HRW's institutional architecture untouched. It avoids the financial ecosystem entirely: the venture capitalists, PIMCO executives, and Israeli tech investors who sit on HRW's board. Moreover, it protects Shakir from the harder question: what does a decade inside a structurally compromised institution actually mean? We wrote the analysis Jewish Currents wouldn't. Read it here.