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Category: About

Charles Jacobs is a long-time social activist who over two decades has founded organizations to deal with unmet challenges. Several of these have become national institutions.

• In 1988, responding to widespread mainstream media bias against Israel, Charles co-founded with Andrea Levin, the Boston branch of CAMERA – Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America -- which evolved into the organization’s national office. Today CAMERA is the preeminent Middle East media watch organization in the United States.

• In 1993, responding to reports of modern day human bondage, particularly in Africa, Charles founded the American Anti-Slavery Group (AASG) along with an African Muslim and Christian -- Mohammed Athie and David Chand. AASG brought international attention to the enslavement of tens of thousands of mostly-Christian Africans in Sudan by militias armed by the radical Islamic regime in Khartoum.

During Passover, 2001, Charles flew into Sudan on a rescue mission that freed thousands of slaves. In September of 2000, Coretta Scott King and Boston Mayor Thomas Menino presented Charles with the first ever Boston Freedom Award for his abolitionist work.

Jacobs has testified before Congress numerous times and on October 21, 2002, was invited to the White House signing of the Sudan Peace Act, where he spoke with President Bush. AASG was instrumental in to influencing the President to change US policy on Sudan and enforcing a North-South Peace treaty which ended the slave raids.

• In the summer of 2002, in response the sudden emergence of a new global anti-Semitism, Charles co-founded with Avi Goldwasswer The David Project which promotes a fair and honest discussion of the Middle East conflict, and which evolved into a Center for Jewish Leadership. The David Project currently educates thousands of pro-Israel students each year, preparing them for the rhetorical battles on the nation’s campuses.

• In September of 2008, in response to the threat of Islamic Radicalism’s rapid penetration of American society, and the failure of civic and political leaders to deal with the threat, Charles left the David Project to found -- with Professor Dennis Hale and Sheikh Ahmed Mansour --  Americans for Peace and Tolerance. APT works to expose and challenge Radical Islamic organizations and to support moderate Muslims in America.

Charles has been widely published, including in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Jerusalem Post, and the Encyclopedia Britannica. He has appeared on local and national television and radio, including NBC, CBS, NPR, CNN and PBS. He currently writes a column for the Boston Jewish Advocate.

Charles received his doctoral degree in social policy from Harvard.