When Words Become Weapons
September - October 2025
“The U.S. is a garbage can for the world.”
“Migrant invasion.”
“Illegal alien monsters.”
“Savages.”
When hateful rhetoric shapes the words of our leaders, history reminds us that venomous language can quickly become lethal.
Reasonable people can and do disagree about how much immigration a country should allow — and how best to secure its borders. Those are legitimate debates in a democracy.
But we cross a dangerous line when the conversation shifts from policy to stigma — when human beings become “others,” stripped of dignity and compassion.
“Parasites.”
“Vermin.”
“Poison.”
“Bacillus.”
“Disease.”
“Rats.”
“Subhuman.”
We have heard these words before.
And we know where they lead.
Once stigmatization takes root, prejudice can metastasize into violence — and, in history’s darkest chapters, into genocide.
A hard truth.
Our skilled and inspiring teaching artists will not be able to challenge students… or help them grapple with questions of identity and moral responsibility… or help them discover within themselves a deeper capacity for empathy, courage, and moral clarity—
Without your support.
In the spring of 2026, The Mitzvah Project will break critical new ground when we send our teaching artists into several new high schools (and states!) for the first time, including schools in Utah and Washington State as well new schools in the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles and Colorado.
Please take a minute—right now—to make the “hard truth” a transformative moment by supporting The Mitzvah Project with a tax-deductible donation of $25, $50, $100, $500, $1,000, $2,500 or more.
Fully funding The Mitzvah Project’s school expansion and special theater initiative (below)—through the first half of 2027—will require raising $240,000.
Your support will help make that possible.
To donate online, click here:
To donate by mail: Send checks payable to PlayGround (add “The Mitzvah Project” in the memo section) and mail to:
PlayGround
3286 Adeline Street #8
Berkeley, CA 94703-2485
PlayGround (Federal ID 94-3336399), a California not-for-profit corporation, is The Mitzvah Project’s fiscal sponsor.
All donations are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law.
Thank you!
Roger Grunwald, Founder, The Mitzvah Project
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P.S. In the next newsletter, watch for news about the upcoming Bay Area theater production of I Died in Auschwitz. In meantime, click on the I Died in Auschwitz logo (below) to read about the play:
"The Enduring Relevance of I Died in Auschwitz in Today’s World."
