Defying the largest and most sustained protest movement in the nation’s history, Israel’s parliament passed a bill Monday limiting the Supreme Court’s power to exercise judicial review over government decisions, a move critics say strikes a direct blow at Israel’s democratic checks and balances.

Mere hours after the collapse of last-ditch efforts to reach a compromise with opponents of the legislation, the far-right government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pushed the final procedural vote on the bill through the Knesset.

Outside the parliament building, thousands of protesters, many of whom had marched for days from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, clashed with police during the vote.

The government moved ahead despite warnings by security officials of damage the legislation would cause to the military, polls that show a solid majority of Israelis oppose the measure, and repeated public implorations by President Joe Biden to halt the process to allow for consensus.

After the vote the White House said it was “unfortunate that the vote today took place with the slimmest possible majority.”

The legislation is considered the first step in a larger judicial overhaul agenda proposed by Mr. Netanyahu’s government that critics contend would arrogate near-unchecked power to the executive branch and would be fatal for Israel’s democratic foundations.

“Never, in the entire history of the country, has there been such a show ... by the government of irresponsibility as a policy, as a worldview,” opposition leader Yair Lapid thundered in a parliamentary speech ahead of the vote, which the entire opposition boycotted in protest. “The reality is that you are letting the country fall apart. ... We are headed for disaster.”

Amir Cohen/Reuters

Protesters demonstrate following a parliament vote on a contested bill that limits Supreme Court powers to void some government decisions, near the Knesset, Israel's parliament, in Jerusalem, July 24, 2023.

The vote Monday followed seven months of mass street demonstrations that had successfully stymied a previous legislative push in the spring. This time around, the Netanyahu coalition vowed not to back down in the face of similar weekly protests that drew more than 400,000 people nationwide, some 4% of the population, Saturday night.

A strike action declared Monday by leading private sector firms and tech companies – hinting at the economic fallout from the judicial overhaul – as well as a growing tide of military reservists threatening to refuse volunteer service if the bill passed, also failed to sway the government.

More than 10,000 reservists, including, critically, hundreds of Israel Air Force fighter pilots, had warned in recent days that they would take just such a step after today, putting into question the entire warfighting preparedness of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

The Israeli military chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevy, had issued an appeal to his troops over the weekend, writing: “If we are not a strong, unified army, if our best people do not serve in the IDF, we won’t be able to exist as a country in this region.”

Later Monday, hundreds of reservists from the elite Sayeret Matkal commando unit, of which Mr. Netanyahu is a veteran, and Air Force pilots made good on their threats and told their commanders they were not reporting for duty anymore.

President Biden, via a statement Sunday to an Israeli journalist, had said consensus should be found, adding that “given the range of threats and challenges confronting Israel right now, it doesn’t make sense for Israeli leaders to rush this.”

Yet Mr. Netanyahu’s coalition rammed through the most severe version of the bill 64-0 in the 120-member Knesset. Legal experts say it will eliminate the Supreme Court’s ability to strike down government decisions and civil servant appointments on the grounds of “extreme unreasonableness.”

Maya Alleruzzo/AP

Israeli lawmakers celebrate by taking a selfie with Justice Minister Yariv Levin (center right in the foreground) after approving a key portion of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's divisive plan to reshape the country's judicial system, in the Knesset in Jerusalem, July 24, 2023.

“This is eliminating the most important tool [for legal review] over all those administrative and appointment decisions,” says Yohanan Plesner, president of the Israel Democracy Institute, a non-partisan think tank. “How would the system look like if this entire tool and apparatus were not in place? Ministers will have absolute power and absolute judgement.”

Mr. Plesner and other analysts surmise, too, that the government may exploit the lack of effective judicial oversight to fire the attorney general, the country’s top legal official, and thereby usher in a new and more malleable appointment that would then suspend the ongoing corruption trial against Mr. Netanyahu.

The anti-government protesters on the streets understand the stakes, which they have described in existential and biblical terms.

In last Saturday’s now traditional demonstration in Tel Aviv’s Kaplan Street – recently re-named “Democracy Square” – giant digital billboards blared: “Stop the destruction of the IDF. Stop the destruction of the home,” the latter a reference to the destruction of the biblical First and Second Jewish Temples.

One Saturday protester, Nir, a married father from Tel Aviv, described the potential passage of this week’s “Reasonableness Bill,” as it’s come to be known, as “the first step toward dictatorship and the dismantling of democracy by a clearly corrupt government.”

“Who wants to live in an autocratic country?” he posed, calling it a “dark sign” for Israel’s future, and by extension, his family’s.

The Israeli Bar Association, among other groups, is already planning to lodge an appeal against the legislation at the Supreme Court. Legal experts are circumspect about predicting how the court will rule, pointing out simply that it has never in its history struck down such a quasi-constitutional piece of legislation, and certainly not one that is meant to curtail its own powers.

“We’re in uncharted territory,” says the Democracy Institute’s Mr. Plesner, a former member of the Knesset from a centrist party, adding that the possibility of a constitutional crisis looms large.

Ammar Awad/Reuters

Israeli security forces clash with a protester during a demonstration against the Netanyahu government's judicial overhaul, in Jerusalem, July 24, 2023.

For its part, the protest leadership vowed late Monday, after the bill was passed, to press on with the fight. “We will continue our firm struggle that will only escalate, and in the end Israel will return to being a democracy again,” they wrote to supporters. “Don’t be confused – we’ve only just begun.”

Far from being only a constitutional, security, economic, and political crisis, the domestic unrest surrounding the government’s judicial overhaul push has also exposed deep rifts within Israeli society itself.

Sunday night, on the eve of the controversial vote, government supporters massed in Tel Aviv at the same spot that opponents had the day before. Signs proclaimed: “Judicial Reform – Real Democracy,” and “The People Chose Judicial Reform!”

One supporter, Elisheva, a married mother from a West Bank settlement, said the judicial situation in Israel “wasn’t really democratic,” as to her mind the Supreme Court had gotten more powerful at the expense of the government. She very much wanted the reform to pass, and was puzzled by the anxiety on the other side.

“I understand they didn’t vote for this government. But there were elections … and now they’re trying to change through force what the people chose.

“This isn’t Nazi Germany,” she said, also adding a biblical reference. “This is isn’t the destruction of the third commonwealth. It’s all exaggerated.”

Yet senior government officials who spoke on stage Sunday were clear that passing the “Reasonableness Law” was only the first phase of a much larger program. The Supreme Court, one lawmaker from Mr. Netanyahu’s Likud party bellowed, “stole the power from the people, stole the power from our parents” – and now the government was going to repair that injustice.

Ammar Awad/Reuters

Israeli protesters are sprayed with a water cannon during a demonstration against the government's judicial overhaul program, in Jerusalem, July 24, 2023.

Nevertheless, every poll taken over the past seven months has shown that some 60 to 70 percent of the country – including a sizeable proportion of Likud voters – are opposed to both the substance and method of the government’s judicial overhaul bid. And nearly every retired senior security and economic official (and some currently serving as well) have publicly warned of the danger of pursuing just such an agenda.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog, who had tried to broker a compromise, did not mince words prior to the bill passing, saying Israel was in a “state of national emergency.” Some in recent months have raised the specter of social breakdown, civil war, and even, as the protesters’ signs warned, biblical destruction, just as Jews this week mark a fast commemorating the demise of the First and Second Temples.

Mr. Netanyahu and his ministers heeded none of the warnings, even indicating they were putting their faith in a higher power.

“We have nothing to fear,” Transportation Minister Miri Regev, from the Likud, told the adoring crowd on Sunday night after calling for the jailing of all protesting military reservists. “We have the creator of the universe.”

Overwhelmed with emotion, Olha Golubova gasps as she first sets foot inside her beloved Orthodox cathedral Sunday morning, just hours after a Russian missile scored a direct hit in a bombing campaign that has ravaged Odesa for five nights over the past week.

Wearing work gloves and dragging a broom to help, the young Ukrainian believer expresses amazement at the scale of destruction: Part of the ceiling had collapsed, and the force of the blast tore Orthodox frescoes from the walls, crushed columns, and bent golden goblets used by priests for giving sacrament.

Simultaneously, Ms. Golubova says she is also struck by the spirit of scores of volunteers – nearly all of them wearing street clothes, but given buckets and gloves – who worked with determination to sift through the rubble, formed human chains to remove debris, and swept away layers of gray dust.

“I am sure that all these people were just not able to wait until the curfew was over, to come here and help,” says Ms. Golubova, as tears form in eyes framed by a flower-print headscarf. “I can tell you our people are invincible.”

Scott Peterson/Getty Images/The Christian Science Monitor

Orthodox believer Olha Golubova reacts with emotion as she speaks about the destruction of her church, damaged by a Russian missile, in central Odesa, Ukraine, July 23, 2023.

Just the night before, she says, she had prayed for peace with a large congregation in this Transfiguration Cathedral, part of a UNESCO World Heritage site in the center of this Black Sea port city.

“I don’t understand what these people have in their heads,” says Ms. Golubova, when asked about the Russian missile impacts overnight Sunday. Of the 19 rockets that were launched, Ukrainian officials say nine were intercepted; of the remainder, one hit the church, and several struck historic buildings near the port.

“I can tell you that, for certain, my second home has been destroyed,” Ms. Golubova says of the cathedral, before stepping away to join the volunteers.

Russia in the past week withdrew from a deal negotiated a year ago by the United Nations and Turkey to allow safe passage in the Black Sea for Ukrainian grain exports, in exchange for the Russian sale – unencumbered by Western sanctions imposed after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 – of its own agricultural products and fertilizer.

Scott Peterson/Getty Images/The Christian Science Monitor

Ukrainians clear away debris after a Russian missile struck in central Odesa, Ukraine, July 23, 2023.

Russia complained it was not getting the promised access to global markets – a stance the U.N. and Western officials reject – and has now mined Ukraine’s Black Sea export routes and vowed that any ship attempting to come in or out of Ukraine will be targeted as an enemy vessel.

“First is the grain deal; they are shooting at the port facilities – this is the main target,” Odesa Mayor Hennadii Trukhanov says after surveying damage at the wrecked cathedral. “The grain deal is not just the paper on which it is signed. A lot of countries are relying on us, and I don’t think crew members and ship owners will risk their lives to send ships here if this will continue.”

The mayor says Russian strikes are the acts of “barbarians” who are also “striking at our culture” by hitting the UNESCO heritage zone – including this cathedral, where he worships. It is part of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate), but the mayor says it has “tried to distance itself” from those ecumenical ties to Russia.

He quips that he has not slept for a week.

“Maybe they [Moscow leaders] finally realized that Odesa did everything to show that it is not a Russian city, as they think; maybe they even had some sweet fantasies about Odesa,” says Mr. Trukhanov, referring to reported Russian expectations at the outset of the war that Odesa would welcome the Russian invasion.

Scott Peterson/Getty Images/The Christian Science Monitor

The mayor of Odesa, Hennadii Trukhanov, surveys the damage after a Russian missile struck the historic Transfiguration (Spaso-Preobrazhensky) Cathedral in central Odesa, Ukraine, July 23, 2023. The church was built in the late 18th century, destroyed by Josef Stalin in 1936, and rebuilt in the early 2000s.

“We have shown that not only are we not waiting for them here, but that our hatred grows with every missile,” says the mayor. “Every day, they show to the entire world that everything they say is a lie.”

On Sunday, UNESCO condemned Russia for its “brazen attack,” and said, “This outrageous destruction marks an escalation of violence against cultural heritage of Ukraine.” UNESCO noted, among damaged “significant” sites early Sunday, that the Transfiguration Cathedral was founded in 1794 and is Odesa’s first and foremost Orthodox church.

Outside his cathedral Sunday, Father Myroslav Vdodovych stands in his black priest robes as volunteers around him scrape broken glass off the pavement. He hands out water, puts on a hard hat to lead the mayor through the rubble, and attaches his phone – which has church bells ringing for a ring tone – to an external battery pack, to handle endless calls.

“The main thing is that everyone is alive,” says Father Myroslav. “For Odesa’s people, this cathedral is a traditional symbol of Odesa; it is a part of Odesa. So they were targeting the symbol, the heart of Odesa.”

Scott Peterson/Getty Images/The Christian Science Monitor

Ukrainian Orthodox priest Father Myroslav Vdodovych, head of this historic church, oversees volunteers clearing away debris after a Russian missile struck the Transfiguration Cathedral in central Odesa, Ukraine, July 23, 2023. The attack was part of the fifth such wave of Russian strikes in a week against port and grain infrastructure.

On a midday visit to this cathedral in March 2022, during an air raid siren early in the war, a Monitor reporter found three families with four children seeking sanctuary in an ornate underground room turned into a makeshift bunker. Many more were staying over each night.

“Our lives have become a life of being here or at home – we sleep in our clothes,” mother Kateryna Zadorozhnaya said at the time. On Sunday, when the Russian rocket landed, five people were in the undamaged shelter and survived.

“Odesa is a peaceful city,” says Father Myroslav. “The fact that [this strike] happened in the heart of the city says this is not a war. It’s pure terrorism; it’s inhumane.”

That was the view of Anatolii, a worker and chief ringer of the 15-ton bell at the cathedral. He rang the church bells that morning, in an act of defiance, and wore an orange hard hat as he inspected the damage before volunteers were allowed to enter.

Scott Peterson/Getty Images/The Christian Science Monitor

Ukrainians clear away debris after a Russian missile struck the historic Transfiguration Cathedral in central Odesa, Ukraine, July 23, 2023. It's part of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church with official links to the Moscow Patriarchate.

“Everything is going to be OK,” he says, as if reciting a catechism. He notes that the cathedral was destroyed by Josef Stalin in 1936, and the big bell fell to the ground. A new bell was installed when the cathedral was rebuilt in the early 2000s.

Among the volunteers cleaning up is Svetlana Gvozdikova, who uses a broom to sweep away gray dust and black ash from a fire. An ethnic Russian married to a Ukrainian, she wears a camouflage baseball hat with the words “Military Wife.”

The couple moved from Russia one year ago with their daughter, and Ms. Gvozdikova condemns Russia’s assault on Ukraine, saying she is “the right person” to confirm Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “criminal power.” She says her husband – who is a Ukrainian air defense officer in Odesa – speaks often of the need for U.S. Patriot air defense missiles, to thwart attacks like those on Odesa in the past week, “but they do the best they can with what they have.”

Scott Peterson/Getty Images/The Christian Science Monitor

A woman carries part of a painting of a wing as Ukrainians clear away debris after a Russian missile struck the historic Transfiguration Cathedral in central Odesa, Ukraine, July 23, 2023.

“This is terrorism of civilians,” says Ms. Gvozdikova. “With their degraded minds, they think people will be afraid. But Ukrainians are not like that.”

She says she is not at all religious and didn’t personally know any of the other volunteers at the church. But, like many of those here, she chose to help where she could.

Ms. Gvozdikova was impressed by the hive of activity inside the devastated cathedral.

“This tells me that Ukraine has already won,” she says, “even though the war continues.”

Reporting for this story was supported by Oleksandr Naselenko.

Editor's note: This article has been amended to correct the spelling of Father Myroslav Vdodovych's given name.

Brian Snyder/Reuters

After the U.S. Supreme Court struck down affirmative action in admissions in a case involving Harvard in June, activists quickly moved to sue the school over its use of legacy preferences.

If race-based admissions at Harvard must go, legacy privileges must go, too.

That is the sentiment of a complaint to the U.S. Department of Education by lawyers representing three groups: Chica Project, African Community Economic Development of New England, and Greater Boston Latino Network. 

The practice at many institutions of higher learning of giving preferred admission status to the children of alumni and donors is coming under scrutiny, propelled in part by the United States Supreme Court’s decision to strike down affirmative action in June. On July 19, Wesleyan University in Connecticut and the University of Minnesota Twin Cities became the latest institutions of higher learning to drop legacy admissions. The American public casts a skeptical eye on the practice, with 75% of respondents telling the Pew Research Center in 2022 that legacy status should not be a factor in college admissions.

“The Supreme Court’s decision obviously heightens the urgency now of removing these unfair barriers to applicants of color. That conversation has accelerated now, and we fully expect that Harvard one day will be forced to voluntarily give up those unfair preferences,” says Oren Sellstrom, litigation director for Lawyers for Civil Rights, a Boston-area legal advocacy organization.

The complaint was filed on July 3 to the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights by Mr. Sellstrom’s group, which helps people of color and immigrants who face discrimination and seek equity. It comes on the heels of the Supreme Court striking down race-based admissions earlier in the summer as violating the U.S. Constitution.

A majority of Americans, 52%, support the high court’s decision, according to an ABC/IPSOS poll done in early July. Previous bans on affirmative action in states such as California and Michigan resulted in as much as 50% fewer students of color on campuses.

Mariam Zuhaib/AP

People protest outside the Supreme Court on June 29, 2023, the same day the high court ruled against affirmative action in college admissions.

The legal complaint comes after Harvard was forced to turn over admissions and enrollment data during the Supreme Court review. Mr. Sellstrom says that data proves what many believed for a long time: White students disproportionately benefit from legacy status.

How big a boost?

Studies showed that 43% of white students admitted to Harvard were either legacies, athletes, or children of parents or relatives who have donated to the university. And some 70% of the university’s legacy students are white.

“Harvard University will not comment on the complaint,” senior communications officer Nicole Rura writes via email. “As we said, in the weeks and months ahead, the University will determine how to preserve our essential values, consistent with the Court’s new precedent.”

In the June decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote that legacy admissions were “no help to applicants who cannot boast of their parents’ good fortune or trips to the alumni tent all their lives. While race-neutral on their face, too, these preferences undoubtedly benefit white and wealthy applicants the most.”

Schools deciding to do away with legacy admissions is not new. Amherst College banned legacy admissions in 2021. Johns Hopkins University began the process to abolish them in 2009, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has a long-standing policy against legacy admissions. The state of Colorado banned legacy admissions in public universities in 2021 – the first state to take that action. Others, such as New York and Connecticut, have broached the issue but have not gotten traction. Some schools have said that allowing legacy admissions is a fundraising tool and helps them stay financially solid, but critics like Mr. Sellstrom say the evidence doesn’t support that.

In schools that have moved away from legacy admissions, “none have experienced that kind of [economic] fallout and in many cases have become financially better off now that they are admitting based on merit and not these unfair preferences,” he says.

Among students with the same SAT or ACT scores, those from families in the top 1% of income – making more than $611,000 a year – were 55% more likely to be admitted to highly selective private colleges than middle-class students, according to a study released Monday by Opportunity Insights, a group of Harvard economists who research inequality. The economists said that some 46% of that advantage could be attributed to legacy admissions.

“Legacy students from families in the top 1% are 5 times as likely to be admitted as the average applicant with similar test scores, demographic characteristics, and admissions office ratings; legacy students from families below the 90th percentile are 3 times as likely to be admitted as peers with comparable credentials,” the group concluded. 

“Clearly, legacy has always been used to support this notion of white superiority and the entitlement of whites to be in the institution, irrespective of what kind of qualifications that they bring,” says Irving Joyner, a professor of law at North Carolina Central University’s School of Law.

“I agree with the challenge,” Professor Joyner continues. “I think there’s a legal basis for it. If you say that race or proxy for race violates the equal protection clause, then both the direct use of race or the direct use of a proxy for race, which would be legacy, should meet the same fate.”

“Uncharted territory”

During discovery for the Students for Fair Admissions case, Harvard released data on its admittance process and legacy statistics that researchers and lawyers had sought for years. However, some legal experts don’t think the data necessarily supports the plaintiffs’ assertion that legacy admissions must go.

“I would say it’s uncharted territory. It’s a novel legal claim, and there’s a lot of uncertainty about how courts will treat this claim,” says Thomas Berry, a research fellow in the Cato Institute’s Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies.

Lucas Boland/The Coloradoan /USA Today Network/Reuters

Graduates wave to supporters during the Colorado State University College of Business commencement, May 13, 2023, in Fort Collins. In 2021, Colorado became the first state to bar legacy admissions in public universities.

Lawyers for the three groups have several hurdles to jump over, says Mr. Berry, editor-in-chief of the Cato Supreme Court Review.

“I read the complaint and I don’t think there’s enough there to know for sure whether they’re correct. I think we’re going to need more discovery, where you take a deep dive into these admissions statistics and you essentially compare,” Mr. Berry says. 

The complaint references Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which prohibits race-based discrimination, so plaintiffs would need to prove that white students were disproportionately benefiting from legacy and donor status.

The second hurdle that would need to be cleared is if it could be proved that Harvard was discriminating intentionally, which would be hard to prove, Mr. Berry says. The federal government gives wiggle room for intent not specifically spelled out, he says, but whether that regulation is an accurate enforcement of the text is an open question.

Lastly, Harvard could still win if it showed that there was a legitimate educational basis, Mr. Berry says.

“Harvard might argue, for example, that this helps create a sense of community, that having students whose parents went there helps pass on traditions or helps make the community more tightknit or ensures that the university can remain independent,” he says. The independent part of that equation specifically refers to finances, which would require less financial dependency on the federal government.

“Harvard could still make some arguments,” he says, “but quite frankly if it gets to this stage, I think this is where the challenge is mostly likely to win.” In his opinion, if it gets this far, he doesn’t see Harvard having strong justification to keep legacy and donor admissions.

Dan Blumenthal is a Boston-area cardiologist and Harvard legacy. His father graduated from Harvard and later taught at the medical school. Dr. Blumenthal – who holds a bachelor’s degree, medical degree, and MBA from Harvard – doesn’t want legacy admissions to go away.

“I don’t remember if they had a box to check when I applied, but if they did, I would have checked it,” says Dr. Blumenthal, who says that being a legacy was something that added more pressure on him to make sure that he excelled in school. While an undergrad more than 20 years ago, he knew other legacy students who performed at a high level and went on to be successful in many different fields, and he feels that their acceptance to Harvard was based on merit.

“I can talk about my own personal experience. I would want to know that I had performed at a level that was worthy of being admitted to a college like Harvard, without having legacy status be the arbiter of my ability to get admitted. But I still believe that legacy status should be factored into admissions in certain circumstances,” Dr. Blumenthal says.

“And also that race and ethnicity and life experience that flows from this diversity should be factored into admissions decisions,” he continues. Dr. Blumenthal says that he disagreed with the recent Supreme Court decision overturning affirmative action and that things should have stayed the way they were. He also says that he doesn’t think legacy status should go away as a result of that decision.

“Two wrongs don’t make a right,” he says. “Just because one policy is bad doesn’t mean that you should make additional bad policy just for consistency.”

Mr. Sellstrom says that the federal government does not accept financial reasons as justification for discriminatory practices, unless an educational necessity can be proved. He is waiting to see the investigation’s outcome while pondering further legal action.

Professor Joyner, who says that he thinks the challenge has merit, is also waiting.

“When you look at the numbers, the numbers support the predominant use of that device to benefit white applicants,” he says. “And where you are doing that to benefit a segment of the population to the exclusion of others who don’t have those external connections, then you are discriminating against people.”

In July 2005, I traveled a thoroughfare in Lilongwe, Malawi, past chicken farms, and then took dirt roads into Bowa village. Our SUV rocked side to side over the pocked roads, constantly sending my hand up to the grab bar. We passed pairs of schoolgirls in blue dresses that brightened the landscape of earth and sky. 

Malawi is a largely rural country in southeastern Africa, known for rich traditions, strong community ties, and natural beauty. The economy is growing, and life expectancy has leaped over the past two decades to over 65 years. Still, more than half of its roughly 20 million people live in poverty. Yet despite facing challenges, Malawi is affectionately known as “the warm heart of Africa.”

That summer I was an intern with CARE, a global organization fighting poverty and injustice. I was evaluating the impact of CARE programs in villages like Bowa. There, I met Selina and Anesi Bonefesi. Their story changed my life and many others. 

An entrepreneurial farmer, Selina talked right into me, as if we didn’t need a translator. With a loan from CARE, she’d started a business selling tasty bites of fried dough to passersby. The income was a welcome supplement to what she and her husband earned from growing tobacco. Still, they did not make enough to pay the $200 needed for Selina’s 14-year-old stepdaughter, Anesi, to finish primary school. 

With an expected household income of $463 that year, they had prioritized their son in 11th grade, whom they deemed more likely to find employment.

Then, one day after returning to Lilongwe from one of the villages, I got an unexpected call from The Christian Science Monitor. The editors wanted an article about a family in Africa living on less than $1 a day per person, a figure widely used to signal poverty. It would run during the G8 summit in Scotland, where world leaders ultimately decided to forgive billions of dollars of international debt for countries like Malawi.  

I knew immediately that I would write about Selina and her family. 

XANTHE SCHARFF

Anesi (left) and Selina Bonefesi, her stepmother, stand in front of their home in Bowa village, Malawi, June 2005.

The day after the article was published, my editor forwarded email after email from Monitor readers who wanted to help. “What I would like to know specifically is what would it take for Mrs. Bonefesi’s daughter to return to school?” wrote one reader.

Donations began pouring in. 

My colleagues at CARE warned me that giving cash directly to the Bonefesi family could make it a target of jealousy or even witchcraft. Instead, the chief in Bowa suggested that we help all six girls in the village who, like Anesi, had made it at least as far as eighth grade. And so we did, using the $6,000 Monitor readers initially contributed, which would be enough to see them through the local secondary school. 

A group of women from Bowa agreed to oversee the funds. When I asked them what the initiative should be called, they answered, “Advancing Girls’ Education!” 

Within months, my first nonprofit – Advancing Girls’ Education in Africa (AGE Africa) – launched with the partnership of Malawian colleagues and seven other students from my graduate program at The Fletcher School at Tufts University near Boston.

A year later, I began my doctoral studies at Fletcher, with a focus on education in Africa. Monitor readers continued to donate to our nascent fundraising efforts, which allowed us to hire our first staff member. I continued visiting Malawi and chaired AGE Africa’s board. Over time, with support from our executive director, our Malawian country directors shaped and grew the program. 

After nine years, in 2014, I recruited my successor, stepped away from the program entirely, and moved with my young family to Turkey to start a new chapter. I was proud to leave AGE Africa in the hands of colleagues who considered the mission their own. 

In Turkey, I co-founded The Fuller Project, a global newsroom whose coverage seeks to effect positive change for women. The women leaders I know in Malawi, whose stories are rarely heard, were my inspiration. 

Back in the United States, seven years after launching the newsroom, I finally got to visit Malawi again in 2022. I already knew from my time with AGE Africa that schooling not only offered opportunities but also created challenges in the girls’ lives. I wanted to know how they were doing and how education had helped – or hadn’t.

Anesi: Choosing to belong

Back in 2006, during the Bowa girls’ first term, the Monitor’s Africa correspondent visited to see how they were faring. “The scholarship is opening new worlds,” he wrote. They had ample time to study, a break from hard labor in the fields, and full bellies during a time of hunger at home. Alifosina Chilembwe wanted to be a lawyer, and Efelo Sekani wanted to be a doctor. 

About Anesi, he wrote, “All has not gone according to plan.” 

Anesi had received a marriage proposal from a boy who had given her a new skirt and lotion. Her friends were all getting married, and her grandmother pressured her to accept. But her father convinced her to wait, and so Anesi resolved to finish the school year.  

MATAMANDO MAFUTA

Anesi Bonefesi and her 10-year-old son laugh in front of their house in Bowa village, Dec. 2, 2022. Anesi lives in the same house where she grew up. Her father lives opposite her in a house with his third wife.

During that year, I visited. Anesi greeted me in front of her school wearing a white dress and a self-assured smile. Her headmaster told me she was “well behaved” and “improving.”

But in a schoolroom of 100, and without textbooks, she and her peers strained to follow the teacher. Instruction was in English, and Anesi had minimal comprehension, having had little exposure to it in Bowa. She also had no role models to show her what kind of doors education could open.

Meanwhile, the boy offered her a chance to stay with her peers in the familiar world of village life. At the end of the school year, she accepted his proposal.

I felt overcome with regret that AGE Africa couldn’t keep open the door to education for her. But we hadn’t yet learned how best to help. Paying secondary school fees was just a first step. We still had to understand the complex and layered barriers that girls face, and our role in supporting their growth.

When I go to see Anesi in 2022, I stop first at the chief’s house. He remembers me and my habit of scribbling notes.

The chief tells me that nothing has really changed since my last visit. “There are secondary schools now, so the youth graduate, but we have no access to jobs, so they return to their same subsistence farming life,” he says. Five of the six original AGE Africa scholars still live in the village. 

He then calls Anesi on her cellphone, and she approaches us moments later with a wide smile. She walks with her head back and chest forward, exuding the authority gained from motherhood. She was 31 years old at the time, and had a 12-year-old daughter and 10-year-old son. So did I.

She is happy with her husband, but their life has been one of hardship. Once, they tried to move away to a different village, but there was a bad harvest and soon they were back. Now, they live in the same compound where Anesi was born. Her father lives next door and has remarried. Selina left the village years ago. Their homes, mortared with mud and topped with straw, are vulnerable to rain. 

Anesi’s daughter has fallen a year behind in school. During one particularly dry year, the tobacco yield was poor, and they couldn’t afford to send her. Tobacco, the main export crop since colonization, strips the land of nutrients and is sensitive to drought. Money for farming inputs, like fertilizer, is scarce, and it’s hard to get ahead. 

Of her marriage proposal, Anesi says, “I accepted, but in a childish way, and I have felt ashamed my entire life. 

“I have often wondered how different my life would be if I had continued my education,” Anesi tells me.  

I ask myself the same question. 

Idah: From Malawi to Exeter and back

After the first year of AGE Africa, we revamped the program, moving the girls into boarding schools so they would have better support, supervision, and resources. We also gave scholarships to 12 more girls, including Idah Savala.

Idah is one of eight siblings born to a widowed mother in a rural village. Her confident grin and top grades foreshadowed greatness. From a young age, she excelled academically, winning a primary school scholarship.

MARY KNOX MERRILL/THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR/FILE

Idah Savala walks July 22, 2009, at Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire.

Idah was then selected to attend Providence Secondary School for Girls, one of the most competitive schools in the country. She and her mother went door to door, asking for help with the school fees. When it seemed like all options were exhausted, Idah collapsed in tears. AGE Africa heard about her situation and awarded her a scholarship.  

When I visited her on campus in 2007, she was waking up each day at 3:30 a.m. to wash, cook, and study before school. “It’s what you do in Malawi to get ahead,” she told me. 

At school, she exceeded expectations. At home during school breaks, it was more difficult. Her arms had grown too weak to pound maize into meal. “I have nothing in common with the girls, and I’m not allowed to talk to the boys about the things that interest me, like maths,” she said. The hardest time of her life, she later told me, was when she finished secondary school and had to go back to the village to wait more than a year for her exam results. At home with no work, no husband, and no news of university acceptance, she endured taunts and condemnation. As was true for Anesi, choosing education came at a cost. But Idah could more clearly see the benefits. 

Back in the U.S. after that visit, I told a donor about Idah’s perseverance. He’d attended Phillips Exeter Academy, an elite prep school in New Hampshire, and wanted her to experience it.

Months later, Idah, who had never left southern Malawi, boarded a plane to New Hampshire to attend summer school at Exeter, funded by the donor. She sampled American life, from ice skating to cafeteria food to the school dance. She also saw open water for the first time. 

“You guys didn’t prepare me!” she told me. The library system was different. The classrooms, built around small, round tables, forced every student into full participation. She didn’t have plentiful clothing like the other kids, and she sorely missed Malawian food. 

The summer tested her fortitude but also enriched her. Idah flew home, suitcase and heightened ambition in tow. From the airport, she took a minibus to her village. The man next to her chided her, calling her a prostitute. He disapproved of her nail polish, still fresh from the school dance. 

But her improved study skills would later help her beat the odds and get into Chancellor College, where students also wear nail polish. 

Idah is the only AGE Africa scholar to experience Exeter. Though she thrived, we decided to keep the organization’s efforts focused in Malawi.

When I saw Idah in 2014, she was a university student and a community development intern. We went together to visit AGE Africa scholars, who swarmed her, wanting advice. She encouraged them, saying, “I was once like you.” 

When I visit Idah in 2022, she proudly pulls back the iron gate of her house in Lilongwe. Evenings and weekends, she is usually at her master’s program in strategic management, but today she has the day off, and we lounge on her couch for hours. She is 28 years old and pregnant, preparing for motherhood.

PHOTO COURTESY OF IDAH SAVALA

Idah Savala holds her son, born March 27, 2023.

Later, she takes me to the international nonprofit where she works, which provides sexual and reproductive health education and services. 

Her son, Jermone, was born in March. All her life, Idah has balanced her educational ambition and others’ expectations. Now, she balances motherhood and her passion for mentoring girls in rural villages like her own. 

Lessenia: Setting a different example

On one of my last days in Malawi, AGE Africa Country Director Ulanda Mtamba picks me up from Lilongwe to go to Mchinji, near the Zambian border. As we drive past vegetable stands and bicyclists pushing towers of grain, she brings me up to speed on the ways she is expanding the program.

We pull up to a small yellow building, and Lessenia Chikho, the newly appointed central district officer for AGE Africa, gives us a hero’s welcome. With excitement, she shows us her office and stacks of scholar records. Never mind that there is no working bathroom or outhouse just yet; she runs home when needed.

Lessenia grew up as one of nine siblings in Dedza District, by the Mozambican border. Her father, Rafael, was a truck driver, sometimes traveling as far as South Africa before returning home.

He had three days off between trips to rest under the care of his wife and amid the din of their children. Lessenia went to bed with a stomach full of maize, vegetables, and meat. “We used to live a better life, a good one,” she tells me. 

Then her dad died, and everything changed. She moved from a large house in the village to an unfinished one in a township. Her mother, Alice Chikho Balaka, bundled tomatoes on her head to sell at the roadside, and deputized the siblings to tend to each other in a cascading chain of care. Ms. Balaka never married again. “You sisters are growing too old to have a stepfather around,” she told Lessenia. 

MATAMANDO MAFUTA

“People expect a lot from you just because they consider you as a hero and well educated, and as such, doing the best is the only option.” – Lessenia Chikho, a 2018 graduate of Chancellor College currently serving as central district officer for AGE Africa

Male relatives encouraged Ms. Balaka to look for marriages for the girls, but she refused, vowing to provide for them herself. Some nights the children piled into shared beds, their stomachs thrumming up a chorus of hunger. But their mother’s iron will prevailed when it came to education: She succeeded in putting each child through secondary school.

Having left her home behind when her father died, Lessenia learned to keep her own company. “Most of the times I was alone, sitting and practicing my schoolwork,” she tells me. Occasionally, she comforted her mother. “Sometimes I’d talk to her like a big girl, telling her, ‘Don’t worry, Mami; the future is bright!’”

Back in 2008, after taking her primary school exit exams, Lessenia was at home in bed, feeling ill. Her uncle, who worked in the district education department, called to tell Ms. Balaka that Lessenia had been selected for a national boarding school in Mangochi, the highest possible honor for a student. Telling the story 15 years later, Lessenia breaks into peals of laughter. “I was sick, and then I was fine! I’m still shocked. How did I get healed just by hearing this?” 

Ms. Balaka was elated – and in despair. How would she pay for it? She would have to send Lessenia with food and pocket money, not to mention uniforms and books, all of which she had to come up with in just two weeks. As the deadline approached, Lessenia began to despair, too. 

Comforting her crying daughter, Ms. Balaka promised her, “God will provide.” Then she sold half of the plot of land under their small home and bought bus tickets to Mangochi.

After the first term, when Lessenia returned for break, she realized her mom was short on funds again. By the time she scraped together the money, Lessenia was two weeks late returning to school. A teacher recommended her for an AGE Africa scholarship, which she was awarded. “That day I went straight to admissions to ask them to call my mom, and she couldn’t believe it,” says Lessenia. She’d get through school on her grades now, not her mother’s sweat and sacrifice. 

MATAMANDO MAFUTA

As part of an AGE Africa mentoring program, schoolgirls make up a play about the challenges they face.

Back at home after finishing the first year of secondary school, Lessenia says her mom told her, “Your bones are showing out!” She’d been working so hard that she’d lost weight, and the girls at home noticed.

“Sometimes people do not want to associate with you just because you look different from them, ... which makes one have few friends,” Lessenia says. But she didn’t pay them any mind. She says she was always on her own reading anyway.

After secondary school, Lessenia attended Chancellor College, the same prestigious government-run school that Idah went to. She also interned for AGE Africa. 

Lessenia graduated from university in 2018 and went on to jobs as a teacher, economist, and development facilitator. She’s now 28 years old and married, and has two children, a boy and a girl, ages 1 and 5. When the opportunity arose to be district officer for AGE Africa, she jumped at the chance. “It’s all about the values and how you feel after doing the thing,” she says. 

By early afternoon, Lessenia’s husband, Brian, arrives to help drive us to Ludzi Secondary School for Girls to see AGE Africa’s peer mentoring program in action. They moved to Mchinji for Lessenia’s job. Brian works in the import-export industry, as Lessenia’s father did, but as an accountant. 

When we arrive at Ludzi Secondary School, the head teacher escorts us to our seats to watch the performance that Lessenia and the girls have prepared during their mentoring sessions. 

Lessenia, wearing a gold and black taffeta dress, revs the girls’ energy as if she were the captain of a cheer squad. “Who are the leaders of tomorrow?” she booms. 

“We are!” the girls shout back. Then one of the older girls takes over as emcee with charisma and confidence, transitioning between call and response, songs, and plays about how to confront obstacles.

I ask Lessenia what she advises girls who are thinking about marriage. “I talk to them about their careers, not about men!” she answers. If she had to advise them, she says, “I would say, marry your best friend ... a person who respects you.”

On the way back, I ask Lessenia how she deals with criticism for being different.

“People expect a lot from you just because they consider you as a hero and well educated, and as such, doing the best is the only option,” she says. “One has to be cautious always when doing things because you are considered a star in the community. ... It just helps you to think creatively and critically before doing anything.”

That pressure doesn’t appear to have clipped her wings. “I love solving problems!” she says about her plan to get a master’s degree in economics. “Nothing can stop me!”

Measurable progress

Over the years, Malawian leaders on AGE Africa’s staff deepened their focus on developing girls’ agency, not just knowledge and skills. The team launched Creating Healthy Approaches to Success (CHATS), a peer mentoring curriculum that builds girls’ confidence through role play and acting. Today, CHATS serves 4,500 girls directly and reaches 4 million girls through radio programming, which started as an emergency response during the pandemic. 

MATAMANDO MAFUTA

This article’s author, Xanthe Scharff (left), speaks with Joyce Banda, former president of Malawi, Nov. 24, 2022.

Since 2005, AGE Africa has provided 500 four-year, secondary school scholarships to girls, with 138 currently enrolled. Recently, the program also began offering some higher education scholarships and now supports 52 students in universities, nursing schools, and technical academies. Nearly every scholarship recipient graduates. 

At annual regional retreats, the scholars hear from professional women, like Idah and Lessenia, and build both peer and mentor networks. The girls often say “thank you” to the staff, but they are the ones doing the hardest work. 

“I couldn’t understand why you left AGE Africa! You didn’t even stay on the board!” Lessenia remarks to me on WhatsApp once I’m back home in Washington. 

“I left, but also, I did not leave. I’ve spent my life working for women and girls, just like you,” I tell her, noting that we are driven by a shared sense of purpose.

AGE Africa opened doors, she says, but then adds, “You know, I’m a catalyst of change.” 

1. Small Worlds
by Caleb Azumah Nelson

How does one claim one’s individuality in the midst of others’ expectations? Caleb Azumah Nelson’s novel focuses on Stephen, a London-born teen of Ghanaian immigrant parents, who walks away from a university education to pursue his love of music. Written in exquisite prose infused with lyricism, the book examines the unexpected repercussions of life decisions and explores such themes as faith, friendship, and authenticity.

2. Excavations
by Kate Myers

In Kate Myers’ funny, flinty debut, four women converge at a Greek archaeological dig led by a preening professor. As the crew toils, they unearth the truth about the site – and their unscrupulous leader. Pocked with absorbing details, the novel applauds intellectual honesty and the thrill of discovery.  

3. One Summer in Savannah
by Terah Shelton Harris

Terah Shelton Harris’ novel is an astonishing work of art about forgiving the unforgivable and finding redemption. When Sara returns to her hometown with her daughter, the product of a rape eight years earlier, she befriends her assailant’s twin brother, introducing him to his gifted niece. Together, they find a path toward healing and peace.

4. Promise
by Rachel Eliza Griffiths

Rachel Eliza Griffiths’ luminescent novel centers on the Kindreds, one of two Black families living in Salt Point, Maine, in 1957. Haunted by past injustices, and facing increasing threats to their safety, 13-year-old Cinthy, her sister Ezra, and their resolute parents rely on the sustaining love of family – present and past. It’s a devastating story of remarkable resilience.  

5. After the Funeral and Other Stories
by Tessa Hadley

These extraordinarily well-crafted short stories reveal the profound interior lives of the characters. Tessa Hadley’s gift for immersing readers into fully drawn surroundings is captivating. 

6. The Last Dance
by Mark Billingham

Deputy Sgt. Declan Miller – a recent widower, ballroom dancer, and devoted smart aleck – has a full plate. He’s investigating a double murder with new colleague Sara Xiu while quietly probing his wife’s unsolved homicide. Mark Billingham brings deadpan prose to the propulsive story, which champions partnership in its myriad forms.

7. Owner of a Lonely Heart
by Beth Nguyen

Beth Nguyen’s poignant memoir begins with her childhood in Michigan, where most of her family resettled after fleeing Vietnam just before the fall of Saigon. Her mother was left behind, and in spare prose, Nguyen grapples with her absence and its impact on her own identity as a mother.

8. Under the Eye of Power
by Colin Dickey

This provocative nonfiction book insists that conspiracy theories are not fringe to American society but have been a central feature of U.S. democracy. From the Salem witch trials to QAnon, Colin Dickey argues that irrational paranoia reflects anxiety at key moments of political and cultural transition.

9. No Ordinary Assignment
by Jane Ferguson

War correspondent Jane Ferguson’s courage and grit come through in this memoir, as she charts her lonely childhood in Northern Ireland and her determination to pursue journalism. The descriptions of her wartime reporting provide a dramatic view of conflicts in Yemen, Syria, and Afghanistan. 

10. The Red Hotel
by Alan Philps

Shortly after the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, a small group of Anglo-American reporters traveled to Moscow to cover the conflict. Assigned to live and work in the legendary Metropol Hotel, they found their movements curtailed and their efforts thwarted by Soviet officials. A fascinating, insightful, and disturbing portrait of Western reporters working in a police state and how the experience changed their lives.

Reuters

Benny Gantz, head of the National Unity alliance, touches the Western Wall, Judaism's holiest prayer site, as he attends a prayer gathering in Jerusalem, July 23.

Perhaps few other places in the world have seen so much prayer as Jerusalem’s Western Wall. The stony remnant of a destroyed Jewish temple has drawn millions to pray over centuries. Yet on Sunday, the day before Israel’s government approved a contentious change to the independence of its courts, one group of prayers stood out. They had gathered, as The Jerusalem Post put it, to offer “a prayer for the country’s unity.”

“They didn’t cast blame, demonize the other side, or predict a dystopian future for Israel,” the Post opined. “Instead, they called for cooler heads to prevail to prevent an insurmountable schism.”

For months, Israel has seen mass protests against any judicial overhaul by the right-wing government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The national debate strikes at the heart of Israel’s identity as both a democracy and a Jewish state – and at the values guiding Israel’s actions toward the Palestinians.

The gathering at the Western Wall was “the first major event of its kind to bring together representatives of both sides of the controversy,” observed Haaretz newspaper. The group included those in favor of and opposed to the judicial changes, which will prevent the Supreme Court from overturning government decisions it deems unreasonable.

Before the event, Rabbi Yaakov Medan, a supporter of clipping the court’s powers and a prominent leader of a West Bank Jewish settlement, explained, “We will pray for Him to cool down the consuming fire eating away at our souls. 

“There are two views here, but what we share is greater than what divides us: The continued existence of the Jewish People,” he wrote in a statement.

The praying may have had a calming result. Afterward, the group of several hundred people marched arm in arm to the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, many singing songs. They could be heard debating the legal changes – with civility – “to the point, in fact, that many of these arguments ended with a big hug,” observed Haaretz.

One participant, Rabbi David Stav, described the prayers as “a plea to the Almighty to send wisdom and good counsel to our leaders so that our state makes it intact out of this situation.” His group, Tzohar, seeks ways to reconcile religious and secular Jews in Israel.

Most of all, the affection displayed during the event has set an example for how Israel can move ahead. The changes to the courts approved by the current ruling coalition could easily be reversed by a future government. In many democracies, fundamental change by a ruling majority can often alienate a minority. Just as praying helps people listen for God’s word, it also helps people listen to each other.

Or as Shlomit Ravitsky Tur-Paz, co-director of the Jewish Life Advocacy Center, wrote about the political tactics surrounding the new legislation, “Belief, and a bond to culture, tradition, and history cannot be achieved by compulsion, but only through love.”