JDC Voices Blog

Trying to imagine that you are transforming someone’s life in another country is no match for actually meeting the person whose life you’re changing. That’s why we were heartened that participants on the Jewish Federations of North America’s recent mission to Haiti created a blog to share the impact that their generous donations—and that of tens of thousands of others—is having on the Haitian people. Echoing that sentiment, Gideon Hersher, JDC’s representative in Haiti, reflects in the Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles on the progress being made on this devastated island as Rosh Hashanah approaches.

For Israel’s 700,000 adults with disabilities, this year will be brighter because of JDC’s special-needs partnership, Israel Unlimited, which was found together with the Ruderman Family Foundation and the Government of Israel. The goal of the collaborative effort: to successfully integrate these Israelis into society and live productive and healthy lives. The program is crucial as people with disabilities comprise 20% of Israel’s population.

Not ready for summer to end? Neither is Besart, a 15-year-old from Albania whose exhilarating experience at the Ronald S. Lauder Foundation/JDC International Summer Camp at Szarvas, Hungary, has helped cement his Jewish identity. And that’s no small feat, considering that Besart is one of just 30-some Jews currently living in Albania. Prior to attending Szarvas, he didn’t have a single Jewish friend; now he has a whole community.

On August 31, 1914—96 years ago today—two men, Jacob Schiff and Henry Morgenthau, exchanged an urgent cablegram in an effort to help Palestinian Jews who faced an existential crisis due to resources from Europe being cut off with the outbreak of World War I. Little did they know (or probably even imagine) that this single action would give birth to the world’s leading Jewish humanitarian assistance organization that today comprises hundreds of staff working in more than 70 countries, and ensuring that just shy of $1 million per day goes to helping needy Jews everywhere.

As the floods in Pakistan show no signs of dissipating, JDC is executing emergency relief assistance in collaboration with partners on the ground. We are working with Heart to Heart International, the Afya Foundation (both of whom serve as our partners in Haiti), and the International Blue Crescent (with whom we collaborated after the 2005 and 2008 earthquakes in Pakistan). Interested in supporting our efforts? Make a donation to JDC’s Pakistan flood relief fund.

Leyla Sandler, a social worker based in Washington D.C. and a member of JDC’s Next Gen steering committee, took her expertise to the field, volunteering alongside JDC-supported aid efforts in Haiti. Read her account of the trials and triumphs at the Bel Air clinic in Port-au-Prince.

Last week, JDC’s Next Gen group held an event: Inside Jewish Ukraine, in partnership with Combined Jewish Philanthropies (Boston’s Jewish Federation). JDC, through the experiences of two speakers—one JSC fellow and one RIG fellow—who recently lived and worked in Ukraine, shared the realities of modern-day Jewish life in the former Soviet Union. While the purpose of the evening was to discuss JDC’s current efforts to bolster Jewish cultural life in the region, our history working in the FSU through both World Wars and then post-communism seemed to resonate with attendees as well.