Tagged JDC

As a way to connect Jews during the pandemic’s second wave, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee will unite on Facebook with different Jewish communities worldwide through a Hanukkah candle-lighting video each night of the holiday at 5 p.m. EST. The holiday begins on the night of Dec. 10.… Read more »

(New York, NY) As extreme weather is sweeping across the United States and Europe, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee is urging the public to support local and global winter aid efforts aiding poor populations. JDC has provided winter aid this year to more than 9,500 poor Jews, including… Read more »

(JTA) — Jewish groups are offering assistance in the wake of a tsunami in Indonesia that has left more than 400 dead and thousands homeless. The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee is providing emergency relief and assessing emerging needs in the Kalianda and Rajabasa subdistricts of Lampung, a province… Read more »

In response to the deadly tsunami that struck Indonesia’s Sunda Strait region on Saturday evening killing hundreds, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) is providing emergency relief and assessing emerging needs through its local partner in the Kalianda and Rajabasa subdistricts in Lampung. The aid provision includes health services, clean water, and critical supplies… Read more »

    NEW YORK (JTA) — In business, an effective planning process is essential for success. During the High Holidays, Jews are urged to engage in this sort of process for our own lives. We reflect on the past year, seeking lessons to help us in the coming year.… Read more »

Mumbai, India – The Jewish community of India, together with American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, is responding to the destructive floods in Kerala, providing food and clothing to hundreds of families hard-hit by the disaster. With a presence in India since 1950, JDC and its partners in the Jewish community will provide… Read more »

Contributions to the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona Community Campaign help support the JDC — and a variety of other causes in Tucson, Israel, and around the world.… Read more »

The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee is responding to the devastating 7.1 earthquake in Central Mexico, immediately supporting the search, rescue, and emergency aid efforts of CADENA, its Mexican Jewish humanitarian partner, in hard-hit Mexico City. This work, as well as the tracking of Hurricane Maria’s impending impact in… Read more »

  (JTA) — We Americans use the phrase “the greatest generation” to describe those who grew up during the Depression, prevailed in World War II and contributed to America’s postwar prosperity and influence. But on a visit last week to Jewish communities in Saint Petersburg, Russia, and Belarus’ Minsk and… Read more »

KIEV, Ukraine (JTA) – On a muddy path in Babi Yar Park, Vladimir Proch negotiates deep puddles as he shadows two rabbis and a group of Ukrainian officials. An 87-year-old Holocaust survivor, Proch lives near the Kiev ravine where Nazis and local collaborators murdered more than 50,000 Jews starting… Read more »

(JTA) — Masha Shumatskaya never imagined she would be a war refugee, even after that first night last spring when she dragged the mattress off her bed and into her windowless hallway to protect herself from flying glass in the event a bomb shattered her windows. But after weeks… Read more »

Members of the Lugansk Jewish community standing in front of their synagogue's Torah ark, Dec. 11, 2014. (Cnaan Liphshiz)

LUGANSK, Ukraine (JTA) — In an unheated synagogue with no running water, a dozen Jews are trying to keep warm as temperatures here veer toward the single digits. Not moving too much helps keep the warmth under their thick coats, they say, a technique developed as the group gathered… Read more »

Elderly Ukrainians receive food packages at the Hesed social welfare center in Donetsk run by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. (Courtesy JDC)

(JTA) — At the end of “Fiddler on the Roof,” the classic musical celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, Tevye and his family flee their village of Anatevka for a better and safer life. In reality, however, not everybody left. Today, several hundred thousand Jews still live in Ukraine,… Read more »

Rabbis on a Jewish Federations of North America mission to Tbilisi, Georgia, brought a food basket to the family of 10-year-old Nodar Abramishvili, who immediately shared a bag of M&M candies with the visitors. (Courtesy Rabbi Robert Eisen)

On Thursday, March 27, Rabbi Robert Eisen will share insights from his recent visit to the Jewish community of Tbilisi, Georgia, as part of a “Between the Headlines: Tbilisi, Ukraine and the Global Jewish Community” briefing sponsored by the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona. It also will feature Danny… Read more »

Alena Druzhynina of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, pictured above in white helmet, entered the tense Independent Square area of Kiev on Feb. 22 to bring a package of food to an 82-year-old pensioner who had been homebound since the worst of the violence began. (JDC)

(JTA) — The turmoil in Ukraine has left one of Europe’s largest Jewish communities on edge. After an outbreak of violence in Kiev last week that left dozens of protesters and policemen dead, President Viktor Yanukovych fled the capital and parliament installed an interim leader to take the still-contested… Read more »

Alex Frieder, seated, surrounded by Jewish refugees that he and his brothers helped escape from Nazi Germany and Austria to the Philippines. (3 Roads Communications)

NEW YORK (JTA) — As the extent of the catastrophic damage and tragic death toll continues to grow in the Philippines, a particularly heroic piece of history should be recalled by the global Jewish community, which owes a debt to the island nation. Seven decades ago, a Philippine president,… Read more »

Schoolchildren from the Haitian town of Zoranje standing outside their middle school that was built by the JDC. (Courtesy American Joint Distribution Committee)

NEW YORK (JTA) — It was the poor construction. There had been many earthquakes more powerful than the one that hit Haiti nearly three years ago, and there have been many more since. But few have been deadlier. When the tremor registering 7.0 on the Richter scale struck on… Read more »

Participants celebrating during services at the World Union for Progressive Judaism Conference of Jewish Communities in Buenos Aires, Argentina, August, 2012. (Diego Melamed)

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (JTA) — When the Sao Paulo Hebraica Sports Club and Community Center in Brazil opened the Aleph School earlier this month, it welcomed 450 students and had 120 more on the waiting list for next year. Hebraica, which is similar to an American Jewish community center,… Read more »