American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee
The JDC offers aid to Jewish populations in Central and Eastern Europe as well as in the Middle East through a network of social and community assistance programs.Soon after seeing what he did, Morgenthau sent an urgent cable to New York-based Jewish philanthropist Jacob Schiff, requesting $50,000 of aid to keep the Jews of Palestine from starvation and death.[10] In 1974, Czechoslovak defector Josef Frolik advised the Central Intelligence Agency in 1974 that Jordan had been abducted by Arab agents and died during interrogation by Palestinians at the Egyptian embassy in Prague.World War I plunged Eastern Europe into chaos and subjected Jewish communities across the region to intense poverty, famine, and inflamed anti-Semitism.Therefore, the Soviet Union allowed the JDC to work with the American Relief Aid (ARA), instead of the Jewish Public Committee, in order to help those living in famine.Furthermore, Dr Joseph Rosen, the director of the Russian branch of the JDC, devised a plan to further assist Jews living in shtetls, Jewish towns where the majority of the population speaks Yiddish.[17] Hitler's rise to power in 1933 was followed closely by passage of Germany's Nuremberg Laws, a set of onerous restrictions that stripped Jews of their basic human rights and livelihoods.Channeling funds through local Jewish relief organizations, JDC subsidized medical care, schools, vocational training, welfare programs, and early emigration efforts.No longer permitted to operate legally in enemy countries, JDC representatives exploited a variety of international connections to channel aid to Jews living in desperate conditions in Nazis-controlled areas.Once this news reached Europe and the United States, an attorney, Lawrence Berenson, who worked with the Jewish Joint Distribution Committee decided to intervene on behalf of the passengers being denied entry to Cuba.To stave off mass starvation, JDC marshaled its resources, instituting an ambitious purchasing and shipping program to provide urgent necessities for Holocaust survivors facing critical local shortages.Earl Harrison, dean of the University of Pennsylvania Law School, asked Joseph Schwartz, JDC's European director, to accompany him on his official tour of the camps.His landmark report called for separate Jewish camps and for United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) participation in administering them—with JDC's help.In response, Schwartz virtually re-created JDC, putting together a field organization that covered Europe and later North Africa and designing a more proactive operational strategy.When the British began interning illegal Jewish immigrants in detention camps on Cyprus, JDC furnished medical, educational, and social services for the detainees.Britain's eventual withdrawal from Palestine set the stage for the May 15, 1948, birth of the State of Israel, which quickly drew waves of Jews not only from Europe, but from across the Arab world.Over the next few years, MALBEN rushed to convert former British Army barracks and any other available building into hundreds of hospitals, homes for the aged, TB sanitariums, sheltered workshops, and rehabilitation centers.With the need for emergency aid receding, by the end of the decade, JDC developed more long-term community-based programs aimed at Israel's most vulnerable citizens.JDC's social work innovations continued into the 1960s with the founding of Israel's first Child Development and Assessment Center, which put into practice the then-emerging idea that early detection and treatment optimize outcomes for children with disabilities.JDC during this period also worked closely with Israeli voluntary agencies that served children with physical and mental disabilities, helping them set up therapy programs, kindergartens, day centers, counseling services for parents, and summer camps.Under the banner of “Rescue, Relief, and Renewal,” the organization responded to the challenges that faced Jewish communities around the world, its emphasis on building the capacity of local partners to be self-sustaining.JDC assisted in the negotiation and planning of that rescue effort, which came on the heels of the comprehensive health and welfare program it had been operating for the thousands of Jews who had gathered in Addis Ababa in preparation for the departure.In India, home to an indigenous Bene Israel community, JDC in the 1960s channeled funding to the rehabilitation of local schools and included support for food programs and capital upgrades.In Latin America, where Jews fleeing the Nazis had settled decades earlier (with JDC's assistance), the organization in the late ’80s created Leatid, a program that trains local lay and professional Jewish leaders to ensure that communities are self-sustaining.Since then, JDC relief and recovery efforts have assisted tens of thousands of people left vulnerable in the wake of the mid-90s civil war in Rwanda, the Kosovo refugee crisis, the devastating 1999 earthquake in Turkey, and the 2004 tsunami in South Asia."[30] The name comes from a quote by JDC leader and Honorary Executive Vice President Ralph I. Goldman: "There is a single Jewish world: intertwined, interconnected”.[citation needed] Relief, Rescue, Renewal –Aiding Jewry Worldwide is JDC's mission to alleviate suffering and enhance the lives of Jews has taken it across geographic, cultural, and political borders on five continents.Since its start in 1989, Buncher Leadership Training has conducted seminars in the former Soviet Union, the Baltic States, Poland, Germany, Former Yugoslavia, Romania, Hungary, and Bulgaria as well as India and Latin America.JDC's role as a non-sectarian disaster relief agency is motivated by the spirit of tikkun olam, the traditional moral obligation of Jews to improve conditions for the entire human family.Working with local partners, JDC has provided emergency aid and long-term development assistance to communities devastated by such catastrophic events as the Kashmir earthquake in 2005, and the South Asia tsunami in 2004.
JerusalemUnited StatesJewishrelief organizationNew York CityIsraelPalestineOttoman EmpireJacob SchiffLeon KamaikyRomaniaGaliciaRussiaPolandLithuaniaWorld War IHenry Morgenthau, Sr.Pale of SettlementEastern FrontJudah Magnescivil warfamineIsrael PrizeCharles H. JordanThe New York TimesJosef FrolikCentral Intelligence AgencyHungarianprisoner of warVladivostokSoviet UnionCentral and Eastern EuropeLatin AmericanAfricantikkun olam2004 Indian Ocean tsunamiMyanmar cyclonegenocide in Darfur2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunamiFirst World WarOperation SolomonEthiopian JewsRussian RevolutionJoseph RosenshtetlsJames N. RosenbergcapitalUkraineBelarusCrimeaJews autonomy in CrimeaKomzetJoseph StalinNational Operations of the NKVDNuremberg LawsAustriaCzechoslovakiaWorld War IIEvian ConferenceDominican RepublicRafael TrujilloLeon Falk Jr.PassoverPearl HarborLisbon, PortugalShanghaiŒuvre de secours aux enfantsSwitzerlandOne Thousand ChildrenMS St. LouisFederico Laredo BrúMorris C. TroperHolocaustWarsaw GhettoAlliedSh'erit ha-Pletahdisplaced person campsEarl HarrisonUniversity of Pennsylvania Law SchoolUnited Nations Relief and Rehabilitation AdministrationInternational Refugee Organizationtypewriterssynagoguesrenewed anti-SemitismpogromsJewish Cultural ReconstructionJewish Restitution Successor OrganizationHungaryCold WarBulgariaGreat BritainCyprus1948 Arab–Israeli WarMoroccoTripoliOperation Magic CarpetYemeniteKurdishOperation EzraTuberculosisJewish Agency for IsraelMALBENHebrew University of Jerusalemsummer campsMikhail GorbachevHesed (FSU Jewish Community Welfare Centers)EthiopiaAddis AbabaSarajevoBosnia and HerzegovinaCroatsMuslimsYugoslaviaBene IsraelRwandaKosovoemergency disaster reliefMiddle Eastculturally sensitiveJewish Community CentersBaltic countriesFar EastTurkeyAlgeriaArgentinaMyers-JDC-Brookdale Institute