Poor Roma in Tiszabura, Hungary, receive a critically needed food and clothing package for the winter.

When you see a friend struggling, it’s hard not to lend a helping hand.

That’s why when JDC staff got an alarmed call from Tiszabura, an extremely poor village in north-east Hungary where JDC’s Women’s Health Empowerment Program has operated in the past, they just couldn’t sit by and wait.

The complete insolvency and financial breakdown of the local municipality meant that public services have been shut down in the village for over a year. The school and the kindergarten were closed indefinitely; subsidized public food services were suspended; and people could not get heating for their homes. The oncoming season would leave many families with small children vulnerable to cold and starvation.

JDC had previously organized Equal Chance Against Cancer mammography screening and awareness raising events for the large local Roma community, so they had a connection with the village and felt for the women who had been struggling without help.

The JDC staff immediately organized a clothing and food drive. A local leading financial investment company pitched in generously.

And, within just a few days JDC staff were driving up the village road to distribute food and warm clothes to the families in need—offering relief and lightening their spirits for the coming holiday season.

Motl Gordon, Director of the Eitan Educational Center at the Yesod JCC in St. Petersburg, Russia, hosts a Hevruta session in Minsk, Belarus, on Yiddish song.

What’s the sound of 300 Belarusian Jews singing a Yiddish song? The participants of the recent JDC-supported 4^th Minsk Havruta found out firsthand when they showed up for a study session with fluent Yiddish speaker and informal education specialist Motl Gordon.

A Havruta is a social, interactive form of Jewish learning—basically, an opportunity for people to come together and teach one another about an interesting Jewish topic. It doesn’t have to be text-based, it doesn’t rely on any previous knowledge, and there aren’t any strict format rules for the seminars. Instead, it’s an opportunity to explore new ideas, debate, dance, and sing with new people who turn out to be interested in the same Jewish things you are.

In Minsk, Belarus, that’s something pretty special. And that’s why 300 Belarusian Jews of all ages came out for this year’s event, which featured 16 guest speakers from Minsk, Odessa, Moscow, and St. Petersburg teaching a broad variety of Jewish topics in 20 locations throughout Minsk.

The event was made possible by the invaluable help of volunteers from every institution of Jewish life in Belarus. Today, that includes Hesed welfare centers, Jewish Family Service (JFOS), the Emuna Jewish Community Center, and Hillel. Kudos to all on this enormously successful event!

Inside Jewish Turkey Panelists: (left to right) Sedat Behar, Illona Moaraf Fins, Evan Schultz (JDC Jewish Service Corps Fellow in İzmir, Turkey – 2003-04) and Chloe Markowitz (JDC Jewish Service Corps Fellow in İzmir, Turkey – 2006-07)

On Wednesday, August 10, 175 young Jewish professionals came together in Manhattan for JDC Dimensions Presents: Where East Meets West – Inside Jewish Turkey , an in-depth look at the Jewish community of Turkey, featuring young, authentic voices from Istanbul and İzmir.

One of the event chairs, Margalit Rosenthal, participated in Inside Jewish Germany & Turkey, a JDC overseas experience for young professionals, in March. She blogged about her impressions of the Turkish Jewish community on JDC: In Service this week.

Luciano, 8, puts on his new prosthetic arm as Ulrich M., a technician from the Tel Hashomer/JDC/MDA team at HUEH, carefully observes.

When the startling earthquake shook Haiti last January, Luciano L., 8, was on the first floor of his family’s house, playing with his older brother. As the home collapsed, one of the large walls fell on him, crushing his right arm. The injury was so severe that his arm needed to be amputated, and while he received proper treatment and was lovingly cared for by his parents, he was distraught. When his parents heard that the physiotherapy team at the Tel Hashomer/JDC/MDA rehabilitation center at Haiti State University Hospital (HUEH) were fitting for prosthetic arms—a rare find—they rushed to get Luciano on the list.

Prosthetic arms, initially not as highly prioritized as prosthetic legs, are now becoming more commonly provided as a result of research showing the positive impact an artificial arm has on an amputees’ overall healing, functionality, and self-esteem.

Luciano was one of the first patients the team met with. And though he arrived frightened and confused for the three days of measuring, plastering, and fitting by the specialists, he eagerly took the physiotherapist’s training on how to use his new arm.

Today Luciano is back to playing with his brothers and friends and looking forward to starting school in September.

Akiva, father of four, receives computer training at JDC’s Tevet employment initiative in Jerusalem.

This weekend over 4,000 ultra-Orthodox Israelis attended the Jerusalem employment fair JDC coordinated in partnership with the Jerusalem Municipality and the Ministry of Labor, Trade, and Industry. 

JDC professional Eti Meller, who helped coordinate the event, was cited in a Jpost article: “If we knew there would be such an outcome, we would have brought more businesses,” she said. ”This is an opportunity for employers to find high quality manpower, who really want to work.”

With an estimated 800,000 chronically unemployed, Israel is eager to create new employment opportunities and is partnering with JDC to provide job readiness skills to some of its more marginalized populations. JDC’s Tevet employment initiative, in partnership with the Government of Israel, helps break the cycle of poverty and dependency for the ultra-Orthodox, new immigrants, the disabled, young adults, and Israeli Arabs inIsrael.

A Nazi victim and JDC assistance recipient outside her home in Belarus. Photo by Sarah Levin.

We’re excited to share that JDC got a shout out in the media for reaching Jews living in some of the furthest corners of the globe.

Voices of America spotlighted JDC’s work assisting the elderly in Belarus, where only a handful of Jews remain in shtetls scattered across the country—less than 1% of the population that prospered there prior to World War II.

And the Washington Post published a Letter to the Editor responding to the “waning days” of Jewish gauchos in Argentina, who still remain very much alive for JDC. Like the rest of the Jewish community in that country reeling from the devastation caused by the economic crisis in 2001, JDC continues to support Argentina’s Jewish gauchos through these trying times.

Abbass and Al-Manarah provide blind Israeli Arab youth with hope and guidance, a sense of community and a path for personal and social change.

A woman undergoing a breast screening at a Health Day in Tiszabo, Hungary.

This week the Decade of Roma Inclusion initiative gives JDC a shout-out for its Campaign to Give Roma an Equal Chance Against Cancer in Hungary. Through its Women’s Health Empowerment  Program, JDC, in partnership with the Open Society Roma Initiatives and Susan G. Komen for the Cure, has put on 40 health days throughout the country since 2007 and provided over 4,500 underprivileged women (60% of them Roma) with breast cancer screenings. In a state where Roma women are three times more likely to die from cancer as their non-Roma counterparts and there is a ten-year gap in life expectancy between the two populations, giving these women a chance at early detection and diagnosis can mean the difference between life and death. By providing equal access to screenings and treatment for all women in Hungary, JDC is not only taking the battle against this life-threatening disease head on but also gradually changing long-standing attitudes against this minority population.

Disabilities experts from JDC-Israel and leaders of New York’s Center for Independence of the Disabled exchange best practices for social integration and model programs for the community.

Our hats off to the JDC delegation of Israeli experts and government officials serving the disabled who visited New York City and Boston last week to meet with their American counterparts and tour local facilities and programs. The visit was an outreach effort of Israel Unlimited, a pioneering partnership of JDC, the Ruderman Family Foundation, and the Government of Israel to meet the needs of Israel’s 700,000 disabled adults and improve their ability to live independently and integrate into Israeli society.

The delegation, whose visit was a tag-team coordination effort of UJA-Federation of New York and CJP (Combined Jewish Philanthropies) of Boston, was led by Jay Ruderman, a top advocate on special needs in the Jewish community and Israel, and Dr. Shlomo Elyashar, director of the rehabilitation division in Israel’s Ministry of Social Affairs.

During a site visit at the Center for Independence of the Disabled (CID) in NY, Yoav Kraiem from the Campaign for Disabled Persons in Israel was intrigued to learn that the US the government sometimes turns to specializing organizations like CID for input on policy. “When I return to Israel my goal will be to bring this idea to our government, to convince them that those working with the disabled should not only have a seat at the table but bring valuable insight that should affect policy-making.”

We hope the lessons learned from this exchange visit will only further the growth and impact of Israel Unlimited, which has had impressive success to date.

In its first year, Israel Unlimited developed new programs for 10,000 Israeli disabled adults. Since then, four new Centers for Independent Living—community based multi-service centers run by the disabled with services for the disabled—have been established and now serve an additional 6,000 disabled Israelis. Plus new services and training will now be available to more than 1,000 Israeli parents with disabilities and 2,000 immigrants with disabilities.

Stay tuned!

Bond Street Theatre performers and Haitians stage the hit of the season in a camp in Port-au-Prince.

While quake-shattered Haiti still has many challenges ahead, the road to recovery has already been speckled with creative initiatives to help mend the lives of those affected by the disaster. With JDC support, members of the Bond Street Theatre (BST) company recently traveled to Port-au-Princeto develop the Theatre for Social Development: Haiti program. BST’s unique model, specializing in non-verbal street performances, has garnered social improvement and positively impacted the well-being and life skills of children and in crisis-hit communities in South America, Israel, China, Indonesia, Pakistan, India, Myanmar, and beyond. We’re proud to say that JDC has previously supported BST’s work in the Balkans!

This stop: the tent camps of Port-au-Prince. The three-week initiative in Haiti included performances and workshops for the displaced people living in these camps. Bond Street took their proven success in alleviating stress of victims and displaced people and this time honed their focus on issues facing women and girls in the camps, helping them craft a new show about the earthquake and its aftermath.

Applying theatre-based methods toward post-crisis healing and empowerment and as a means to community education and development, the troupe created a performance based on a Native American folktale about a community joining together to overcome an obstacle. The initiative reached over 1,500 children and adults living in camps throughout the city!

BST also trained local trainers (Haitian educators and community artists) in their special approach to communicating social, political, and environmental issues with imagination, ensuring that even after the curtain falls, the shows and the healing will continue.