In Region Where Health is Declining, Volunteer Doctors Help Jewish Elderly
JTA – December 12 2005
An expanding network of Jewish volunteer doctors is helping Jewish elderly in the former Soviet Union. "It is quite a big army of volunteers," says Julia Karchevskaya, an ophthalmologist from Saratov, Russia, who began volunteering 15 years ago. The volunteers, who work at local Hesed welfare organizations sponsored by the JDC in 12 former Soviet states, focus some of their efforts on preventive medicine -- no small task in a region where the average life expectancy of men has declined to 57 and the lifespan for women is not much higher…

Elderly Poor in Ex-Soviet Lands Fear Onslaught of Winter Months
JTA – November 17 2005
…For every dollar spent on Nazi victims in the region, the JDC says it has only 51 cents for those classified as "non-Nazi victims." That predicament has forced the JDC to impose tighter eligibility requirements and slash services to those eligible for aid. According to the JDC, non-Nazi victims in Ukraine, for example, have experienced a 14 percent drop in food programs, while their counterparts in Russia have seen home-care services plummet by 19 percent in recent years…"For more than 2,000 years, Jews in the Diaspora have always said that one Jew is responsible for another," says Steven Schwager, the JDC's executive vice president. "The fact is that these Jews are some of the poorest Jews on Earth, and we as Americans have a responsibility to care for them..."

UJC promotes overseas funding, approves new allocation process
JTA – November 16 2005
…"We owe it to those people" to care for them, said Schwager, whose group provides Kogan with a home-care worker — and her only human contact. "Those people could be us." Making the case for funding overseas needs has become increasingly difficult for the North American Jewish federation system, which raises money for local, national and international needs...At its annual conference held in Toronto this week, the UJC heavily promoted "Operation Promise," a special campaign to raise $160 million over three years primarily to finance the aliyah of an estimated 17,000 Ethiopians of Jewish descent known as the Falash Mura. The funds will also go toward the absorption of Ethiopian Jews in Israel, caring for the Jewish elderly of the former Soviet Union and invigorating the identity of its Jewish youth...

Read All About It
The Jewish Journal of greater L.A – October 28 2005
…the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies. JDC International Centre for Community Development chose it as a convenient midway point for a first-ever gathering of 13 editors and publishers of Jewish publications from North America, Europe and Israel. The early September meeting was the brainchild of Alberto Senderey, the JDC’s director of international community development…

Changing Fortunes In Harlem
Jewish Week – October 14 2005
…a 10-member Israeli delegation led by Sulimani how HCZ has turned around the lives of thousands of minority children — mostly African Americans, as well as some Hispanics and youngsters from other backgrounds — and helped change the tenor of the area. "It’s a great example," said Sulimani, director general of the Ashalim-Association for Planning and Development of Services for Children and Youth at Risk and their Families…Indeed, Sulimani this summer instituted a pilot project called Better Together in two neighborhoods of Kiryat Malachi, an economically depressed city in the center of Israel, adopting the comprehensive, community involvement emphasis stressed by HCZ: A tenants’ association in one building took responsibility for cleaning the site, and organizers went door-to-door looking for volunteers.

Pakistan will accept relief from Israel: Musharraf
Indo-Asian News Service – October 12 2005
Pakistan will accept aid from Israel and American Jews for the relief of hundreds of thousands of its people left homeless by a massive earthquake, Online news agency reports. American Jewish groups, including the American Jewish Congress-Council for World Jewry, JDC …

A camp for Soviet Jewish refugees lives on, but only in people’s memories
JTA – September 20 2005
…But for 15,000 Jews from the former Soviet Union, Ostia will always conjure up memories of Country Club Castelfusano, a summer retreat just outside city limits that was used from 1988 to 1991 by the JDC as temporary housing for Jewish refugees on their way to new lives in America…

Surprise! There are still Jews in Pakistan
Jerusalem Post – September 9 2005
…said Elijah Jacob, who works for the JDC in Mumbai. "As far as I know, the only Jew in Pakistan is a very elderly woman in Karachi." JDC helps support the woman, 87-year-old Rachel Joseph. She has made headlines in recent years for fighting for the right to build a synagogue on the site of Magen Shalom, Karachi's last synagogue, which was demolished in the 1980s to make way for a shopping center…

Match your honor of Israel’s splendors with your aid for the homeland’s poor and hungry
Jewish United Fund – September 9 2005
…Every 31 minutes, a new immigrant arrives in Israel from a country such as Ethiopia, Argentina or the former Soviet Union, seeking a new life of freedom in the Jewish state…young olim pursuing an education lack basic school supplies, literacy aids, and adults to help them with their homework. Through the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, JUF funds educational programs to provide academic support and a safe place to study for young olim. After-school learning centers and matriculation centers make it possible for high school students to stay in school, study for exams and plan for the future. Drop-out prevention programs and vocational training are also in place–all made possible with the help of JUF…

In the wake of disaster, there is also a wave of opportunity
Jewish News weekly of Northern California – September 9 2005
…Helping return dignity to people, be they Jewish or not, has always been important to the JDC…JDC is trying to rebuild and improve the lives of the invisible victims, by getting fishermen new boats, or teaching them new trades away from water; and by empowering the women of these towns to play a role in planning its rebirth, as well as learning new skills so that they can earn a livelihood…And for the children, in whose eyes you can often still see the trauma of that awful day, JDC is trying to give some order back to their lives by rebuilding schools and playgrounds, providing computer labs for both young and old and building community centers, where villagers can come together to plan, learn or just socialize while they live in temporary housing and dream of returning to a more normal existence…

Jewish Community Home opened in St. Petersburg
Pravda – September 9 2005
Jewish officials and foreign dignitaries on Friday opened the St. Petersburg Jewish Community Home to house major organizations and programs serving the northern city's 100,000-strong Jewish population. "This center is to become an important center of Jewish life in Russia, and one of the most important events in the life of St. Petersburg Jews for the last 100 years," Arkady Mil-Man, Israel's ambassador to Russia, said at the opening ceremony, the AP reports. Construction of the US$10 million (€8 million) community center was sponsored by the JDC and other Jewish groups from North America. The center will house an art studio, kindergarten, sports center, computer center and library. ..

Jews in Toronto help build a JCC in Eastern European city
JTA – September 8 2005
…Living in the former Soviet republic of Moldova, one of Europe’s poorest countries, Kishinev’s 18,000 Jews soon will have a center complete with recreational facilities, computer room, Holocaust center, vocational training and educational classes in Hebrew and English. The JDC acquired the building in 2003 and called upon Toronto to help rebuild the community’s Jewish roots. A $500,000 donation from Toronto resident Stephen Lewar, who since has passed away, made construction of the new community center possible…

Group’s efforts to help Thai villagers rebuild lives after tsunami bear fruit
JTA – September 7 2005
For Sukanya Waharak, a Thai villager in an area devastated by last December’s tsunami, a scholarship provided by the JDC helps send her children to school. "My husband does not work because of mental illness, so I have to take care of our two kids. I sell food, but things are not easy after the tsunami because so many of our fishing boats were destroyed," Waharak says. "Thanks to your projects, I can pay the school fees of 3,000 baht per term," or about $75.…

France honors former Jewish official
JTA – August 18 2005
France honored a former leader of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. The group’s former executive vice president, Michael Schneider, was named Chevalier of the League of Honor on Tuesday by French President Jacques Chirac. Schneider served the organization for more than 27 years, including a stint as the director general of the JDC’s Paris office…

Community Medicine Bank Serves Thousands of Needy Argentine Jews
CJP – August 8 2005
A makeshift Jewish communal medicine bank, staffed by volunteers, has evolved into a professional operation serving thousands of needy Argentine Jews… The venture serves 7,000 people through 70 Jewish centers around the country run by groups such as the Tzedaka Jewish Foundation, which administers the Refuot program along with support from the JDC…

Unemployment down, global ranking up
Ynetnews – July 28 2005
Taub Center economic research center quarterly report shows improvements in some areas, but needs among poor, underemployed, unemployed continue to increase…

Young olim less satisfied with life than natives
Haaretz — July 20 2005
Young new immigrants feel considerably more lonely and dissatisfied than native-born young Israelis… The survey, initiated and financed by JDC Israel, was done among immigrants aged 20 to 29 who arrived in Israel in the years 1990 to 2001… The standard of living of the young immigrants is lower than that of the native-born Israelis - 27 percent of the former are employed in blue collar professions compared to 16 percent of the latter…