JDC officials describe Ukraine relief effort
by Debra Rubin
NJJN Bureau Chief/Middlesex
NJJN Bureau Chief/Middlesex
May 20,
2014
Despite
months of turmoil, Ukraine’s Jews have continued to receive lifesaving
medicine, food, and other vital services through the American Jewish Joint
Distribution Committee.
“During
the last five months we have never interrupted our services,” said JDC Ukraine
Government Affairs director Oksana Galkevich.
Galkevich
and JDC colleague Dov Ben-Shimon appeared May 2 at a leadership briefing at the
South River offices of Jewish Federation of Greater Middlesex County. At the
meeting, it was announced that the federation had made an emergency $11,700
donation to JDC, a federation partner, for its Ukrainian efforts.
Federation
executive director Gerrie Bamira said the donation was made to “ensure the
uninterrupted delivery of vital services to poor and isolated elderly Jews as
well as at-risk children and their families. This ongoing partnership and
relief effort is possible because of the generous donors in Jewish
Middlesex.”
Galkevich
said JDC representatives have braved sniper fire, crossed dangerous
checkpoints, and devoted countless extra hours to ensure the health and safety
of Ukraine’s 300,000-350,000 Jews, 17,000 of whom live in Crimea, the area
taken over by Russia in March.
The
Kharkov native, who came to the United States to update her organization’s
community partners, said that support has been stepped up at its hesed welfare
and community centers in affected areas of the country. Security and food and
medicine deliveries had been increased, additional counseling services
provided, and a round-the-clock emergency phone chain had been set up to
monitor clients. Additionally, situation rooms throughout the nation have been
established to provide constant updates on the local situation even as
contingency plans have been prepared in case of emergency.
JDC
operates 32 hesed centers in Ukraine, including three in
Crimea, and serves Jews in more than 1,000 locations.
“People
are scared, and when they need someone to talk to they call or come to our hesed centers,”
said Galkevich. “We thought with all the disorder, people would not come to the
centers, but we were wrong. People need people. Our social workers try to
comfort them.”
Particularly
vulnerable are the elderly who live on meager monthly government pensions and
are suffering because of Ukraine’s devalued currency and sharp spike in prices
for goods and services. She said many are survivors of the Holocaust and the
privations of the communist regime.
“People
literally have to make a choice between heart medication and a carton of eggs,”
said Galkevich. “The JDC has such deep infrastructure, we were able to help
every single person” who approached the centers, said Galkevich.
The aid
given to the Jewish community has produced a situation rife with irony.
Ben-Shimon, JDC’s director of strategic partnerships, said Jews tend to live
longer than non-Jewish Ukrainians because of the food, medical, and homecare
services made possible through the JDC and its partners in the North American
federation system, but “they live longer, lonelier lives” because in many
cases, their children have left the country.
And
while there is “no institutional anti-Semitism on the state level or government
level,” said Galkevich, widespread violence has left the community frightened.
“So far
the Jews have not been targeted,” she said, but downtown Kiev “is in ruins”
with cobblestones ripped from the streets for use as weapons. In Odessa, with
40,000 Jews — and where JDC serves 7,000 clients — a flare-up of violence
between pro-Ukraine and pro-Russian factions has had a chilling effect on the
population.
Galkevich
said JDC staff members are committed to continue serving their clients. She
told the story of Irina, a homecare worker in Kiev who stayed at the home of
one of her clients, a disabled Holocaust survivor terrified of spending the
night alone.
Realizing
she had another elderly client nearby who depended on her for meals, Irina
cooked enough for both women. Between bursts of sniper gunfire from rooftops,
Irina ran back and forth from one apartment to the other.
In
Sevastopol, a city with about 5,000 Jews on the Crimean peninsula, the hesed center
remained the only “fully functioning” Jewish organization after the Russian
invasion. Galkevich said its director gave every worker traveling to a client a
signed letter explaining they were doing humanitarian work for the
center.
In a
testament to its reputation, when the letters were shown to Russian soldiers
turning away vehicles at roadblocks, many would say, “Ah, hesed —
you can go through.”http://www.njjewishnews.com/article/22989/jdc-officials-describe-ukraine-relief-effort#.U30IDPldWyU
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