Good Monday morning.
In today’s edition of Your Daily Phil, we report on a new lawsuit challenging a California school district’s controversial ethnic studies curriculum, and feature opinion pieces from Rabbi Elan Babchuck and Rebecca Leeman, as well as Rabbi Morey Schwartz. Also in this newsletter: Andrew Cushnir, Matanyahu Englman and Prince Harry. We’ll start with efforts by Jewish nonprofits to assist Morocco after the country’s massive earthquake over the weekend.
Jewish aid groups from around the world dispatched teams to Morocco to contribute to the massive humanitarian relief effort underway in the country’s center, which was rocked on Friday night by a powerful 6.8-magnitude earthquake that has killed more than 2,100 people, injured upwards of 2,400 and affected hundreds of thousands more, reports eJewishPhilanthropy’s Judah Ari Gross.
Rescue teams from Israel have been heading to Morocco since Saturday night, first with small advance teams who assessed the needs of the community and coordinated the larger groups that began arriving yesterday.
“Our initial team on the ground aims to create a situation assessment, connect with local resources and government agencies, as well as meet with community leaders to gauge what assistance is needed,” Dov Maisel, vice president of operations for United Hatzalah, said in a statement.
Humanitarian aid from Israel has been limited to nonprofit organizations for now, as Morocco has not yet approved offers of assistance from the Israeli government, leaving Israeli military and civil search-and-rescue teams, who are ordinarily some of the first to deploy to disaster areas, on standby.
IsraAid said its teams brought basic relief items with them to Morocco but were primarily looking to partner with “local NGOs to support vulnerable communities.”
There do not appear to be any fatalities among the Jewish community of Marrakesh, which has some 200 members, but the city’s Jewish quarter was significantly damaged by the tremors.
IsraAid said it was ”in close contact with the Jewish community in Marrakesh and exploring opportunities to partner in relief efforts.”
The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, which has operated in Morocco since 1947, said it was working with the local Jewish community to provide immediate relief — food, medicine, temporary shelter, medical support, evacuation — to those affected by the quakes, using funds from Jewish Federations of North America and individual donations.
The American Jewish Committee said it had allocated $100,000 for immediate contributions to IsraAid and other groups on the ground. Additional fundraising efforts are expected to launch in the coming days.
Credit:Source link
