Good Wednesday morning.
In today’s edition of Your Daily Phil, we report on a pro-Israel music festival being held at MIT, and feature an opinion piece by Ilai Z. Saltzman and Maxine Grossman about the value of Israel studies and Jewish studies programs on U.S. college campuses. We’ll start with an interview with Ariel Zwang, CEO of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.
As the bitter wars in Ukraine and Gaza grind on with no end in sight, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) says it is committed to the next phase of helping at-risk populations in both Ukraine and Israel rebuild vibrant Jewish lives.
Fresh off solidarity visits to Ukraine and Israel, the group’s CEO, Ariel Zwang, recently sat down with eJewishPhilanthropy’s Haley Cohen to discuss the challenges facing both countries. In Ukraine, two years after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of the country, the crises have remained even as world and Jewish interest have waned. In Israel, the struggles are still emerging and developing in the aftermath of the Oct. 7 attacks and the ongoing fighting in Gaza and along Israel’s northern border. But Zwang said the two countries also share many of the same issues, particularly around mental health.
“The needs in Ukraine are as great as they ever were, and I don’t think it’s in our consciousness in the same way [as] when the war began” more than two years ago, Zwang said.
“Tens of thousands of Jewish Ukrainians [left] when the war started… leaving because of what might happen,” she said. Now, Zwang added, they are leaving “because of what did happen” and what is still happening as the war rages on. She noted a building bombing that occurred during her visit to the region, killing 25 people. “This is still the news that they are living with every day in Ukraine. It’s homes destroyed, loved ones displaced, family members called up not able to leave the county, families separated,” she said.
Tens of thousands of members of the Jewish community in Ukraine are receiving aid from JDC, particularly the elderly and disabled, who have been the least able to flee the country, according to the organization. Services include assisting evacuees whose homes have been destroyed by missile attacks as they settle into their new homes. “We’re helping them pay rent, helping them to get there, [providing] home care, partially covering medical costs,” Zwang said.
Other JDC programs in Ukraine focus on the renewal of Jewish life for the 40,000-190,000 members of the country’s Jewish community (estimates vary based on who is included). “People have a misconception that all of the Jews left, and that’s not true at all,” Zwang said. “But many who did leave were active in leading a Jewish life, counselors at camps and youth groups, and so [there’s a need] for people who can lead Jewish activities and also make sense of what’s happened from a Jewish perspective. So we’ve created courses for Jewish educators and counselors.”
Some 2,000 miles away, JDC is also helping the hardest-hit Israelis to heal, recover and rebuild after the Oct. 7 attacks and the ongoing war against Hamas. In the aftermath of Hamas’ attack, rates of post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and depression climbed.Responding to the increase of mental health issues, JDC launched the Emergency Resilience and Mental Health National Initiative, a $24.5 million program that offers tailored mental health care, supported by the Israeli government, the Jewish Federation Los Angeles, the Horwitz and Zusman Family Foundations and other donors.
On Zwang’s most recent visit to Israel in March, her third since Oct. 7, she said she “saw well-developed responses from JDC that really were responsive to the needs.” She pointed to the southern Israel city of Ofakim, which has tens of thousands of residents, is not economically wealthy and “doesn’t have the same kind of resiliency as [tight-knit communities on] kibbutzim.” As it is located further from Gaza, it is not eligible for the same level of support from the government as border-adjacent communities. “JDC has begun working intensively with Ofakim, which was very much affected by the Hamas attacks,” she said.
Zwang said there are several parallels between what Jews in Ukraine and Israel are experiencing. Some of JDC’s initiatives, such as Hibuki therapy dolls, have been used to heal both Ukranian and Israeli traumatized children.
“Daily casualties, daily loved ones losing their lives, dislocation and all of that is traumatic,” Zwang said, pointing to the overlap between wars. “So the mental health initiative in Israel and the treatment centers in Ukraine would be the most salient area of this common need.”
Read the full report here.
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