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New Jersey Jewish News Story
MetroWest and Israel team up to aid African drought victims
by Robert Wiener
NJJN Staff Writer
Responding to a life-threatening crisis in East Africa, where severe drought and high temperatures have already affected more than a million people, Jewish organizations are teaming up with the Israeli government in a double-barreled effort to supply three stricken nations with relief funds.
A major participant is United Jewish Communities of MetroWest New Jersey, which raised $13,000 of the $118,000 earmarked by American-Jewish groups and Israel for drought relief and turned over to the United Nations World Food Programme.
According to Lori Price Abrams, director of UJC MetroWest’s Community Relations Committee, the effort evolved out of a year-old Israeli-American collaboration to help genocide survivors in the Darfur region of Sudan, where government-backed militias have raped and slaughtered hundreds of thousands of people.
“The Israeli government wants to work with the Jewish community here to send over a joint aid package,” Abrams explained. “The Israeli Foreign Ministry decided to address this devastating famine and drought in African nations of Kenya, Mauritania, and Malawi.”
The World Food Programme dispatched food aid convoys to northern Kenya to replenish its school meals program in the region ahead of the new school term, which started in January. An additional 200,000 children have been added to WFP’s program in the drought-affected areas, bringing the number of Kenyan children receiving free school meals to 1.3 million. According to the WFP Web site, without drought relief, the number of people needing food relief could double.
“This is something you do for humanitarian reasons that could have a positive ripple effect outside the Jewish community,” Price Abrams explained.
Some $5,000 of the MetroWest dollars came from a discretionary endowment fund operated by the Jewish Community Foundation of MetroWest’s grant review committee, with the balance coming from several JCF fund holders who were willing to contribute to the emergency effort.
“We were following the lead of the Israeli government, who asked us to partner with them on this initiative. We aren’t able to address all of the humanitarian causes around the world,” said Price Abrams.
“With American Jews and the government of Israel being partners, we have a role to help give Israel a better name in the world community by enhancing its ability to do good,” she said. “We are making a pointed gift, and we are saying, ‘We are Jews and we care about such things.’”
According to Benjamin Krasna, Israel’s deputy consul general, the $13,000 from UJC MetroWest was part of the $50,000 raised by the American Jewish Committee and the UJA Federations of New York and Northern New Jersey. Another $68,000 in funds was transferred from the Israeli government to the WFP.
“The assessment of our professional people is that among the United Nations community, this is a relatively solid and reliable venue — one of the more efficient operations with a good record for accountability and transparency,” said Krasna.
“There are going to be other such things down the road, and we can reach out to other federations, too. There is a great appreciation here for the help of the American- Jewish community in doing the right thing. That’s what it is — it’s all about doing the right thing,” he said.
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