Our Essential Work Continues

JDC leverages its century-plus experience of crisis response to provide vital necessities and services to Ukraine’s vulnerable Jews young and old, the newly poor, and those who have been internally displaced or sought refuge in neighboring countries.

• Providing the most vulnerable Jews in Ukraine with vital necessities like food and medicine, as well as deploying winter survival aid for the long winter season — delivering portable heaters, cooking stoves, and subsidies for high utility bills. This response encompasses thousands of internally displaced persons (IDPs) and those who have returned after fleeing the country.
• Addressing the needs of Ukraine’s “new poor,” resulting from skyrocketing inflation and diminished employment opportunities.
• Strengthening and fostering connection among Ukraine’s Jewish community through dynamic cultural and educational programming for all ages and significant volunteer engagement.
• Providing educational and emotional support for children through in-person and online offerings.
• Offering trauma relief and mental health resources through a network of eight Trauma Support Centers and psychological respite activities.
• Providing access to employment, such as through skills training and work hubs.
• Supporting refugees as European Jewish communities help absorb those who fled Ukraine, including food, medicine, and housing support, alongside workforce opportunities and integration into local Jewish institutions and programs.
• Supporting refugees through JDC’s network of JCCs and Hesed social service centers, which offer holiday and educational gatherings, support services and respite programming, and volunteer and teen leadership development initiatives — all building a vibrant Jewish future.
• Helping Ukraine’s Jewish communities thrive despite all odds to people impacted by the crisis, including providing Israeli water filter systems in response to flooding in Kherson, establishing the first public prosthetics workshop in Lviv for local production of prosthetics to hundreds of wounded Ukrainians, and supporting community-based rehabilitation services.

Our Immediate Emergency Response Included:

• Delivering 1.6+ million pounds of humanitarian aid, including food, medicine, and other crucial supplies.
• Operating emergency hotlines that fielded 67,600+ calls in collaboration with local Jewish communities and are still active today in Ukraine, Poland, Israel, and Estonia.
• Implementing and coordinating evacuations upon request across Ukraine, arranging transport and safe accommodations inside Ukraine and beyond, including organizing special medical transport for elderly Jews who were unable to make the journey using standard vehicles.
• Staffing key border crossings, along with European community partners and volunteers to embrace, inform, and assist refugees while also working to coordinate shelter and home hospitality.