Press Release January 24: Groundbreaking IFCJ-JDC Partnership to Help Jewish Children in FSU
CONTACT:
Dara Lehon, Manager of Media Relations
Phone: 212.885.0838 or dara.lehon@jdcny.org
Michael Stoltz, Communications Director, IFCJ, Chicago
Phone: 312.641.8688 or
michael.stoltz@ifcj.org
--The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee partner to bring concerted strategy, funding to address critical needs--
New York, NY, January 24, 2008 —The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews (IFCJ), led by Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) announced today a formal agreement, The IFCJ-JDC Partnership for Children in the FSU, that will help ensure the material and social well-being of tens of thousands of Jewish children at risk in the former Soviet Union. .
Rabbi Eckstein and IFCJ initiated the new Partnership in an effort to provide a long-term response to the intense, unmet needs facing Jewish children throughout the region. These needs range from intense poverty and privation - manifested in poor nutrition and medical care, and inadequate housing conditions - to alienation and underachievement among teens, and social isolation and lack of rehabilitative treatment among children with disabilities.
"This is a tragedy that tears at the hearts of all those who love children and are concerned for the future of the Jewish people," said IFCJ President & Founder Rabbi Eckstein. "Given our respect for the JDC professionalism that we’ve experienced in working with them to assist the FSU’s elderly, we approached them to address the needs of Jewish children."
Asher Ostrin, JDC’s Director of FSU Operations, described the scale of the challenge: "Hard data on societal problems are notoriously difficult to obtain in the FSU," he said. "What we know for certain is that we have identified 30,000 children who are at risk and in need of assistance, and that we are currently able to help over 22,000 of them. But based on other available information, even a conservative estimate would place the total number of Jewish children in need at around 50,000. There could well be more."
That’s some 17-20% of the estimated 250-300,000 Jewish children aged 0-19 living in the region.
The Partnership builds on earlier significant IFCJ support that helped JDC expand and consolidate its children's programming in the FSU and also lays the groundwork for each organization to extend additional aid in response to these needs. Its establishment comes at a time when the Government of Israel has made children the theme of its 60th anniversary celebrations.
"The Fellowship places a high priority on ensuring the continuing welfare of all the children who represent the future of the Jewish people, in the Diaspora as well as in Israel," declared Rabbi Eckstein. "This Partnership between IFCJ and JDC offers another opportunity to emphasize the growing strategic alliance between the Jewish people and the U.S. Christian community and to guarantee that Jewish children in the FSU will receive the material and psychological support they need to prosper and thrive."
As part of this critical initiative, the Partnership will develop a strategy and suitable programs that will enable essential material and social support to be maintained and strengthened for the over 22,000 children on its rolls at the beginning of 2007 - a number that increased with IFCJ's help during the course of the year. Currently, these programs reach Jewish children in over 90 locations across the FSU.
The Partnership’s material aid includes nutritional assistance, medical care, clothing, winter relief and heating, home repairs and basic household equipment; social services support includes psychological and social services, early-childhood intervention, psycho-social needs assessments and treatment, assistance to the physically and mentally disabled and their families and training of case workers.
"As IFCJ marks its 25th year, we are proud to join with Rabbi Eckstein and the Fellowship in their ongoing effort on behalf of America's Christians to ensure relief reaches the Jewish needy in the FSU," said Steve Schwager, JDC's Chief Executive Officer. "IFCJ has been a major, ongoing supporter of JDC's programs for impoverished Jewish elderly in the region and a pioneer in helping JDC respond to the needs of the FSU's Jewish children. By partnering together for the first time, though, the IFCJ-JDC Partnership for Children in the FSU raises our cooperation to a whole new level. We look forward to undertaking this joint initiative, and to making a difference together in the lives of these vulnerable children."
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About IFCJ
Founded in 1983, the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews (IFCJ) has a dual mission to promote understanding and cooperation between Christians and Jews and to build broad support for Israel and the Jewish people around the world. Since its establishment, The Fellowship has raised nearly half a billion dollars to help Jews immigrate to Israel from the former Soviet Union, Ethiopia, Argentina, India and other troubled countries; fight poverty and aid victims of war and terrorism in Israel; and provide aid for poor elderly Jews and orphans in the former Soviet Union. For general information about IFCJ, please visit www.ifcj.org.
About JDC
Founded in 1914, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) gives global expression to the principle that all Jews are responsible for one another. On behalf of North America's Jewish communities, JDC works in over 60 countries to rescue those in danger, provide relief to those in distress, revitalize overseas Jewish communities, and help Israel overcome the social challenges that beset its most vulnerable citizens.
JDC also provides non-sectarian emergency relief and long-term development assistance to the world's least fortunate populations.
