Recent global economic events have only compounded the chronic and widespread poverty that has plagued Romania since the overthrow of the country’s longtime Communist dictator, Nicolae Ceausescu, in December 1989. The obsolete infrastructure that remained greatly hampered Romania’s transition to a market economy and continues to present social and financial challenges.
Today, the relief programs JDC helped develop during the Communist era continue to sustain the most vulnerable members of this sizable Jewish population while also strengthening Jewish community life.
Today, in collaboration with the local Jewish community, JDC:
- Saves Romania’s poorest Jews by helping to provide aging Holocaust survivors with vital home care, food, and medical assistance. To mitigate the effects of steep price increases and cuts in pensions, services, and employment that followed the global economic downturn, JDC is providing relief—including food vouchers, winter clothing, and medical support—to increasing numbers of children, single-parent families, and people with disabilities.
- Revitalizes Jewish life by expanding summer and winter camps, weekend Shabbat retreats, and creative activities for children, youth, and families, and establishing Jewish Community Centers and “Judaism without walls” activities in Romanian cities with the largest concentrations of Jews. JDC also spearheaded the development of new Jewish learning opportunities and pluralistic programs in a variety of venues.
- Develops tomorrow’s Jewish leaders by recruiting a new generation of Jews to tailored trainings, regional learning retreats, and international seminars and conferences
See how JDC’s leadership programs are equipping young leaders like Luciana with the know-how to spearhead the community’s largest events in years.
DID YOU KNOW?
JDC’s Bereshit community university learning program, which started out as a small, grassroots initiative, has quickly become the largest and most popular Jewish education program in Romania—and it is still growing!
