No life is complete without love.

That’s why, as we continue our journey of celebration and light, we spotlight the value of hesed — “loving kindness.” Though it originally referred to love for God, hesed has come to center loving kindness between people — the words, actions, and feelings that hold us together.

Poor and elderly Jews across the former Soviet Union — many of whom experience chronic loneliness and struggle to survive on pensions as low as $2 per day — are in great need of hesed. That’s why JDC created a network of Hesed social welfare centers throughout the region, centers of life-saving support where Jews receive food, medicine, Jewish connection, and the knowledge they’re not alone.