JDC Voices

The Biblical story of Noah can teach us how to adapt to moments where we feel subject to forces beyond our control, says Rabbi Ari Sigal, a Kaplan Leadership Fellow in Chile.

For Andras Paszternák, his large collection of camp T-shirts is a way to show his love for Szarvas, the JDC-Ronald S. Lauder Foundation international Jewish summer camp in Hungary.

Growing up, Kaja never knew she was Jewish. Now she serves as the Warsaw JCC’s teen coordinator, educating the next generation of Polish Jews.

When the pandemic began, the Jewish community of Kaliningrad answered the call, caring for its most vulnerable. Learn more in this post from the Russian city’s Hesed director.

When Sarah Herman got connected with JDC, she realized the organization was already part of her family’s post-Holocaust Jewish journey. Now, through travel, she’s found Jewish community around the world.

As a JDC Entwine Jewish Service Corps Fellow in Helsinki, Jake Berger discovered the joy of the Simchat Torah hakafot celebration. This year, with communal celebration impossible, he considers the meaning of the tradition.

In honor of Shemini Atzeret, Sasha Nazar, head of the JDC-supported Lviv Volunteer Center, writes about his work cleaning Jewish cemeteries in small towns where there have been no Jews for more than 70 years, and why he finds it so meaningful.

As the director of the JDC-supported Jewish Family Service in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Irina Oksenenko is building her community’s future by helping children in need. Thanks to the Kaplan Leadership Initiative, she has the training to do it.

In the midst of a year of crisis, Brazilian Rabbi and Kaplan Leadership Fellow Ari Oliszewski considers what it means to be truly rich.

Nitza Kamil reflects on the women she serves as a social worker with JDC’s Families First program in Israel, and how their lives have changed during the coronavirus pandemic.