JDC Voices

You can heat up that matzah-ball soup and whip up grandpa’s famous firehouse horseradish, but make room for new Passover tastes from India, Estonia, and Israel.

Molly, the 2009-2010 recipient of the Roslyn Z. Wolf Cleveland – JDC International Fellowship, is also the first Jewish Service Corps fellow to work in Berlin, Germany. Here she shares a few thoughts on Jewish life and recent Purim festivities hosted by the JDC-supported Bambinim program.

Wedding anniversary celebrations, children’s recitals, Bubbe going grocery shopping…sound like a typical day in your local Jewish community? Actually, because of the work of JDC it’s a typical day in reemerging Jewish life in Ukraine. Watch this video by Graham Cannon (JDC’s new AEVP, Global Marketing and Communications) that captures his experience visiting our extensive programs in Dnepropetrovsk and Krivoy Rog, Ukraine–a trip that proved both eye-opening and heartwarming.

In the wake of today’s 8.8 magnitude earthquake that struck Chile, JDC announced that it will collect funds for relief efforts.

In Every Generation: The JDC Haggadah is hot off the presses in time for your Passover seder. This new haggadah retells the biblical tale of Jewish freedom and redemption utilizing newly released photographs, letters, and documents from the celebrated JDC Archives.

JDC’s Next Generation program is spanning the globe to introduce young leaders to JDC from new perspectives. And just this week, Inside Jewish Morocco, JDC’s first-ever National Jewish Young Professionals Trip to North Africa, got underway!

Numerous partnerships, two field missions, and more than $5.7 million raised encompass JDC’s ongoing response to the January 12th earthquake that devastated Haiti. Our work has been captured in a video depicting scenes of heartbreak and glimpses of hope—hope made possible by JDC’s generous supporters.

For many, this winter delighted with beautiful snow showers, bonus days-off for sledding, and glimpses of stellar athletes giving their all at the 2010 Winter Olympics. But in the former Soviet Union, there are many Jewish children who must go without, whose lives are deeply impacted in a different way by the cold, harsh winter and a frozen economy.

Memories of Sarajevo prompted Yechiel B., now JDC Country Director for the Czech Republic, Tunisia, and Algeria, then JDC Country Director for the Former Yugoslavia, to reflect on his work during the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina:

Violetta, a New Yorker who is JDC’s Ralph I. Goldman Fellow working with the Jewish community in Odessa, recently had the opportunity to blog about her heartening reunion with her great-aunt, an Odessa resident. This family visit presents another reminder about the importance of JDC’s Jewish renewal work in the former Soviet Union and how one Jewish family, oceans apart, view their identity and traditions. Young Jews are increasingly interested in global service and Violetta, through JDC’s prestigious Ralph I. Goldman Fellowship, has become one of many who are heeding the call to serve those in need through JDC programs.