American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee

Rescue of Jews at risk. JDC's expertise is crisis response. JDC works with local partner agencies to address immediate needs.

Relief for Jews in need. In addition to emergency aid, JDC support builds the capacity of local agencies to sustain and enhance quality of life for struggling communities.

Renewal of Jewish community life.

Israel. JDC works in partnership with the Israeli government and other local organizations to improve the lives of the elderly, immigrants, children at risk, the disabled, and the chronically unemployed. In 2007, the JDC was awarded the for its lifetime achievements and special contribution to society and the State of Israel.^[7][8]

Israel Prize

When millions of Jews in Eastern Europe and Palestine faced starvation in the wake of the , JDC fed the hungry, provided medical care to the ailing, and supported programs to help stabilize the region's fragile economy.

First World War

With the rise of Hitler's Nazi regime, JDC supported efforts that enabled 110,000 Jews to leave Germany prior to 1939.

After the establishment of the state of Israel, JDC supported tens of thousands of Jews as they made the difficult transition from refugee status to citizenship.

JDC played a central role in , which airlifted more than 14,000 Ethiopian Jews to Israel in the span of 36 hours.

Operation Solomon

The Former Soviet Union. The upheaval caused by the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991 brought both crisis and opportunity to Jews living there. All religions and minorities suffered under communism, and so fractured communities of Jews were suddenly confronted with a collapsed infrastructure and an uncertain future, but also the hope that it might now be possible to assert and reclaim a heritage long denied them. JDC, which had only recently begun to reestablish a presence in the region after being violently expelled by Stalin in 1938, poured its resources into the relief, rescue, and restoration of Jewish populations fighting for survival. Today, JDC provides food, medical care, home care, and winter relief to 168,000 elderly Jews, largely through 175 Hesed welfare centers throughout the region. JDC also provides nutritional, medical, and other assistance to 25,000 children at risk and their families. In addition to life-sustaining aid, JDC helps Jews reclaim their heritage and build vibrant self-sustaining Jewish communities through , libraries, Hillel youth centers, family retreats, Jewish education, and local leadership development.

Jewish Community Centers

Central and Eastern Europe. As in the former Soviet Union, social and economic shifts threaten the stability of the many diverse Jewish communities throughout Central and Eastern Europe and the . JDC's social welfare and community development approaches are as varied as the communities they assist. JDC relief programs for Holocaust survivors reach 26,000 elderly, while the organization works with local partners to ensure that impoverished children's basic needs are met. The overarching goal is self-sustainability and shifting welfare responsibilities to local entities. To achieve this, JDC provides consultation to communities in the areas of leadership training, strategic planning, fundraising, property management, and networking, helping local professionals to develop the skills to serve the larger community.

Baltic countries

Africa and Asia. It terms of sheer numbers, Jewish communities in Africa and the range from sizable (upwards of 14,000 in Turkey) to small (as of this writing, Algeria is home to only a handful of Jews, because of the Islamist governments of the 1990s). Jewish populations on both continents are diminishing, either through emigration or because the elderly are all that remain. But wherever there is a Jew and a desire to maintain the trappings and traditions of Jewish life, JDC strives to ensure that basic needs are met and Jewish institutions continue. JDC supports local Jewish education and training efforts and puts special emphasis on international programs that bridge isolated Jewish populations with Jews all over the world.

Far East

The Americas. There are nearly a quarter million Jews in , more than in any other nation in the Western hemisphere after the United States. That number included a vibrant, emerging middle class. But much of that progress was thrown in turmoil by a nationwide financial crisis in 2001 that plunged thousands into economic despair and entrenched the pull of poverty for those already living in it. JDC responded, providing critical assistance to 36,000 Argentine Jews. Since then, JDC has begun to cede its assistance role to its local partners while continuing to ensure that basic food and medical needs of the most vulnerable citizens are met.

Argentina

Israel. JDC's relationship with Israel is unique. While the organization works with the cooperation of the governments of other nations where it has a presence, with Israel the relationship is more of a direct partnership. Working together, JDC and the Israeli government strengthen the capacity of local agencies to address the immediate and long-term needs of the elderly, at-risk youth, the chronically under employed, and new immigrants. JDC assists in building and maintaining Israel's social strengths—including management of the public sector, governance and management of nonprofit organizations, volunteerism, and philanthropy—so that the society as a whole is more able to meet its own needs. JDC also helps those Jews and non-Jews living under fire in southern Israel.

ASHALIM – Advancing Social Mobility

ELKA – System Efficiency and Effectiveness

ESHEL – Optimal Aging

Israel Unlimited – Independent Living for People with Disabilities

TEVET – Workforce Integration and Productivity

Revealed the dramatic increase in the number of Israel's disabled elderly and helped develop strategies to expand community services for them.

Helped to expand and improve national education policy for Ethiopian children in the 1990s, which resulted in improved high school achievements and greater participation in higher education.

Facilitated the implementation of Israel's Special Education Law, which markedly expanded services for disabled children in the 1990s.

Helped to introduce and effectively implement the National Health Insurance Law (1995), which provides universal and more equitable coverage to all of Israel's citizens.

Jewish charities

Jewish refugees

Judah Leon Magnes

Felix M. Warburg

Joseph A. Rosen

United Jewish Appeal

. My Brother's Keeper: A History of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, 1929-1939. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1974. ISBN 978-0-827-60048-5 OCLC 2696218

Bauer, Yehuda

. American Jewry and the Holocaust: The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, 1939-1945. Jerusalem: The Institute of Contemporary Jewry, Hebrew University, 1981. ISBN 978-0-814-31672-6 OCLC 6916401

Bauer, Yehuda

Shachtman, Tom. I Seek My Brethren Ralph Goldman and "The Joint": The Work of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. New York: Newmarket Press, 2001.  978-1-557-04495-2 OCLC 47973321

ISBN

Goldman, Ari L., and Joseph Telushkin. In Every Generation: The JDC Haggadah, from the Archives of "The Joint," the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee : Hagadah shel Pesaḥ. New York: Devora, 2010.  978-1-934-44056-8 OCLC 643123679

ISBN

Official website

JDC (The Joint) Israel

JDC Archives

JDC Entwine

at the Leo Baeck Institute, New York.

Guide to the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee Collection