Making the Connection: JDC's Ambassadors Symposium

Making the Connection was the theme of the JDC Ambassadors Symposium, May 6-7, focusing on how we can make a genuine and meaningful connection between us as caregivers and philanthropists and the people in need around the world that we help. 

The ideal connection would look very different from the top-down approach that too often has served to increase the divide among people. It would be about achieving true empathy, about empowering the people we help so that they are the best allies in helping themselves, and about stretching how we do philanthropy and engage others.

Monday's session looked at how we care for our friends as a model for how we do good in the world.

Park Avenue Synagogue’s Rabbi Cosgrove spoke about empathy and the Hebrew concept of arevut, the responsibility we have towards one another (click here). Letty Cottin Pogrebin spoke about her personal experience fighting breast cancer and the type of care that she sought from friends and family, and articulated principles that resonated with her experience and others' with whom she spoke. Foremost among them was the importance of listening to the voices and wishes of the people we want to help and not assuming that we know best.         

What might this principle look like if we put it into play in our humanitarian work as well as our personal lives?

There are few programs that better demonstrate JDC's vision of listening to and empowering the people we serve than Jay Ruderman’s groundbreaking work with disabled people in Israel -- a partnership among his family foundation, JDC and the Government of Israel that goes by the name Israel Unlimited.  A staggering 1 million people suffer from disabilities in Israel (key stats here), but the program does not focus on accessibility alone. Instead, it makes disabled people the actors in their own story -- helping them to challenge stigmatization (here's an excellent piece on an inspiring blind Arab Israeli woman) and build up their confidence and abilities to act as positive forces in their communities through volunteerism and a new emphasis on work.

 

Poland: 70 Years Later

by Rebecca Neuwirth

In the end, it’s Agatha who makes it impossible not to hope.

I’m with a JDC Ambassadors delegation at the 70th anniversary commemoration of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. At midnight on April 19, in the light of two flames that rise from menorahs on either side of the famed Ghetto monument, Cantor Yaakov Lemmer sings in Yiddish about small boys who steal outside to sell cigarettes, and of a searing loss of innocence. Next to me, a member of our delegation sings quietly along—she remembers the tune from childhood.

Children's Memorial in Warsaw Jewish Cemetary

Loss of innocence is an elegant metaphor for the brutal desperation that drove parents to allow their young boys to risk their lives to bring home crumbs. The story of the Warsaw Ghetto is unendingly heinous. At its height, over 400,000 Jews were imprisioned in 1.3 square miles. Starvation and violence killed some 100,000 in the first year, and the Nazis deported almost 300,000 to mass murder in Treblinka. Cruel selections separated mothers and fathers from their children; sadistic and senseless acts were the rule, with human kindness used as a lure for brutality.

But the commemoration of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, unlike other forms of Holocaust remembrance, focuses not on atrocities but on courage.

It draws attention to acts of resistance and stubborn humanity, from the courage of small boys to the sharing of crumbs of food, the caring for orphaned children – embodied by the amazing Janusz Korczak, even the creation of culture that persisted in the Ghetto in the face of inhuman conditions. Above all, it focuses on the final armed resistance waged by a few thousand Jews against the impossibly larger, full force of the Nazis, and that ended one month later in total destruction and with only 13 Jews remaining.

JDC Ambassadors Global Symposium, December 3

The Jewish Future:
New Strategies for Sustaining and Inspiring Jewish Life
New York City

Guest Speakers:
Peter J. Rubinstein, Senior Rabbi of New York's Central Synagogue
Anne Heyman, Founder & Board Chair - Agahozo-Shalom Youth Village
Jack Habib, Director, Myers-JDC-Brookdale Institute
and more...

FOR MORE INFORMATION -- go to http://jdc.org/ambassadorssymposium

JDC has worked for almost 100 years in supporting Jewish life around the world. But even as we help individuals and communities deal with crisis and handle extreme poverty on a day-to-day basis, our middle and long-term aims are more elevated and strategic: to ensure robust and inspired Jewish communities that care for one another.

The December 3 Ambassadors Symposium examines the Jewish future. How can we support small, vulnerable Jewish minorities in Muslim countries against the backdrop of the Arab spring and heightened global tensions? And, how can we share successful local Jewish and Israeli program models of care with other communities and the larger world – as a way to build bridges, scale impact, and fulfill our mandate of tikkun olam, or healing the world.

Peter J. Rubinstein, Senior Rabbi of New York's Central Synagogue, will offer a keynote address on what global responsibility really means today.

The Symposium will also introduce a new feature: JDC Think Tank sessions, which will allow key leadership to “roll up their sleeves” with participants to address current open questions on the spectrum of JDC’s work. Roundtable discussions will range from maximizing renewal activities in the increasingly trendy city of St. Petersburg, Russia to inspiring young American Jews to embrace a global and Jewish tikkun olam agenda, and more.

___

JDC Ambassadors Symposia provide in-depth opportunities to understand how the latest global events are impacting Jewish communities around the world – and what we can do about it. Symposia are open to JDC Ambassadors, members of our Ambassador Circle and Society, and select guests.

Argentina Expedition, RESCHEDULED for 2013

JDC Ambassadors Argentina Expedition
NOW RESCHEDULED -- March 10-13, 2013

Home to Latin America’s largest Jewish population, Argentina has been a prosperous country for much of its history. The country and its Jewish community were catapulted into economic turmoil during the 2001 economic crisis and resulting devaluation of the Argentine peso. Middle class families in particular bore the brunt of the collapse, and many Jewish families found themselves turned into “the new poor” virtually overnight.

This visit will offer an unprecedented opportunity to meet an important Jewish community in recovery. JDC’s work has focused on helping the most vulnerable Jews in Argentina and supporting the community’s ability to rebuild itself in a sustainable way. Throughout the trip, we’ll meet the wonderful people who are working with JDC to help children and elderly and to ensure the vibrancy of Jewish life and community.

We’ll also see the sites of Argentina, enjoy an evening of tango, and get the inside story of a world-class city that has undergone more than its share of instability in recent decades.

For more information and costs, contact Rebecca at rebeccan@jdcny.org or (212) 885-0878

JDC Ambassadors travel opportunities allow you to see the inside story of how Jews and others live in key cities around the world. Travel is open to JDC Ambassadors, members of our Ambassador Circle and Society, and select guests.

Traveling to Kiev with JDC

Kiev is a vast city of nearly 3 million. JDC's work feeds impoverished Holocaust survivors and other elderly, and helps families in need. It is also about building a caring community, and we felt an integral part of one during our visit.

by Rebecca Neuwirth, Director, JDC Ambassadors

Before leaving for Kiev, someone told me that the city was beautiful, all orthodox churches and Dostoyevsky. And in JDC reports, I read about the immense poverty and dire living conditions of families with troubled children and the elderly.

Not surprisingly, on the first day of our staff mission in Kiev, it seems all of this is true. A city of contradictions, a vast city, vital, sad, moving, with a future that is very uncertain.

Surge in European Volunteerism and Philanthropy Helps Meet Challenges of Global Crisis

From its founding in 1914 until the present, JDC financial support and programming have extended to the furthest reaches of Europe; whether providing vital welfare to the poor and needy, invigorating Jewish renewal in the aftermath of Communism, or responding to unforeseeable war and tragedy. But today, the dangerous confluence of the global economic crisis and the fall of the US dollar threaten to destabilize the critical foundations that JDC has laid in partnership with European Jewry.

However, these times of crisis and uncertainty—like others in Jewish history—are also proving to be an opportunity for increased and shared responsibility for the well-being of the whole Jewish community. Across Europe, a renewed solidarity is emerging. And after decades of JDC working hand in hand with European Jewish communities to engage and train a new generation of empowered young Jewish leadership, this new cadre feels up to the challenge that today’s economy brings to their doorsteps.

Mariann, chairwoman of the Switzerland Union of Jewish Students, and Tana, from the Italian counterpart organization, Unione Giovani Ebrei d’Italia, co-headed a committee of 15 leaders from Italy, Hungary, and Switzerland that organized the Wing Leadership Seminar in December of 2008. The seminar, which gives Jewish young adults from across Europe a chance to participate in social and educational workshops, is usually supported in partnership with JDC through its Danube Weinberg Regional Program.

Instead of allowing the economic crisis to limit the scope and reach of the program, the visionary young team launched a cross-national fundraising campaign and collected an impressive $32,000 USD, which they used to increase the seminar’s quality and participation—even providing scholarships for Eastern European leaders who are facing difficulties in the current crisis. The activism and commitment of Mariann, Tana, and others gathered over 200 young people together to grapple with the topics of Jewish identity in postmodern times, challenges facing Israel and the Diaspora, and the reshaping of Jewish culture.

“It was an honor to coordinate and witness the birth of the Wing ’08 team, made up of so many different people who share a common goal,” said Tana. “The positive spirit of these people was the real engine of this event.”

These days, the initiative and energy of this young group is a common theme spreading across the European continent.

In Budapest, the lay (or volunteer) leaders of the Limmud Keset team are also looking for opportunities to strengthen local involvement. While JDC originally helped initiate and fund this annual three-day conference of Jewish learning in Hungary, the organizers now wants to establish a foundation that will not only deal with the planning and organizational aspects of the conference, but will fund it as well. Though JDC will remain a supporter in the process, this foundation is a serious step by the local community towards having complete ownership over the fate and future of the program.

Maxim Benvenisti and Alek Oscar, President and Vice-President, respectively, of Bulgaria’s Shalom Jewish community organization, have also been engaging local philanthropists by creating bridges with both Israelis residing in Bulgaria and Jewish professionals who were disconnected from Jewish life.

“Development and revival of Jewish life are only possible when those who need and are receiving help realize that they are supposed to take responsibility and contribute with time, knowledge, and passion,” observes Alek, who works as a medical doctor in addition to his volunteer post with the Jewish community. “It is true that Bulgaria’s Jewish community needs financial support from JDC in these turbulent times, however is also critical to find answers from local sources, as the way to take the future in our own hands.”

Alberto Senderey, JDC’s Executive Director for Europe and Latin America observes that these are small but critical steps in process of shaping a different outlook—toward self-sustainable development—for European Jewish communities. “JDC has a critical role in helping the communities in this process by listening to the leaders, being sensitive to their needs, and by providing technical assistance as a tool to let them develop vibrant and flourishing communities with their own style.”