UJA-Federation of New York announced on Thursday it had approved up to $3 million in emergency funding to support the Jewish community of Ukraine.
These funds will be used by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) the Jewish Agency (JAFI), and other grassroots partners to provide for the safety and well-being of the approximately 200,000 Jews living today in Ukraine.
Specifically, the funding will help to support:
- Critical humanitarian aid - including delivery of food, medicine, winter relief, and emergency assistance.
- Bolstering security at Jewish institutions, including JCCs in Kharkiv, Odessa, Dnipro, Kyiv, Zaporizhzhia, and Lviv.
- Mobilizing an existing network of thousands of volunteers to reach Jews across every part of Ukraine.
- Responding to emerging needs - including people displaced from their homes.
- Mobile medical units to reach the homebound.
- Coordinating with local Jewish organizations and partners to ensure a united emergency response.
The Jewish population of Ukraine is mainly concentrated in Kyiv and in western Ukraine (68,000); eastern Ukraine, which includes conflict areas (100,000); and Odessa and southern Ukraine (30,000) and includes tens of thousands of needy Jewish elderly and poor families.