NOVANEWS
Jewish Coalition for Disaster Relief will focus its efforts on children in the Zaatari refugee camp, which is currently home to over 150,000 Syrian refugees.
ed note–The political photo-op version of a Jerry Lewis Tellathon for guillable Gentiles.
Note that there are no Jewish groups raising money to aid Palestinians living a hell-hole existence in Gaza, the West Bank, Southern Lebanon, etc where Israel has destroyed their world and made them refugees.
Haaretz
Jewish humanitarian organizations are due to launch an aid program for refugees from the Syrian civil war living in Jordan within the coming weeks. The program will focus on children in the Zaatari refugee camp in northern Jordan, where close to 150,000 refugees have arrived over the last year.
A coalition of 14 Jewish organizations, mainly from the United States, have established the Jewish Coalition for Disaster Relief in an effort to aid the victims of the Syrian Civil War, which has been raging for over two years. International aid organizations estimate that over one million Syrian citizens have already fled the country and their number is growing by the day. Around a third of the refugees have crossed over into Jordan and similar numbers are now in Lebanon and Turkey.
The Jewish coalition, which is being coordinated by the Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) from its New York headquarters, initially considered focusing its activities in Turkey, but the Ankara government responded that it did not need external help. (The possibility of working in Lebanon was ruled out for security reasons).
The Jordanian government, which is already hosting several international organizations, was more responsive. Over the past two months, the coalition has been finalizing planning and raising funds for its welfare program for children in Zaatari, the largest camp for Syrian refugees.
Despite the fact that the JDC and some of the other Jewish organizations involved have offices and operate programs in Israel, the Syrian refugee project will be managed from New York. In its initial stages, it will operate via international NGOs already active in Jordan, both to avoid diplomatic complications and to facilitate work with Syrian civilians, many of whom see Israel as an enemy state.
It is not yet clear at this stage whether the JDC or other Jewish organizations will be sending their own teams to work openly in Jordan. They are joining a large group of international aid organizations already active in working with Syrian refugees in Jordan.
This isn’t the first time the JDC will be working with Syrians. The last operation was in the early 1990s, when the JDC helped the remaining Jews of Syria emigrate as part of a secret agreement between former President Hafez Assad and the Clinton Administration. This time, however, they will not be helping a Jewish community and the program will be part of a growing range of non-sectarian projects carried out by Jewish organizations in developing countries.
There was no official response from the JDC, but officials in Jerusalem and New York confirmed that funds are to be allocated for an aid program for Syrian refugees in Jordan over the next few weeks.
