Where's the money going to?

Americans For a Safe Israel/AFSI;
1623 Third Ave., Suite 205,
NewYork, N.Y. 10128;
212-828-2424; 212-828-1717;
afsi@rcn.com
www.afsi.org
October, 2006


AMERICANS SHOCKED TO LEARN THAT ONE-THIRD OF UJC EMERGENCY DOLLARS DESIGNATED FOR ARABS

By: Helen Freedman

So you thought your money was going to the Jewish children and their parents who spent the past summer in bomb shelters. Or you believed that your donation was going to rebuild homes in the north of Israel that had been destroyed by Hezbollah rockets. Or perhaps you were thinking of the elderly, or school and camp programs. Whatever your thoughts might have been, did you think that a huge part of your donation would be given to the very Arabs who supported Hezbollah and danced on their rooftops in celebration whenever word came of Jewish soldiers or civilians killed? Probably not. Therefore, the following information should be of interest to you.

I contacted United Jewish Communities through email and requested a breakdown of the millions of dollars raised in the Emergency Campaign. I received a copy, with three pages of detailed programs, activities, beneficiaries, allocations and monies paid so far. The very first item is: Activities for non-Jew sector in confrontation area. The organization designated for this concern is JAFI – the Jewish Agency for Israel. The "activity" is: Support to non-Jewish children in community centers. The allocation is $3,300,000.

Community Center – Emergency Outreach Programs is the next item – The organization in charge is the Joint Distribution Committee/JDC. The money allocated is $3,000,000 and 25,299 Arab children are the beneficiaries.

The School Readiness Day Camp Program, solely for non-Jewish children, received $2,640,000 and the Summer camp for kids, including 10,000 non-Jews, received $17,300,000. The list goes on and on, but it is clear that Arabs are benefiting substantially from the generosity of Jews.

What's to be done about this? There are those who will take the high road, declaring that Israel is a "democracy" and must treat all its citizens the same; therefore funds for restoring the north should be handed out in a "democratic" fashion. That is undoubtedly the argument you would get from the UJC. Indeed, on their website:
www.ujc.org, they write the following:

Is there a fundraising goal?
A half billion dollars or more may be required and we are currently assessing the needs.

Do donations go only to Jews?
No: we are helping all vulnerable populations, including Israeli Arabs, Druze and Jews.

So there you are folks. One question and a one-line answer, where Jews, Druze and Arabs are all in the same category of "vulnerable populations."

When examining errors of commission, there are also errors of omission. NO WHERE, in the projected expenditures of the UJC is there any recognition of the 10,000 Jewish refugees from Gush Katif/Gaza, who were forcibly expelled from their homes by the Israeli government in August, 2005. More than one year later, NONE of them have received their full compensation for their destroyed homes and businesses, ALL of them are still in temporary homes, FEW of them have found employment, ALL of the youngsters have been shifted from one school to another, often expected to adjust to six or seven different schools in this one year period, ALL of them are desperately in need of money to try to do for themselves what the government has failed to do. If the United Jewish Communities doesn't respond from their projected half-billion dollar fund-raising campaign, who will?

AND – to rub further salt into the wounds- a Y-net report tells us that the Israeli government is now promising a third of their aid to the north to the Arabs. The Y-Net report by Sharon Roffe-Ofir tells us that an additional $343.3 million will be added by donations raised by the JDC and the Jewish Agency. That's your money, folks –
and please note that the government money takes no note of the needs of the Gush Katif refugees who don't even have homes and businesses to be rebuilt. Their communities were totally destroyed and must be re-created, in new locations, from scratch. That includes schools, synagogues, shops, farms, hothouses, and homes.

How can the Israeli government, and the Joint, and the Jewish Agency, and the Federations that make up the United Jewish Communities turn their backs on needy Jews while they placate Arabs who are part of the plot to destroy Israel? It makes no sense. PLEASE make your voice heard in loud protest to such actions.

Write to Howard Rieger, President and Chief Executive Officer of UJC: info@ujc.org, or call him at: 212-284-6500. Insist that money donated by Jews to help the Jews of Israel be used for that purpose. At the very least, there must be full disclosure, up front, that donations to the Emergency Campaign go to Arabs and Druze as well as Jews. At least then, Jews can determine whether to continue donating their money to UJC, or to give it more specifically to individual Jewish causes where the money goes directly to help Jewish needs. Information about direct giving to needy Jews can be secured by contacting Americans For a Safe Israel/AFSI, 212-828-2424; afsi@rcn.com; www.afsi.org.