Donations for Relief in Ukraine

As the war in Ukraine continues, many of you may be wondering what you can do to help.

A number of options exist. It is clear to many that Ukrainian Jews are particularly affected by the conflict, from President Zelenskyy to soldiers to everyday citizens, including in our sister city Kharkiv (for one recent piece of Jewish news from Kharkiv: https://www.timesofisrael.com/hillel-chapter-in-kharkiv-destroyed-as-citys-jews-scramble-for-safety/).

With this in mind, I encourage would-be donors to consider making a direct donation to the Joint Distribution Committee here: https://donate.jdc.org/give/393030/

The JDC has been in place doing relief work and support work for Jewish communities throughout the former Soviet Union for decades, and as such they have a strong network in place. They run a lean operation that permits a high proportion of donated funds to go directly to those who need it. I’ve personally visited the JDC’s offices in Israel before and was impressed by the work they do there and elsewhere in the world. If you’d like to learn more about them, you can read here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Jewish_Joint_Distribution_Committee#Mission

There are other ways to give, of course, and some of these may appeal to you more. If you are looking to give specifically to a non-Jewish organization, you might also consider giving to the International Red Cross (https://www.icrc.org/en/donate/ukraine) or UNICEF (https://www.unicefusa.org/stories/unicef-children-are-bearing-brunt-intensifying-crisis-ukraine/39481). There are also fund-collection drives happening in a number of contexts, within the bounds of the Jewish community and beyond. With these, I cannot speak to the portion of donations that will be used for overhead and administration, as opposed to direct aid.