Making a Difference in Israel
The Israel Trauma Coalition
The ITC brings together Israeli experts and organizations to develop a continuum of care in the face of ongoing violence.
UJA-Federation of New York is engaged in ongoing efforts to expand and deepen our work in Israel to fulfill our mission of caring for, inspiring, and connecting the Jewish people.
Here’s an update on exciting, new Israel programs — and new approaches to challenges we have faced for some time — that your contributions are helping make possible.
Holocaust Survivors Initiative
There are an estimated 250,000 Holocaust survivors living in Israel today, with 80,000 living below the poverty line. UJA-Federation’s beneficiary agencies in Israel help survivors live independently, with the dignity and comfort they deserve, for as long as possible.
Through our network of agencies, we provide survivors and their families with a support system that helps them unburden their hearts and share their life stories. Services offered through the network include:
- Entitlements counseling — Helping needy Holocaust survivors access government services and restitution payments.
- Emergency grants — Enabling impoverished survivors to purchase basic necessities.
- Home care — Providing geriatric social workers, support services, and Jewish spiritual care for homebound survivors.
- Testimonial initiatives — Documenting the stories of survivors and resistance fighters.
- Social clubs and cultural programs — Offering Jewish holiday celebrations and other activities, enabling survivors to feel part of their community — and enjoy the company of others with a similar destiny.
- Assisted-living programs — Providing on-site human services and cultural programs for frail survivors living in dozens of apartment complexes throughout Israel.
- End-of-life care — Offering training, critical assistance, and bereavement counseling for loved ones and other caregivers.
Learn more about UJA-Federation's work with Holocaust survivors in Israel.
Israel Trauma Coalition
The Israel Trauma Coalition (ITC) was created by UJA-Federation in 2001 in the midst of the intifada to help Israelis cope with ongoing violence. Since then, ITC has played a pivotal role in the development of the trauma field, strengthening community resilience, and ensuring national emergency preparedness.
Since 2000, Israelis have endured the second intifada, a war with Hezbollah in Lebanon, and a conflict with Hamas in Gaza in response to years of Qassam rocket attacks on Israel's southern border.
Although Israelis are resilient, thousands of children and adults throughout the country continue to need psychological services. Through the ITC, more than 65 organizations in Israel are helping individuals and communities cope, and providing a role model for the rest of the world.
Beersheva Initiative: KELIM
We’re engaged in a groundbreaking initiative in Beersheva, home to about 20,000 Kavkazim and the largest Kavkazi community in Israel. The initiative is designed to address the diverse challenges that face this distinct population. Working with the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), we’ve developed a comprehensive range of interventions for teens and their parents. The initiative consists of some 15 programs run by JDC, the city of Beersheva, and a number of government agencies and local community-based organizations. These programs involve some 700 teens and their families.
Together, these individual projects form a large-scale, citywide intervention to help the Kavkazim in Beersheva. Over a period of time, we hope to see a decrease in the high school dropout rate, an increase in scholastic achievement, positive social behavioral changes, and an overall improved psychological, educational, and community status of these youth — and, therefore, ultimately strengthen the entire Israeli Kavkazi community.
Read more about the Beersheva Initiative (PDF) and its 2008–2009 programs (PDF).
Emerging Spiritual Communities
We helped establish a network for more than 40 emerging spiritual communities in Israel, reaching out to thousands of Israelis from all ages and backgrounds living diverse lifestyles and creating spiritual communities to meet their own changing needs.
The Emerging Spiritual Communities Initiative (ESC) seeks to create a viable and vibrant network of what is a new emergent phenomenon in Israel — Israeli post-denominational spiritual communities, a network that will allow each community to grow and develop at its own pace while being part of a social spiritual group of support and learning.
The ESC network has established a leading group of 10 communities, and a wider circle of 30 more, that are all part of this new initiative. Hundreds of representatives attend two to three conferences a year, while thousands are taking part on a regular basis as community members, all around Israel. The ESC has created the network in order to learn more about what's being done in the field, its potential, and the needs of the different communities, hoping to shape the right structure that will allow this phenomenon to further emerge.
Roots to Fruits
We support ORT Israel’s Roots to Fruits program, which includes 37 schools reaching out to more than 40,000 students and 1,100 teachers all over Israel. The vision of the program is to teach, inspire, and provide students, teachers, and parents with materials and tools to identify their own Judaism.
By exploring the classic and modern Jewish bookshelf with a unique pluralistic point of view, the participants learn about their personal Jewish biography, connecting the materials studied to community service and volunteering, and reconnecting with aspects of Judaism through their own eyes and view of the world.
The program's mission is to expand and inspire the wider high school education system across the country.
Mechinot
In Israel, there are more than 30 pre-army preparatory programs — known in Hebrew as mechina, the word for preparation — that are bridging social gaps in Israeli society and training new leaders for the country. Each “gap year” program includes a focus on Judaism and volunteer service with an emphasis on social responsibility.
UJA-Federation of New York’s Commission on the Jewish People is helping this growing phenomenon with support to:
- 10 pre-army programs, including secular and Orthodox
- Two post-army programs that allow mechina alumni to continue to engage in community service projects throughout the country
- The Joint Council of Zionist Pre-Army Leadership Development Programs, designed to support the network of mechinot, offer direction and advocate for funding of the programs
Learn more about mechina programs supported by UJA-Federation.
Spiritual Care Network
In addition to the psychosocial dimensions of care UJA-Federation supports in Israel, there’s been an increasing recognition of unmet spiritual care needs and the absence of spiritual care from the medical and social service establishment.
Together with leading health and human-service agencies, we’ve launched the field of Jewish spiritual care in Israel, funding 17 organizations that provide direct services in Israel’s major hospitals in Jerusalem, the Negev, Haifa, and Tel HaShomer, as well as other community settings, serving the elderly, terror victims, at-risk youth, those facing cancer, and others. Our support provides training programs for professionals, including rabbis affiliated with all streams of Judaism, and help for those who care for individuals and families facing illness, bereavement, trauma, addiction, loneliness, and other challenges. In only four years, dozens of professionals have been helped to become spiritual care providers, and thousands of recipients have benefited from the spiritual care support they’ve received, thanks to our burgeoning efforts to create and legitimize this new field of service in Israel.
The new Spiritual Care Network is working to bring professional standards and accreditation to the field, conducting research on the emerging practice and its efficacy in Israel and deepening the strong binational ties with leading New York–based professionals.
Additional Information
Learn more about ways we are supporting Israel.