RSS
Created to aid in crises abroad, these Israeli nonprofits are applying their expertise at home for the first time
(JTA) — As community manager of his kibbutz in Israel’s south, Asaf Artel, 52, oversees all social aspects of Kissufim’s 120 member families. On Oct. 7, Artel was able to guide Israeli troops while they rescued people from the kibbutz via walkie talkie from inside his safe room, where he spent several hours with his wife and three children.
Fifteen people from the kibbutz were murdered that day; others remain missing. But within 24 hours, Artel and other kibbutz leaders were able to evacuate everyone else to safety, finding refuge at the Leonardo Plaza hotel in the Dead Sea, where they remain.
Their arrival and the ensuing day were “utter chaos,” he said. “Everyone was in trauma, everyone was in pajamas and barefoot. There was lots and lots of crying.”
Then, three days after the attack, the lobby of the hotel was suddenly filled with blue shirts of IsraAID workers. “That was the moment I knew we were in good hands,” Artel recalled.
Artel’s confidence came from personal experience. He had volunteered with IsraAID in 2016, flying to Louisiana following catastrophic flooding there, and had since been recruited for five dispatches to the United States.
Now, he has found himself on the receiving aid of IsraAID’s relief — a reflection of how intensively the Oct. 7 massacre by Hamas of Israel’s southern communities has overturned norms in Israel.
After having worked in 62 countries around the world, for the first time in its 22-year history, the organization has mobilized its resources to address a humanitarian crisis on its home soil. It is drawing from its expertise in managing complex emergencies, particularly those involving terror and displacement, to navigate the current situation in Israel.
IsraAID’s CEO, Yotam Polizer, draws parallels between the necessary relief needed in the wake of the Oct. 7 attack and other terrorism-related events, including a 2021 mission he led to evacuate 205 girls from Afghanistan following the Taliban takeover as well as a 2014 mission to assist Yazidi victims of ISIS.
“I’m not comparing exactly what they went through to what people in Israel went through, but there are definite similarities,” he told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
IsraAID CEO Yoram Polizer speaks about his organization’s shift to domestic aid after focusing exclusively on international crises since its founding. (Deborah Danan)
Polizer also highlights IsraAID’s proficiency in managing protracted conflict zones, such as Ukraine — one of the 16 countries where the organization is currently operating — and the emerging need for sustained humanitarian engagement.
“Without even talking about the security-political side of things, just purely from a humanitarian perspective, we’ve never had anything like it,” Polizer said, noting that his group is working to aid the families of the murdered, the thousands more who were injured, those with abducted family members, and the estimated 300,000 displaced persons.
The reason, he said, was that IsraAID understands urgent relief efforts are only the start of the process, and that the journey towards recovery and resilience is a “marathon, not a sprint.”
IsraAid is not the only Israeli nonprofit to redirect its activities home. Innovation: Africa usually applies Israeli technology to support solar energy and clean water in Africa; now, it’s deployed to help soldiers power their mobile devices and lights in the field. And NATAN Worldwide Disaster Relief, unable to send its volunteers abroad because of the war, has set up medical and dental clinics to serve Israelis evacuated from their homes in the north and south, near the front lines of conflict.
All three groups are members of OLAM, a network of 77 Jewish and Israeli organizations working in the fields of global service, international development and humanitarian aid. OLAM decided to work as one with a different network of Israeli development groups, SID-Israel, because of the unprecedented nature of the current crisis, according to OLAM’s CEO, Dyonna Ginsburg. Neither network had ever played a role during a crisis in Israel before, she said.
“Over the past month, Israeli organizations whose raison d’etre is to respond to crises abroad have rightfully understood the unprecedented and immense needs in Israel, and deployed staff and volunteers at home,” Ginsburg said. “Remarkably, many have done so while continuing their efforts to support those abroad.”
Ginsburg said the moment had provided her with an answer to questions that she had long encountered in her work.
“Before the war, I often encountered people who questioned why Jews or Israelis should invest resources in supporting vulnerable non-Jews who live far away,” Ginsburg said. “Underlying this question is an assumption of a zero sum game: you either give to internal Jewish needs or you support universal concerns. I believe this is a false binary.”
Groups with experience in disasters abroad can bring insights that Israel can benefit from, according to Polizer, who wryly refers to the initial surge of support following humanitarian disasters as “aid festivals.” He coined the term to encapsulate the chaotic influx of well-intentioned individuals who want to help but don’t necessarily know the best ways.
“It’s such a train station of people coming and going. We knew that this would happen,” he said. “Everyone wants to send their grandmother’s socks, you know, as a donation, which is very nice, but not very helpful.”
Moreover, even volunteers with relevant expertise tend to offer short-term assistance, often leading to more harm than good, a scenario that Polizer has witnessed in disaster zones all over the world and one that is currently unfolding in Israel. He cites post-trauma mental health support as the most prominent example of this.
“There are a lot of people — even professionals — with great intentions who are coming in and talking to these people who are deeply, deeply traumatized. If that’s done very short term, or if it’s a one time intervention or debriefing process, you could actually do a lot of harm. You could create triggers for people.”
Polizer also highlights missteps made by the aid community, noting a tendency to rush into making assessments and mapping out short and long term needs.
“I’ve seen a lot of organizations all over the world who come in and write it all down and then send a full report of what is needed. But by the time they get the support, the funding, and the procurement, things have changed already, the reality has changed.”
In a perverse stroke of luck, some of those mistakes have been avoided simply because there wasn’t a heavy influx of aid groups in Israel following the attack. In the wake of humanitarian disasters, the typical protocol usually involves U.N. agencies such as OCHA, along with various international aid entities, establishing a cluster system to streamline and coordinate the response to various needs.
But that can only happen when neither the government nor the civil society has the ability to meet the basic needs of the population. In such cases, the government itself would need to request the aid, which in this case it didn’t. (JTA confirmed with Mashav, the Foreign Ministry’s development arm, that Israel had not put out such a call.)
Still, in many cases, Polizer notes, such organizations would decide to help nonetheless. Chef Jose Andres’ World Central Kitchen is bolstering IsraAID’s efforts with direct aid — in the form of providing meals — for Israel’s asylum-seeking community and the local Bedouin population that have been affected by the war. But apart from that, most of IsraAID’s partnership organizations, such as UNICEF and the WHO, are sending money in lieu of on-the-ground aid.
“A lot of them are actually sending us funding, so they’re supporting us,” he said. “They said, ‘OK, we can’t respond, they don’t need our help but we will strengthen the capacity of an organization like IsraAID.’ So we of course appreciate that.”
Around 20 NGOs are currently operating in Gaza, where the humanitarian needs are acute as Israel prosecutes its war on Hamas. The majority of Palestinians living in Gaza have been displaced from their homes in the last month, according to the United Nations.
“The other side of course is that a lot of them are focusing on the Gaza side of things,” Polizer said. “I can’t comment on whether it’s also a political decision to decide not to respond.”
He added, “I think for a lot of them it actually makes sense that we are responding and that we are the leading humanitarian organization in Israel in that space.”
The key to mitigating the common issues associated with overzealous civil or aid response, he said, is building a collaborative and trust-based recovery approach that works hand in hand with the community, and that keeps on reevaluating the needs of the hour and “filling in the gaps.”
He cites establishing an ad hoc school for the residents of Nir Yitzhak who are currently in a hotel in Eilat as the most recent example of addressing an unexpected need. The community’s leaders asked IsraAID to help open a school because the kids are “losing it,” he said.
“There was no structure for the school. So we put a tent out that is near enough to the bomb shelter. But it’s freaking hot. So you need an air conditioner. So we procured two mobile air conditioners,” he said.
“Another gap is that we don’t have teachers, because either they were drafted to reserves, or worse, they were kidnapped or murdered. Unfortunately we’re hearing these stories all the time.”
In such cases, IsraAID takes responsibility for sourcing both the teachers and the necessary funds to cover their salaries as an interim solution until Israel’s education ministry can pay their wages. “Sometimes it’s about finding really quick solutions and minimizing the bureaucracy,” Polizer said.
Immediate relief efforts prioritize children, recognizing their particular susceptibility to trauma. Yet this focus is twofold, he said: by supporting children, it also grants parents the space to “breathe and start taking stock of their lives and look at the next steps.”
Artel agrees. “Before you can make a routine, you need an education system. Because when that doesn’t work, it takes all of us out of routine. That’s what we’re doing now and it automatically releases so much of the pressure.”
—
The post Created to aid in crises abroad, these Israeli nonprofits are applying their expertise at home for the first time appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
RSS
Jewish Cemeteries Vandalized in Cincinnati, Montreal
Vandals in Canada targeted a Jewish cemetery. Photo: Screenshot
Vandals have targeted notable Jewish cemeteries in Cincinnati, Ohio and Montreal, Canada, sparking outcry and concern over mounting threats of antisemitism.
Vandals at Montreal’s Kehal Yisrael Cemetery placed memorial stones in the shape of a Nazi swastika on top of tombstones. Ones with the last names Eichler and Herman were targeted in the antisemitic attack.
Placing memorial stones on graves is an ancient Jewish custom to memorialize the dead. Jewish cemeteries oftentimes have stones nearby tombstones for mourners.
Canadian leaders decried the vandalism.
“It is absolutely abhorrent and revolting to defile the dead with swastikas,” Jeremy Levi, the Jewish mayor of a Jewish-majority suburb of Montreal, commented on X/Twitter. “This desecration at the Kehal Israel cemetery in Montreal is beyond contempt. [Canadian Prime Minister] Justin Trudeau, step aside and get out of the way so we can reclaim our country. May this Kohen’s neshama have an Aliyah on high.” One of the tombstones vandalized belonged to a Kohen.
The leader of the Conservative Party in Canada’s parliament and candidate for prime minister, Pierre Poilievre, lambasted Trudeau and denounced antisemitism. “We cannot close our eyes to the disgusting acts of antisemitism that are happening in our country everyday,” he posted on X/Twitter. “The prime minister must finally act to stop these displays of antisemitism. If he won’t, a common sense Conservative government will.”
Canada, like many countries around the world, has experienced a surge in antisemitic incidents since the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’ massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7.
Meanwhile in Cincinnati, vandals targeted two historic Jewish cemeteries this past week, toppling and shattering ancient tombstones — some dating back to the 1800s.
According to a statement from the Jewish Federation of Cincinnati, 176 gravesites in Cincinnati’s West Side were ruined “in an act of antisemitic vandalism.”
“Due to the extensive damage and the historical nature of many of the gravestones, we have not yet been able to identify all the families affected by this act,” the statement continued. “Our community [is] heartbroken.”
The Cincinnati Police Department and the FBI are investigating the incidents.
The destruction of monuments is the latest in a greater trend of antisemitic vandalism. In an incident over the weekend, vandals in Australia targeted war memorials dedicated to Australian veterans who sacrificed their lives in Korea and Vietnam with pro-Hamas graffiti.
A couple weeks earlier, vandals in Belgium defaced two memorials for Holocaust victims with swastikas and a phrase calling for violence against Israel. In Germany, meanwhile, at least seven stolpersteine, or stumbling blocks in the sidewalk meant to mark Jewish homes seized by the Nazis, were defaced with the message “Jews are perpetrators.”
The US, Canada, Europe, and Australia have all experienced an explosion of antisemitic incidents in the wake of the Hamas atrocities of Oct. 7, and amid the ensuing war in Gaza. In many countries, anti-Jewish hate crimes have spiked to record levels.
According to the B’nai Brith, antisemitic incidents in Canada more than doubled in 2023 compared to the prior year.
The post Jewish Cemeteries Vandalized in Cincinnati, Montreal first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
UN Launches Probe Into Anti-Israel Rapporteur for Allegedly Accepting Trip Funded by Pro-Hamas Organizations
Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, attends a side event during the Human Rights Council at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, March 26, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
The United Nations has opened an investigation into allegations that its special rapporteur on the human rights situation in the Palestinian territories accepted an all-expense paid trip to Australia from various pro-Hamas groups.
In November 2023, Francesca Albanese allegedly traversed around the Australian continent on a trip whose high price tag was covered by anti-Israel organizations, according to documentation acquired by UN Watch, a Geneva-based NGO that monitors the UN.
Albanese initially landed in Sydney and subsequently enjoyed flights into Melbourne, Adelaide, and Canberra, as well as Auckland and Wellington in New Zealand. The glamorous excursion is estimated to have cost a staggering $22,500.
The UN Investigations Division of the Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) told UN Watch last week that it had alerted the High Commissioner for Human Rights of the allegations of financial impropriety levied at Albanese.
In a letter sent to UN leadership last month, UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer outlined evidence based on multiple sources indicating that Hamas-supporting organizations funded Albanese’s trip to Australia, which has been experiencing an alarming spike in antisemitic incidents since the start of the Israel-Hamas war in October.
Australian Friends of Palestine Association (AFOPA), an organization that lobbies Australian politicians on behalf of the pro-Palestinian cause, claimed on its website that it “sponsored Ms. Albanese’s visit to Australia” to speak at its annual Edward Said Memorial Lecture in Adelaide. During the lecture, Albanese thanked AFOPA for “organizing such a busy visit,” in which she met with numerous Australian politicians and foreign ministry officials.
Free Palestine Melbourne (FPM) and Palestinian Christians in Australia (PCIA) both claimed to have “supported her visit to Victoria, ACT [Australian Capital Territory] and NSW [New South Wales].” Both groups also publicly declare that they participate in explicit lobbying of Australian politicians in an attempt to “change their minds” on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
While on her visit, Albanese served as a keynote speaker at a PCIA fundraiser. FPM encourages politicians to endorse the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement, which seeks to isolate Israel on the international stage economically and politically as the first step toward the Jewish state’s eventual elimination.
Australian Palestinian Advocacy Network (APAN) said it was “honored to support” Albanese’s visit. The organization’s president, Nasser Mashni, openly endorses the terrorist group Hamas and has stated that the eradication of Israel is necessary to secure “the liberation of earth.” APAN states that it “facilitated a range of meetings” for Albanese with Australian parliamentarians.
Palestinians in Aotearoa Co-ordinating Committee (PACC) and Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) both organized and likely bankrolled Albanese’s trip to New Zealand, according to UN Watch. At the behest of these groups, Albanese helped lobby a New Zealand sovereign wealth fund to divest from Israel-linked companies.
Albanese outright denied that her trip was funded by Palestinian lobbying organizations, insisting that the UN footed the bill.
“Yet another trail of egregiously false claims agst me,” she tweeted. “My trip to Australia was paid by the UN as part of my mandate’s activities. Continuous defamation agst my mandate may be well remunerated,but won’t work. It just wastes time that should be used to help stop violence in [the Palestinian territories].”
Albanese did not present any documentation confirming that the UN paid for her travel and accommodations. Rather, she pointed at a statement from AFOPA reading, “Ms. Albanese was authorized by the UN to accept AFOPA’s invitation to deliver the Edward Said Memorial Lecture. The UN funded Ms. Albanese’s travel & accommodation costs. No Palestinian Solidarity group paid for this trip.”
Albanese has an extensive history of using her role at the UN to denigrate Israel and seemingly rationalize Hamas’ attacks on the Jewish state.
In April, Albanese issued public support for the pro-Hamas protests and encampments on American university campuses, saying that they gave her “hope.” She has also repeatedly falsely accused the Jewish state of committing “genocide” against Palestinians in Gaza and enacting “apartheid” in the West Bank without condemning Hamas’ terrorism against Israelis.
In February, Albanese claimed Israelis were “colonialists” who had “fake identities.” Previously, she defended Palestinians’ “right to resist” Israeli “occupation” at a time when over 1,100 rockets were fired by Gaza terrorists at Israel. Last year, US lawmakers called for the firing of Albanese for what they described as her “outrageous” antisemitic statements, including a 2014 letter in which she claimed America was “subjugated by the Jewish lobby.”
Albanese’s anti-Israel comments have earned her the praise of Hamas officials in the past.
Additionally, in response to French President Emmanuel Macron calling Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel the “largest antisemitic massacre of the 21st century,” Albanese said, “No, Mr. Macron. The victims of Oct. 7 were not killed because of their Judaism, but in response to Israel’s oppression.”
Video footage of the Oct. 7 onslaught showed Palestinian terrorists led by Hamas celebrating the fact that they were murdering Jews.
Nevertheless, Albanese has argued that Israel should make peace with Hamas, saying that it “needs to make peace with Hamas in order to not be threatened by Hamas.”
The UN did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
The post UN Launches Probe Into Anti-Israel Rapporteur for Allegedly Accepting Trip Funded by Pro-Hamas Organizations first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Law Firm Implores Northwestern University to ‘Nullify’ Deal With Pro-Hamas Group
Northwestern University president Michael Schill looks on during a US House Education and the Workforce Committee hearing on anti-Israel protests on college campuses, on Capitol Hill in Washington, US, May 23, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Amanda Andrade-Rhoades
A Jewish civil rights organization has issued a blistering legal letter to Northwestern University, demanding the “nullification” of a series of concessions school president Michael Schill granted a pro-Hamas group to end an illegal occupation of school property.
Northwestern was one of dozens of schools where pro-Hamas Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapters set up “encampments” on school property, chanted antisemitic slogans, and vowed not to leave unless administrators agreed to adopt the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against the Jewish state.
After hours of negotiating with protesters, Schill agreed to establish a new scholarship for Palestinian undergraduates, contact potential employers of students who caused recent campus disruptions to insist on their being hired, and create a segregated dormitory hall to be occupied exclusively by Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) and Muslim students. The university — where protesters shouted “Kill the Jews!” — also agreed to form a new investment committee in which anti-Zionists students and faculty may wield an outsized voice.
Writing on behalf of StandWithUs, a New York City-based law firm — Kasowitz, Benson, and Torres LLP — told the university’s board of trustees on Monday that the agreement violated federal law, as well as its own polices and bylaws.
“This outrageous capitulation to accommodate the demands of antisemitic agitators — who openly espoused vicious antisemitism, assaulted, spat on, and stalked Jewish students and engaged in numerous violations of Northwestern’s codes and policies — only enables and encourages future misconduct,” the letter said. “It is in plain violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, risks triggering state anti-BDS sanctions, and apparently was made without the required approval of the Board of Trustees and in contravention of Northwestern’s bylaws and university statues.”
It added, “Accordingly, this purported agreement not only unlawfully rewards antisemitism but has severely and perhaps irreparably damaged Northwestern’s reputation, but it has also exposed Northwestern to potential liability and jeopardizes it access to federal and state funds.”
Schill was grilled about the deal — which has been referred to as the Deering Meadow Agreement — last month during a hearing held by the US House Committee on Education and the Workforce.
Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) called it a “unilateral capitulation” and accused Schill of failing to protect Jewish students from the violence of the anti-Zionist protesters, incidents of which Schill described as “allegations.” Later, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) called for his resignation from office, citing a slew of alleged offenses, including his revealing that no Jewish students or faculty were consulted before he conceded to the protesters’ demands. Schill, the ADL stressed, also confessed to appointing accused antisemites to a task force on antisemitism that ultimately disbanded when its members could not agree on a definition of antisemitism.
Schill, however, has forcefully denied that he acceded to any of SJP’s core demands, including their insistence on boycotting and divesting from Israel and companies that do business with it. His critics, including StandWithUs chief executive officer Roz Rothstein, maintain that he did.
“Northwestern has surrendered to agitators’ unlawful conduct and outrageous demands in a move that threatens to set a national precedent for university leadership, enabling and supporting the complete breakdown of civility, policies, and the law,” Rothstein said on Monday. “At a time when Jewish and Israeli students across the country are under unprecedented attack, Northwestern’s leadership shouldn’t engage in patchwork unlawful actions but instead strive to be a part of the solution.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Law Firm Implores Northwestern University to ‘Nullify’ Deal With Pro-Hamas Group first appeared on Algemeiner.com.