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Where US Jews can donate to support Israel’s hospitals, troops, survivors and more
(JTA) — For many American Jews, watching the scenes of horrifying violence and trauma emerging from Israel has awakened an impulse to help or give to the sweeping aid effort underway now.
We’ve rounded up some of the needs that nonprofits and individuals have shared, as well as organizations working to address them. Please note that you should always do your own research before donating to any organization.
Israeli hospitals are dealing with a surge of wounded patients and some have been damaged by rockets or in fighting. Many depend on donations even in normal conditions, making the need more acute now.
Barzilai Hospital in the south sustained rocket fire while serving patients. Over the past few days, it has been inundated with more than 450 victims being brought in.
Hadassah hospital is treating victims of the attacks, including many soldiers, and launched a crisis campaign to raise needed funds.
Soroka Medical Center has already treated 700 severely wounded victims and the center is seeking donations for its emergency fund to ensure the acquisition of essential medical equipment.
Israel’s robust volunteer emergency services providers, which have been first responders through a variety of crises, have been on the front lines since the attack began.
American Friends of Magen David Adom, Israel’s version of the Red Cross, has been providing emergency aid and information since early on; one of its drivers was killed responding to the attack. Bloomberg is now matching donations.
United Hatzalah has more than 1,500 volunteers serving near Gaza right now. At least one volunteer with the group was killed in Saturday’s fighting, it said.
ZAKA has special expertise in retrieving bodies from disaster scenes; the group announced on Sunday that it had retrieved 250 bodies from the scene of the festival that was attacked early in the onslaught.
Lev Echad–One Heart organizes a network of volunteers during national emergencies. It says it has deployed 30,000 volunteers but needs help to get 100,000 to work.
The Jewish federations system operates local federations in hundreds of communities across North America, soliciting and distributing donations based on the needs and interests of their constituents. From Los Angeles to Indianapolis to New York (which has allocated $10 million to the aid effort), many have announced special funds in the wake of the attack. The Jewish Federations of North America, the umbrella organization, is also collecting funds to support victims in Israel.
The Giving Back Fund is making funds available to purchase plane tickets for Israelis abroad who want or need to return to serve in the army. But other Israelis abroad are on their own if they want to fly home — and with flights canceled and demand high, prices have skyrocketed.
Some organizations and informal efforts are working to make sure that Israeli soldiers have what they need to stay safe during what they’ve been told could be a prolonged campaign. While the Israel Defense Forces say it has adequate supplies, families sent off their soldiers and reservists with little advanced warning and, in some cases, concerns about whether the army is prepared to take care of them.
Bayit Brigade is raising emergency funds for lone soldiers, a term used to describe immigrants and volunteers mostly from abroad who enlist without a familial support network in the country.
Belev Echad is a veterans group raising funds to distribute bulletproof vests and helmets.
Friends of the IDF is a non-military organization that supports soldiers, veterans and their family members.
Latet is aiding the security forces on the front line with emergency aid kits containing food and hygiene products.
Mental health resources are also much-needed at this time. Helplines are getting an unprecedented number of calls from people mentally and emotionally affected by the war.
NATAL: Israel Trauma and Resiliency Center — NATAL is an apolitical crisis help organization that has been around since 1998 and helps those affected by trauma from war and terrorism.
ERAN — ERAN is Israel’s mental health crisis hotline. Founded in 1971, it provides “emotional first aid” to anyone who needs it.
One Family Fund is offering emergency grief and trauma counseling to all victims and survivors. Their employees and volunteers are visiting the injured in hospitals, cooking food for victims in areas of attack, and attending funerals before supporting the families of victims.
Bayit Cham has established a fund to provide free therapy for 1,000 children from the Gaza border area.
Other fundraisers are underway for communities hit hard by the attacks.
Shinua Chevrati: Operation Delivering Light is mobilizing to help deliver material goods to Israelis forced to flee their homes in partnership with BIG, the largest retail conglomerate in Israel.
How to help Israel right now
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The post Where US Jews can donate to support Israel’s hospitals, troops, survivors and more appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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A pro-Israel rally at the University of Toronto was headlined by Columbia University professor Shai Davidai
Around 200 people gathered for a pro-Israel demonstration at University of Toronto’s downtown campus at King’s College Circle—which was the site of one of Canada’s largest pro-Palestinian encampments during May […]
The post A pro-Israel rally at the University of Toronto was headlined by Columbia University professor Shai Davidai appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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‘Not Welcome’: New Pro-Hamas Campaign Aims to Abolish Hillel Campus Chapters
A statue of George Washington tied with a Palestinian flag and a keffiyeh inside a pro-Hamas encampment is pictured at George Washington University in Washington, DC, US, May 2, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Craig Hudson
The campus group National Students for Justice in Palestine (NSJP) is waging a campaign to gut Jewish life in academia, calling for the abolition of Hillel International campus chapters, the largest collegiate organization for Jewish students in the world.
“Over the past several decades, Hillel has monopolized for Jewish campus life into a pipeline for pro-Israel indoctrination, genocide-apologia, and material support to the Zionist project and its crimes,” a social media account operating the campaign, titled #DropHillel, said in a manifesto published last week. “Across the country, Hillel chapters have invited Israeli soldiers to their campuses; promoted propaganda trips such as birthright; and organized charity drives for the Israeli military.”
It continued, “Such actions reveal Hillel’s ideological and material investment in Zionism, despite the organization’s facade as being simply a ‘Jewish cultural space.’”
DropHillel claims to be “Jewish-led,” although only a small minority of Jews oppose Zionism, and the group has been linked to and promoted by Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapters.
Hillel International has provided Jewish students a home away from home during the academic year. However, NSJP says it wants to “weaken” it and “dismantle oppression.”
The idea has already been picked up by pro-Hamas student groups at one college, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, according to The Daily Tar Heel, the school’s official student newspaper. On Oct. 9, it reported, a member of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) unveiled the idea for “no more Hillel” during a rally which, among other things, demanded removing Israel from UNC’s study abroad program and adopting the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement. Addressing the comments to the paper days later, SJP, which has been linked to Islamist terrorist organizations, proclaimed that shuttering Hillel is a coveted goal of the anti-Zionist movement.
“Zionism is a racist supremacist ideology advocating for the creation and sustenance of an ethnostate through the expulsion and annihilation of native people,” the group told the paper. “Therefore, any group that advocates for a supremacist ideology — be it the KKK, the Proud Boys, Hillel, or Heels for Israel — should not be welcome on campus.”
The #DropHillel campaign came amid an unprecedented surge in anti-Israel incidents on college campuses, which, according to a report published last month by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), have reached crisis levels.
Revealing a “staggering” 477 percent increase in anti-Zionist activity involving assault, vandalism, and other phenomena, the report — titled “Anti-Israel Activism on US Campuses, 2023-2024” — painted a bleak picture of America’s higher education system poisoned by political extremism and hate.
“As the year progressed, Jewish students and Jewish groups on campus came under unrelenting scrutiny for any association, actual or perceived, with Israel or Zionism,” the report said. “This often led to the harassment of Jewish members of campus communities and vandalism of Jewish institutions. In some cases, it led to assault. These developments were underpinned by a steady stream of rhetoric from anti-Israel activists expressing explicit support for US-designated terrorists organizations, such as Hamas, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and others.”
The report added that 10 campuses accounted for 16 percent of all incidents tracked by ADL researchers, with Columbia University and the University of Michigan combining for 90 anti-Israel incidents — 52 and 38, respectively. Harvard University, the University of California – Los Angeles, Rutgers University New Brunswick, Stanford University, Cornell University, and others filled out the rest of the top 10. Violence, it continued, was most common at universities in the state of California, where anti-Zionist activists punched a Jewish student for filming him at a protest.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post ‘Not Welcome’: New Pro-Hamas Campaign Aims to Abolish Hillel Campus Chapters first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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‘Muslim for Trump’ Launches Initiatives in Key Battleground States, Says Candidate Will Bring ‘Peace’ to Gaza
Former US President Donald Trump is seen at a campaign event in South Carolina. Photo: Reuters/Sam Wolfe
The “Muslims for Trump” organization has officially launched initiatives to help elect Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump to the White House, arguing that he would be more likely to end the war in Gaza than Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris.
In a statement released on Monday, the group said it will focus on recruiting Muslim voters in key battleground states such as Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and North Carolina. The organization both praised Trump for his supposed “peace-focused” approach to ending the war in Gaza and condemned Harris for helping facilitate a so-called “genocide.”
“After meeting with President Trump, it was clear to me he is the right leader for Muslims to get behind,” Rabiul Chowdhury, co-founder of Muslims for Trump and former co-chair of the “Abandon Harris Movement,” said in a statement.
Chowdhury added that during his discussions with Trump, the former president vowed to “ending the escalation of wars and bringing peace to war-torn regions.” In contrast to Trump’s promise to stop the “bloodshed” in Gaza, he claimed, Harris has “recklessly pushed us toward World War III.”
Chowdhury, a self-described “peace advocate,” urged the Muslim community not to fall victim to supposed “misinformation” campaigns by the media and Democrats that paint the former president as hostile to immigrants. He claimed that the former president’s focus is on “ending war, not dividing families through false immigration claims.”
Samra Luqman, chair of the Michigan chapter of Muslims for Trump, underscored the need to punish the Biden administration for what he described as supporting a “genocide” in Gaza.
“The goal of this election is to hold the Biden administration accountable for a genocide. No amount of fear mongering or scare tactics will persuade my community into forgiving the mutilation, live-burning, and genocide of over 200,000 people,” he said.
According to data produced by the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry, roughly 40,000 people have died in Gaza since the war began last October. Israel has said that its forces have killed about 20,000 Hamas terrorists during its military campaign.
Israel says it has gone to unprecedented lengths to try and avoid civilian casualties, noting its efforts to evacuate areas before it targets them and to warn residents of impending military operations with leaflets, text messages, and other forms of communication.
On the organization Muslims for Trump’s official website, it claims that the Abraham Accords, a series of historic, Trump administration-brokered normalization agreements between Israel and several countries in the Arab world, helped stabilize the Middle East. It also says that had Trump not lost the 2020 presidential race, the so-called “genocide” could have been prevented.
“Under Trump’s leadership, the Abraham Accords were brokered, fostering peaceful relations between Israel and several Arab countries. Supporters might argue that Trump’s diplomacy prioritized peace and stability in the Middle East, reducing the likelihood of large-scale conflicts like genocide,” the group wrote.
Over the course of his campaign, Trump has repeatedly touted his support for the Jewish state during his singular term in office. Trump has boasted about his administration’s work in fostering the Abraham Accords, promising to resume efforts to strengthen them if he were to win November’s US presidential election.
Harsh US sanctions levied on Iran under Trump crippled the Iranian economy and led its foreign exchange reserves to plummet. Trump and his Republican supporters in the US Congress have criticized the Biden administration for renewing billions of dollars in US sanctions waivers, which had the effect of unlocking frozen funds and allowing the country to access previously inaccessible hard currency.
Trump also recognized Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights, a strategic region on Israel’s northern border previously controlled by Syria, and also moved the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, recognizing the city as the Jewish state’s capital.
Despite Harris’s repeated efforts to woo Muslim voters, polling data indicates that the demographic has made a dramatic swing away from the Democratic Party. Polling data from the Arab American Institute reveals that Trump slightly edges Harris among Muslim voters by a margin of 42 to 41 percent. A report from the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) shows that Green Party candidate Jill Stein leads Harris and Trump with Muslim voters in the key swing states of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Arizona.
The post ‘Muslim for Trump’ Launches Initiatives in Key Battleground States, Says Candidate Will Bring ‘Peace’ to Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.