In these troubled times, when there are many questions and concerns about the actions of the current Israeli government, questions also arise around the Jewish Federation of Greater Ann Arbor’s Israel/Overseas allocations from the Annual Community Campaign. In the September WJN, the Jewish Federation addressed some of those concerns related to the Jewish Agency and the organization’s global impact.
“Since 2002, the Ann Arbor Jewish Federation has been a pioneer in allocating funds to projects and initiatives in Israel and globally that reflect the local community’s values,” says Jewish Federation’s Director of Communications & Development, Rachel Wall. “We are proud of the impact we have had,” says Wall.
In partnership with Jewish Federations across the continent, the greater Ann Arbor Jewish community contributes to the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), World ORT, and the Jewish Agency for Israel. In addition, the Federation supports specific Israeli NGO’s doing work that aligns with the local community’s value of a strong shared civil society in Israel. More in-depth information about greater Ann Arbor’s support of the Jewish Agency can be found in the September 2025 WJN.
For those who have questions about the work of World ORT and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), read on.
World ORT
ORT, which stands for “Organization for Rehabilitation through Training,” is a global education network driven by Jewish values. ORT supports 84,000 students of all backgrounds in more than 40 countries throughout the world. In ORT-supported schools, universities, and vocational training programs, students access otherwise-unavailable opportunities and education needed to lead a fulfilling life and contribute positively to the wider society.
The organization was founded in 1880 to further the employability of Russian Jews, teaching them essential trades and professions. Today, ORT focuses on providing a high-level STEM training for both students and educators to empower and strengthen communities worldwide.
World ORT is a longstanding partner of the Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA). The greater Ann Arbor Federation contributes to the collective efforts of Federations nationwide in supporting Jews around the world through ORT.
American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC)
History & Impact
Founded in 1914, the JDC (known in Israel as “The Joint”) is the leading global Jewish humanitarian organization. Its first project was to help starving Jews in Ottoman-era Palestine. Since then, JDC has become a beacon of hope for Jews and others in 70 countries today.
JDC remained active in Europe during the rise of Nazism, providing a range of services, such as soup kitchens in Jewish ghettos, until the spreading war made it impossible to continue. At the end of World War II, JDC partnered with other relief organizations to provide food, clothing, job training, education, religious materials, legal representation, and emigration assistance to hundreds of thousands of displaced persons. By 1947, an estimated 250,000 Jewish refugees had passed through DP camps and received help from JDC.
Coincidentally, a key figure in the JDC’s rescue and resettlement efforts has an Ann Arbor connection. Harold Trobe, the father of Ann Arbor’s Jonathan Trobe (Chair of the Maimonides Committee of the Jewish Federation), spent 36 years in post-war Europe working for the JDC and the Hebrew Immigration Aid Society (HIAS). The elder Trobe directed JDC’s financial support of refugee movement, basic needs, and medical attention. “I witnessed my father’s efforts, and the impact of the JDC first-hand,” says Jonathan Trobe. “His work inspired me and helped drive my commitment to Israel and the global Jewish community.”
Some other highlights of JDC’s work more recently include coordinating the rescue of Muslims, Christians and Jews from war-torn Sarajevo in 1992, developing and implementing emergency relief programs during the financial crisis in Argentina, and coordinating relief and development responses to the South Asian tsunami and Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines.
JDC in the Former Soviet Union
In 1988, after an absence of 50 years, the JDC returned to the Soviet Union where they revitalized Jewish communal institutions and empowered the Soviet Jewry movement. With the fall of the Soviet Union, JDC was—and continues to be—a leader in fostering the development of welfare support infrastructure and vibrant Jewish communities throughout the former Soviet Union (FSU). Elder care is a cornerstone of this work, and JDC provides life-saving aid to over 80,000 Jewish older adults, including former doctors, teachers, and engineers struggling to survive on pensions as low as $2 per day. These are the poorest Jews in the world, many of whom are Holocaust survivors. JDC provides crucial aid as well as connections to people and to Jewish tradition, allowing them to do more than just survive, but to live with dignity, joy, and hope.
Jewish Federation of Greater Ann Arbor chooses to contribute directly to the JDC’s work in the FSU, its largest contribution to a single overseas cause, in addition to a more general allocation of funds to the JDC’s activities worldwide through JFNA.
JDC and the War in Ukraine
Russia’s aggression against Ukraine beginning in 2022 made the JDC’s work in the FSU even more challenging, and more critical. Because its extensive network of social service and community agencies were already well-established throughout the region, JDC was able to mobilize quickly from the start of the war. The organization worked to rescue and resettle people in danger zones and continued to support elderly Jews and poor families living in the conflict zones. Now, three years later, JDC and its team provide basic needs to the Ukrainian Jewish community and throughout the region, including food, medicine, trauma support, children’s education, employment assistance, and seasonal winter survival aid.
Witnessing JDC’s Work First-Hand
Bob Merion and other JDC fly-in members and JDC staff on a home visit to Liliana (third from right) in her apartment in Chisinau, Moldova.
Ann Arbor community member Bob Merion’s ancestors are from Ukraine, and he says, “When Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, it felt personal.” Impressed by the JDC’s global humanitarian work and special focus on aid to Jews in the FSU, Merion and his wife Debbie donated to the JDC. This donation led to an opportunity to witness the JDC’s life-saving work first-hand on a JDC “fly-in” to Moldova and Ukraine in June of 2025.
Merion described the trip as transformative. “I met Liliana, a retired Russian language instructor who lives alone in her decaying Soviet-era walk-up apartment in Chisinau, Moldova. JDC pays for medications, and supplements her $74 monthly pension, enabling her to have food year-round and heat in the harsh winter months. Home care workers help with bathing, cooking, and cleaning. Liliana was deeply moved and grateful that we visited her – she hasn’t been out of her apartment in two years – and I was profoundly moved by the impact of the JDC, literally saving Liliana and elderly Jews like her from starvation and death.”
Ukrainian internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Chernivtsi, Ukraine meet with Bob Merion (back to camera), two other JDC fly-in members, and JDC staff member Inna Vdovichenko (June 2025).
In Chernivtsi, Ukraine, Merion visited Maryna, a retired math and physics teacher living alone in a sparsely furnished apartment. “Maryna has no indoor shower and shares a tiny communal kitchen with residents of three other apartments on her floor. Like Liliana, Maryna treasured our visit. The local Jewish community has also opened their hearts and homes to internally displaced persons (IDPs) of all ages who have stayed in Ukraine but left everything to flee the front lines of the war. The day-to-day survival of the elderly and IDPs depend on services provided by the JDC, and, amazingly, small Jewish communities are thriving with support from innovative JDC programs.”
JDC in Israel
JDC’s operations worldwide include support in Israel. There, the focus is on improving the lives of Israel’s poor and elderly, at-risk youth, people with disabilities, and Haredi and Israeli Arab communities through innovative initiatives that aim to address the nation’s most complex social challenges. As they do around the world, JDC uses a system-based approach to its work. In Israel, that means bringing together government ministries, municipal leaders, business and philanthropic sectors and NGOs to identify issues and create research-backed, scalable social innovations.
One such JDC Israel project is PACT (Parents and Children Together), a pioneering initiative which aimed to close the education gap between Ethiopian immigrants and those born in Israel. Research showed that this pilot program was highly effective in both closing the gap and improving the educational outcomes for all children where it was implemented. It was then incorporated into Israel’s education infrastructure and funded by local municipalities and the education ministry.
Jewish Federation has also funded projects to address socioeconomic challenges in the Druze community by providing education for Druze women to start their own in-home businesses and courses for Druze women to become math teachers and tutors in their communities.
Post-October 7
Since October 7, JDC has directly aided more than 1 million of the most vulnerable Israelis – the elderly, people with disabilities, children and families at risk, and the poor. Their expertise in addressing global crises and building community resilience was put to work coordinating comprehensive humanitarian responses in the hardest-hit cities; providing life-saving emergency preparedness education for seniors and people with disabilities and digital mental health resources; addressing war-related challenges facing Israeli children and youth displaced by the conflict; and revitalizing Israel’s workforce and economy in the face of closures, rising unemployment, and a downturn in foreign investment.
The Jewish Federation’s October 7 Emergency Fund, supported by donors from the greater Ann Arbor community and throughout North America helped support these life-saving efforts.
The Jewish Federation’s team is available to answer any questions or concerns about programs and initiatives it funds in Israel and around the world. You can contact Federation’s Israel and Overseas Programs Manager Amichay Findling (amichay@jewishannarbor.org) to continue the conversation.
Eileen Freed is the CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Ann Arbor.