World Jewish Relief: We raised £2m in a week but need five times more

WORLD JEWISH Relief has raised a remarkable £2 million since its Ukraine crisis appeal was launched a week ago — but the humanitarian charity says it needs far more.

Speaking to the JC, WJR chair Maurice Helfgott said the response was “extraordinary” but added that the organisation needed at least five times that sum.

WJR — whose campaign is being backed by the Chief Rabbi and Prince Charles — is working with dozens of Ukrainian community centres, elderly care facilities, employment charities and other organisations.

The charity is offering food, cash and other forms of support and has also helped evacuate people from Zaporozhye, Dnipro and Kyiv, Mr Helfgott revealed.

Speaking about the need for sustained donations over time, Mr Helfgott said: “What we know from bitter experience is that it is not just today. In fact it’s not principally today.

“It’s the weeks, months and years ahead that will require extraordinary support.

“Obviously the situation is different across the country, but it is a very frightening situation. For our partners and clients in Kherson, Kharkiv, Sumy and Poltava, they are not able to travel.”

He added: “Many of our partners are cowering in cold, rat-infested basements, fearful of their own safety, and we are doing everything we can to help them but it’s a very fast-changing situation.”

WJR has worked in Ukraine since 1989 to support older populations.

Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis called on the community to give generously to WJR, saying that “all Jewish people are responsible for one another”.

Other groups are also seeking donations to support Ukraine’s 100,000 Jews. Ukrainian Chief Rabbi Yaakov Bleich helped organise shelter for 320 Jews, many of them children, at a summer camp west of Kyiv and later set up a second site in the west of Ukraine.

Tikva UK — a children’s charity operating in Ukraine — called for donations to help it “rescue our children from real and immediate threats to their lives”.

And Jewish educational charity ORT UK is seeking funds to offer support to families and teachers.

The Federation of Jewish Communities of Ukraine set up its own appeal to send 30,000 parcels of emergency and food supplies to communities.

And the Israeli aid group, IsraAID, is also helping refugees in countries bordering Ukraine, providing relief and psychological support.