Praise for Ukraine aid relief
V MINISTER FOR Refugees Lord Harrington praised the response of Jewish and Israeli organisations to the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine when he addressed Magen David Adom (MDA) UK’s patrons’ dinner at The Grove in Watford.
“Every border I’ve been to is full of magen Davids,” he told the 80 guests.
Lord Harrington added that he had accepted the ministerial position in the belief that British Jews had a duty to welcome refugees.
Close to 90,000 had come to the UK under the government’s Homes for Ukraine scheme, and he applauded MDA for its role in Project Light, which helped facilitate the rescue of dozens of Ukrainian orphans.
He hoped the Homes for Ukraine programme would be “a model of resettling refugees for the future. For me, it’s setting up machinery that can be used for any tragedy which the world throws up.” In a moving
address, barrister and broadcaster Robert Rinder — another key player in Project Light — described MDA as “the most articulate expression of what Israel is and can be; a critical tool against anti-Jewish racism”. He added that it was “an ambulance service that isn’t funded by the state but by international diaspora; knows no borders, blood or nationality but shares everything it has.
“It does so because it believes in the fundamental mission of what Judaism has at its heart, which is whatever we do, chai — life — is at the centre.”
Paramedic Katya Korshenbaum, who helped treat patients at the field hospital MDA established in Ukraine, also spoke at the event, which raised over £100,000.
MDA UK chief executive Daniel Burger said that the dinner had enabled the charity to update key supporters “about how Magen David Adom is saving more lives, not just in Israel but in Ukraine and across the world”.
MDA is a service that isn’t funded by the state and knows no borders