Local Philanthropic Priorities Shift Toward Israel

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The New York Sun

Israel’s war against Hezbollah may be more than 5,000 miles away from American shores, but it has catalyzed a charity drive and a rapid realignment of philanthropic priorities in New York to help the Jewish state during its escalating conflict in Lebanon.

Yesterday, the UJA-Federation of New York announced that it would immediately give $10 million to help Israeli civilians and humanitarian causes, and top officials started a $60 million fund-raising effort that they are calling urgent.

“This is what the Jewish community expects from us,” the president of the UJA-Federation, Morris Offit, said yesterday. “It’s just this kind of emergency situation that calls for special attention.”

The emergency money will be used to help transport more than 10,000 children and the infirm from the north of Israel —within reach of Hezbollah rocket attacks — to the central part of the country. Many of the children who will benefit from the UJA-Federation money will include new immigrants from Ethiopia.

Widows and orphans of fallen soldiers will also be among the beneficiaries of the charity funds.

Mr. Offit said the need to send money became unmistakably clear to him during a visit last week with Jewish leaders, when he traveled through the country and saw desolate towns like Haifa.

“No laughing, no smiles,” he said. “That brings it in very, very human terms,” he added.

In a separate campaign earlier yesterday morning, investors at a Waldorf-Astoria breakfast fund-raiser pledged millions of dollars to buy Israeli bonds. They were galvanized by a top Israeli diplomat in New York, Dan Gillerman, who offered a broad defense of the war.

The Jewish state’s ambassador to the United Nations told the gathering that Israel is not afraid of President Assad’s threat earlier this week to raise the Syrian army’s readiness.

“This is not good news, but I am not very worried about it,” Mr. Gillerman said. “This is saber-rattling at best.”

He added that Syria’s “old, antiquated” military would need the help of other Arab states, which “more than anybody else, would like to see us finish the job.”

The war in the Middle East also has led American Jewish organizations to boost their security.

Law enforcement officials last evening joined Rep. Anthony Weiner in urging Jewish nonprofit organizations such as yeshivas and synagogues to bolster their security as well as to consider applying for federal grants once they become available from a pool of about $25 million.

Nonprofit organizations will be able to apply for the money within the next few weeks, a homeland security spokeswoman, Joanna Gonzalez, said.

Mr. Weiner’s plea came less than a week after an apparently mentally ill Muslim man carried out a deadly shooting at a Jewish center in Seattle, saying the attack was motivated by his anger with Israel and Jews who support it.

Even as Jewish organizations nationwide raise funds for Israeli security, they have begun a quiet campaign to strengthen their own.


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