August 17, 2008
By ELIZABETH HAMILTON
As relief agencies pour into the Caucasus region to help tens of thousands of people displaced by the recent fighting between Russia and Georgia, the Jewish Federation of Greater Hartford has joined the effort in an attempt to help a small, but equally needy, portion of the population.
The federation has teamed up with its principal overseas partner agencies — the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and the Jewish Agency for Israel — to open the Georgia Crisis Fund, a so-called emergency mailbox to assist the Jewish population in Georgia and the breakaway republic of South Ossetia, at the center of this month's conflict. The money will also be used to help the general population of Georgia.
Although the Jewish community in Georgia is tiny — estimated at 7,000 to 12,000 — compared to the total population of roughly 4.6 million people, federation officials said they can be especially vulnerable during times of war.
The distribution committee estimates that more than 700 Jews have been displaced in recent days.
David Federman, a lifetime board member of the Jewish Federation of Greater Hartford who traveled to Georgia in 2005 when he was chairman of the agency's annual campaign, said much of the dwindling Jewish population in Georgia is elderly.
"What's there now for the most part are older people who really can't leave, for either physical or financial reasons. They're too set. There's nothing for them [in Georgia], but they've been there their whole lives," Federman said.
Many of the elderly Jews Federman met while visiting Georgia were living on fixed pensions of $16 to $18 a month, he said.
The federation's annual campaign provides money to both overseas aid groups so they have staff and funding when emergencies arise.
The two agencies were on the ground in Georgia shortly after the fighting began last week in South Ossetia. The Jewish Agency for Israel, with an office in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi, coordinated the evacuation of 200 Jews from the city of Gori, which has come under fire by Russian troops.
Cathrine Fischer Schwartz, executive director of the federation, said that agency began airlifting people out of Gori on Sunday. A major part of its mission is to assist people in "aliyah" — the Hebrew term for Jewish immigration to Israel.
The distribution committee, on the other hand, focuses its efforts on providing food and medical help to Jews throughout the world — both in times of war and peace.
"[The Joint Distribution Committee] virtually could tell you every single Jewish person in [Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union]," Federman said. "And they have case workers who deliver food packages to people on a scheduled basis. These people would be dead if it weren't for the JDC."
Schwartz said the agency's efforts are part of a coordinated effort to "safeguard Jews wherever they are so that no Jew finds themselves alone without help again" — as happened during the Holocaust.
Donations to the Georgia Crisis Fund may be made online, at www.JewishHartford.org, or by sending a check, payable to the UJC Georgia Relief Fund, to the Jewish Federation of Greater Hartford, Zachs Campus, 333 Bloomfield Ave., Suite C, West Hartford, CT 06117.