This past week has been desperate and despairing. The news coming to World Jewish Relief from friends and partners across Ukraine defies belief and can erode one’s faith in humanity.
On Tuesday, I took a frantic call from the rabbi in Zaparozhyia. He had come under fire earlier in the day and his voice was fraught with fear and worry. Tired, exhausted and frightened, he was looking for immediate financial support to help 1,000 people escape by train to Odessa and onwards by bus to Moldova. Our commitment to this was instant, of course.
The door is closing on those able to escape as Russian forces encircle key routes westwards. We are helping those in Dnipro and Kyiv get to Odessa and onwards to Moldova. The exit route from Zaparozhyia and Krivoy Rih is dangerous and may close soon. There is now no escape for our partners and clients in Kherson, Kharkiv, Sumy and Poltava.
The British Jewish community has a long and proud history of responding at times of crisis, assisting people fleeing conflict and in desperate need of a safe haven. And since the Russian invasion hit the headlines last week, they have been doing so once again.
I have been overwhelmed by the response to our Ukraine Crisis Appeal, which is meeting the urgent humanitarian needs of the most vulnerable. We have received countless calls into the office from people asking what they can do to help.
Community members have offered up their homes, time and resources to Ukrainians who arrive in the UK as refugees. We are glad to be able to direct people to donate to our Ukraine Crisis Appeal.
We are responding today in Ukraine and in neighbouring countries and are preparing to assist Ukrainian refugees who arrive in the UK.
In Ukraine, we have funded our partners to provide food, cash, medical, material and psychological support to affected individuals and families across the country, prioritising our 13,000 existing clients who rely on us for their daily needs to be met. Our priority is to transfer funds quickly, while banks are still up and running.
We have also supported those with more specific, urgent needs: our partner in Kharkiv who is assisting people with disabilities who are unable to flee the city under siege; the Chesed in Vinnytsia, which is providing medical supplies and clothes for the wounded. We are in daily contact with our partners to ensure we are responding to the most urgent needs as they arise.
In neighbouring Moldova and Poland, we are supporting Ukrainian families who have fled across the border. Through our local partners in these countries, we are funding the provision of food, water, PPE and accommodation.
While the vast majority of Ukrainians who have fled are displaced internally, or in neighbouring countries, we are also poised to assist any who come to the UK.
We have written to the Home Secretary urging the government to waive visa requirements for the Ukrainians most in need of refuge, offering our refugee language and employment expertise to any who do come here.
This is just the beginning of a long road ahead. We do not know what will happen in the next hour, let alone in a month. At WJR, we constantly have our eye on the long term. We know all too well that wars like this do not resolve quickly and there will be massive demand for months to come, perhaps after other humanitarian organisations have moved on.
We do not know what damage the war will leave behind. But there will almost certainly be a need for long-term trauma counselling, livelihood support, home repairs and long-term medical assistance.
Whatever the need, WJR will be there, just as we have been there for people fleeing war since 1933, and for Ukraine’s Jewish community since 1991.
So far, through our Ukraine Crisis Appeal we have raised over £1.5 million. We are so grateful to everyone who has already donated.
Yet over the next 12 months, we estimate that we will need over £3.5 million to respond to a multitude of needs across Ukraine. This estimate doesn’t even cover worst case scenarios.
Paul Anticoni is CEO of World Jewish Relief.
To donate: worldjewishrelief.org/ukrainecrisis
