With the help of private donations, Jewish groups — from the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee to Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America — are helping to meet both the long- and short-term needs of the hundreds of thousands of Kosovar Albanians made refugees during the current crisis.
The Joint, which has already raised $1.23 million to aid the refugees, sent a team to the region last week to explore the best way to distribute the money.
The Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society’s board of directors passed a resolution last week approving a $54,000 contribution to the Joint. In its resolution, HIAS said it supports the efforts of NATO in the Balkans, and would advocate “all other means of support necessary to ensure the viability of regional asylum for Kosovar refugees.”
Earlier this month, the umbrella group Jewish Council for Public Affairs called for the use of “all means deemed necessary” by the United States and NATO in the Balkans — including ground troops — to end ethnic cleansing, return refugees safely to their homes and restore stability in the region.
And the American Jewish Committee last week sent a delegation to Macedonia to explore firsthand the conditions facing the thousands of Kosovar Albanians who have sought refuge there. The AJCommittee has already raised $500,000 to help the refugees.
Meanwhile, the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center announced plans to purchase a mobile medical clinic capable of providing aid to 54,000 Kosovo refugees during the next two months. The clinic will be stationed wherever the need is greatest, officials said.
NATO began airstrikes March 24 aimed at curbing the repression of ethnic Albanians in the Serbian province of Kosovo. Despite the strikes, Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic has shown little sign of ending this repression, which has included a policy of ethnic cleansing that has led some to make comparisons between the Kosovo situation and Nazi policy during the Holocaust.
Jewish organizations collecting money for the refugees include:
*American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, JDC Kosovo Mailbox, 711 Third Ave., 10th Floor, New York, NY 10017.
*American Jewish World Service, Kosovar Relief Effort, 989 Avenue of the Americas, 10th Floor, New York, NY 10018.
*B’nai B’rith International, Humanitarian Relief Fund, 1640 Rhode Island Ave. NW Washington, DC 20036.
*Hadassah Emergency Relief Fund; General Post Office, P.O. Box 26035, New York, NY 10087.
*United Jewish Communities, c/o Kosovo Refugee Fund, 111 Eighth Ave., Suite 11E, New York, NY 10011. In addition, some local federations are collecting money.
Notes should be made on all checks that they are for Kosovo refugees, and checks to the UJA fund should be made out to the CJF Disaster Relief Fund.