It’s expensive to be a Jew these days, said Joint head Michael Schneider in San Francisco this week.
With Sept. 11 dramatizing the reality of terrorists willing to die for their cause, the cost of security measures has greatly increased, he explained to the S.F.-based Jewish Community Federation on Monday.
“Radical Islam is the highest threat to America today,” said Schneider, executive director of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, a beneficiary of the JCF that provides rescue, relief and reconstruction efforts oversees.
Blaming the failed economies and social policies and absence of democracy in practically every Muslim country, he said: “If you’re living in a slum in Cairo with no hope of a good life, then the best deal in Islam is to become a martyr and instead…live in paradise. It’s a no-brainer.”
This imminent danger impacts all people, but “especially we as a Jewish people.” It shows in added investments, such as special windows at Israeli schools that turn into powder on impact, instead of shattering like regular ones. That way they won’t “kill kids in a bomb blast.”
“It’s a question of fate, of karma. Who it will hit, we don’t know. Only that it will take adequate safety measures” to protect ourselves, he said.
Such measures can be costly for the JDC, which receives $49 million annually for core programming from the federation system and $150 million from other sources.
The JDC, with its staff of about 1,000, essentially tries to get involved “wherever disaster strikes,” said Schneider, providing help to Jews as well as to non-Jews in more than 57 countries.
Piled atop its primary missions of feeding the hungry and providing welfare and disaster aid worldwide, the demands triggered by recent terror attacks are stressing the Joint’s resources, said Schneider, appealing to the JCF for help.
“We’re asking federations not to withdraw from hunger relief — San Francisco is a role model in that regard,” he said.
At the same time, Schneider emphasized the need for Jews to improve the relations “between ourselves and the Muslims and create a bridge of understanding.”
Although the JDC has been “quietly shipping Jews out of Muslim countries,” including such areas as Yemen, Syria, Albania, Sarajevo and Chechnya, it has also been focusing on overseas programs that help bring Jews and Muslims together.
In Bosnia, for example, the JDC has been the largest supplier of free medicine, filling 1.5 million free prescriptions for Muslims and setting up 13 drug stores.
In the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the JDC has been working with the Palestinian Authority on health-care problems — albeit in a “low-key” fashion to avoid tension or danger to its staff — even establishing the first home for Arab elderly in the Middle East.
“We have to show Muslims that American Jews, world Jewry really, has nothing against them per se. We have to separate what’s happening in Israel from the rest of the world.”
So far the JDC is unclear whether it will get involved in Afghanistan. In the past, when there was a larger population of Jews living there, (about 15 to 20 as opposed to the two there now), food packages were sent to Kabul.
In addition to its work in Muslim countries, the JDC is perhaps best known for its efforts in the former Soviet Union. Of the 259,000 Jews living there, Schneider said that at least 55 to 60 percent are victims of Nazi persecution.
Partnering with the Claims Conference, a New-York based organization that collects reparations for Nazi war crimes, the JDC spends $50 million a year to feed ex-Soviets in need, most of them elderly. Moving them all out of the former Soviet Union and into Israel, as the JDC sometimes does, would cost $2 billion to $3 billion.
It would also cripple Israel’s social services and cause turmoil.
“Imagine the resentment of a man, who moved to Israel in the 1920s, whose sons had fought in the army, if he was suddenly bumped out of his position in line for a rest home by a Jew from Siberia in worse shape then him.”
Instead, in addition to its welfare efforts, the JDC is involved in rebuilding Jewish communal infrastructure in the former Soviet Union, training leaders, encouraging local philanthropy and refurbishing buildings.
The JDC is also been playing an active role in keeping small Jewish communities alive, whether that of the 6,000 Jews in Morocco, the 5,000 Jews in Bombay or 1,500 Jews in Belgrade, primarily focusing on the schools and the elderly.
“They want to be Jewish,” he explained. “They just need the motivation.”
Assisting these small communities is of the utmost importance since “once they die out,” he said, “they die forever.”