Jewish Agency, If You Really Want to Help, Then Don't Help!

כ"ו לחודש השנים עשר תשע"ד

YNET: Jewish Agency to extend emergency aid to Ukraine's Jewish community
As violence rages in Ukraine, Jewish Agency Chairman vows to aid Jewish communities in Ukraine, aims to 'ensure the safety and security of Ukraine's Jews'.

February 23, 2014

Think hard, Natan!
Think hard!

The Jewish Agency will extend immediate emergency assistance to the Jewish community of Ukraine and will help secure Jewish institutions in the country, the Chairman of the Executive of The Jewish Agency for Israel Natan Sharansky (left) announced Saturday.

"The Jewish community of Ukraine, which counts some 200,000 members, is one of most vibrant Jewish communities in the world, with dozens of active Jewish organizations and institutions. Recent events have shown that we must strengthen these institutions' security measures. We have a moral responsibility to ensure the safety and security of Ukraine's Jews," said Sharansky.

The immediate assistance will come from The Jewish Agency's Emergency Assistance Fund for Jewish Communities. The fund was established in the wake of the horrific March 2012 terror attack in Toulouse, in which a Jewish teacher and three Jewish schoolchildren were murdered....

....Dr. Misha Galperin, President and CEO of Jewish Agency International Development, said: "The Jewish Agency had established the Emergency Assistance Fund for Jewish Communities two years ago. We are seeking to replenish the fund now in order to help the Ukrainian Jewish communities with their safety and security costs."

The Ukrainian Jewish community is one of the largest Jewish communities in the world, with some 200,000 members. Most Jews reside in the capital, Kiev, and there are thriving communities in Odessa, Lvov, and Dnepropetrovsk.

During 70 years of Communist rule, Jewish gatherings were prohibited in Ukraine, but after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Jewish institutions began to develop in the country, transforming the Jewish community.

Esser Agaroth (2¢):
Blah, blah, blah,...

The only solution to anti-Semitism, more accurately called Jew-hatred, is Aliyah (Jewish immigration to Israel). Anything less than this is assisted suicide.

And, yes, unintentionally [or not], this is what the (non-) Jewish Agency is doing.

My sources on the inside tell me that the Jewish Agency has a history of active recruiting of goyim (non-Jews) in the Ukraine, without documentation, while religious Jews in the U. S. are asked to track down maternal grave sites, and submit photographs of them in order to prove Jewishness.

Even ardently secular representatives of the Jewish Agency were said to have been appalled by this.

Meanwhile, back in the Ukraine, real Jews who do not have enough money to spare for the train to Kiev or Harkov, in order to begin the Aliyah process at a (non-) Jewish Agency office.

If the (non-) Jewish Agency doesn't care about Israel's so-called "Law of Return," then why should anyone else?

Oh yes, and then there was the firebomb at a Kiev synagogue, and it was not just an unfortunate victim of collateral damage during the ongoing protests there.

Yeshiva World News: Ukraine Shul Targeted in a Firebomb Attack
Monday, February 24th, 2014

(Photo Credit: Chabad.org)

There are growing fears that the civil unrests in Kiev will result in increased anti-Semitism. On Monday morning 24 Adar I, four masked men targeted a shul in Zbarazh in a firebomb attack. The four managed to flee the scene before a watchman could apprehend any of them.

JDN reports that Chabad shaliach in the city, Rabbi Nachum Ehrentreu Shlita, who has been serving as the city and district rav for 17 years, announced efforts to protect the shul and mispallalim are ongoing. The shul complex is fenced in, there is an electric gate, and there are closed circuit TV cameras operating 24 hours daily.

The elegant shul was opened two years ago, donated by philanthropist R’ Yisrael Dovartzki, who is close to Rav Ehrentreu. Tens of Yidden are mispallel in the shul daily, and there are 800 mispallalim on yomim tovim. The shul building is the heart of the kehilla, and it is estimated that there are 10,000 Jews in the entire district.

The Jewish Agency is simply not terribly helpful in assisting Jews make Aliyah, and have turned over some of that responsibility to the Nefesh b'Nefesh organization. There has already been some acknowledgement that Jewish Agency does not claim the role of encouraging Jews to make Aliyah.

In the 1940's, Rabbi Yissachar Shlomo Teichtel hy"d tried to warn Hungarian Jews that staying in Hungary was dangerous, if not fatal. These Haredi, religious Jews were eventually slaughtered not even directly by the Nazis, but with collaboration from Labor Zionists.

Interestingly enough, Rabbi Techtel himself was not killed by Nazis, rather was believed to have killed by a Ukrainian on the train to Auschwitz.

Food for thought.

So, when the (non-) Jewish Agency wants to "help" by strengthening the Jewish communities outside of Israel, instead of designating these same funds for the facilitation of Aliyah, I say that the Jewish Agency simply shouldn't bother.