Religious Charities Commit $52 Million to Help Elderly Jews

September 26, 2016 | Read Time: 1 minute

Two large religious charities have announced a $52 million commitment to provide food and medicine to elderly Jews — including Holocaust survivors — in the former Soviet Union.

The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews has established the IFCJ Food and Medicine Lifeline, which will deliver assistance to tens of thousands of poor, elderly Jews through a network of local agencies run by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.

“Too many Jews around the world, but especially in the former Soviet Union, struggle to meet their most basic needs, including securing the food and medicine they need simply to survive,” Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, the fellowship’s president, said in a written statement.

The four-year commitment marks a significant expansion of the two-decade partnership between the two nonprofits.

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About the Author

NICOLE WALLACE

Features Editor

Nicole Wallace is features editor of the Chronicle of Philanthropy. She has written about innovation in the nonprofit world, charities’ use of data to improve their work and to boost fundraising, advanced technologies for social good, and hybrid efforts at the intersection of the nonprofit and for-profit sectors, such as social enterprise and impact investing.Nicole spearheaded the Chronicle’s coverage of Hurricane Katrina recovery efforts on the Gulf Coast and reported from India on the role of philanthropy in rebuilding after the South Asian tsunami. She started at the Chronicle in 1996 as an editorial assistant compiling The Nonprofit Handbook.Before joining the Chronicle, Nicole worked at the Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs and served in the inaugural class of the AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps.A native of Columbia, Pa., she holds a bachelor’s degree in foreign service from Georgetown University.