Jewish coalition for Syrian refugees awards $148K to groups working in Hungary, Turkey

Fearing for their lives, an estimated 2.5 million Syrians have fled the fighting that has plagued their country. Women and especially adolescent girls have had to flee for an additional reason – it has been their best way to escape an escalating epidemic of kidnapping and rape. For these reasons, the Jewish community has mobilized to support those displaced by war.

JTA — The Jewish Coalition for Syrian Refugees has awarded $148,000 in new grants to address the welfare of refugee women and children and to ensure psychosocial support for first responders.

The coalition of Jewish organizations, which two weeks ago expanded to address the needs of refugees and migrants in Europe (including Turkey), as well as in Jordan, announced grants on Sept. 24 to World Jewish Relief, working in partnership with the International Blue Crescent, and to the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, working in partnership with the Turkish Jewish Community and IBC as well as with two local Hungarian NGOs, Menedek and the Student Counseling Center of Szeged University.

Since expanding its efforts, the coalition, a subgroup of the Jewish Coalition for Disaster Relief, has raised more than $200,000, on top of the more than $500,00 it had raised for its work in Jordan since 2013.

“While the Jewish humanitarian response to this crisis emerges from the Jewish people’s historic experience of displacement, our focus on vulnerable refugee women and children and the care of first responders represents our desire to provide immediate relief for those whose burdens are disproportionately felt in a situation of this magnitude,” Will Recant, who coordinates the coalition, said in a news release issued by the coalition.

Recant is also JDC’s assistant executive vice president.

Among the services the grants will cover are providing winter clothing and sleeping bags to refugee children, a mother-child health care unit at a refugee camp and psychosocial support for hundreds of humanitarian first responders working with refugees in Hungary.

The Jewish Coalition for Syrian Refugees previously aided thousands of Syrian refugees through more than $500,000 in grants for humanitarian aid in Jordan, helping spur the founding of an interfaith movement advocating for the needs of the Syrian refugee populations.

Coalition member organizations include North American groups like the American Jewish Committee, the JDC and the Anti-Defamation League, as well as the umbrella groups for the Reform and Conservative movements, and international groups like the World Jewish Congress.

For a full list of members or to make a contribution, visit: www.jcdr.org.