Aid from American Jewry to Lebanon in the wake of the war there has topped $1 million, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. The sum includes more than $320,000 in cash — in gifts large and small pouring in from Jewish organizations, institutions and individuals — and the value of double that sum in aid-in-kind, such as clothing and blankets. American-Jewish participation in Lebanon relief began in mid-June with a JDC commitment of $100,000.
The JDC told the JTA it is effecting its assistance “through Lebanese rather than Israeli frameworks,” but “Israeli government representatives are kept duly informed of JDC activities and the cooperation of the chief of civilian relief for the Israeli government is continuously elicited.”
The JDC is coordinating its efforts in Lebanon with other voluntary organizations, among them the Lebanese Red Cross, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), Terre des Hommes, Caritas (Carbolic), the International Rescue Committee, the Christian Embassy of Jerusalem, and the “Voice of Hope” radio.
RECENT JDC ACTIVITIES
Recent JDC activities in Lebanon include:
Delivery of some 20 tons of used clothing collected by the municipality of Jerusalem and distributed by the JDC to Christian groups in Sidon and Palestinian refugees in the Ein Hilweh camp near Sidon.
* Funding the construction of a prefabricated building on the grounds of the Sidon government hospital to serve as a treatment center for malnourished children from the nearby refugee camps.
* An emergency campaign to innoculate all the children in south Lebanon against polio following discovery of three cases in the area. Some 60,000 children under three years of age were innoculated by early August in cooperation with the Lebanese Red Cross and UNRWA. The JDC funded hiring of minibuses to reach for flung villages. The anti-polio serum was provided by the Israeli and the Lebanese ministries of health.
* Five thousand packets of oral dehydration solution purchased in early August to combat dysentery — the number one killer of young children. Packets were distributed to Lebanese government facilities and to UNRWA clinics (serving the Palestinians).
* The JDC purchased supplies for eight out- patient clinics and hospitals in south Lebanon operated by both the government and UNRWA. Purchases included five kidney dialysis machines.
* The JDC enabled Tyre city authorities to lease bulldozers and earthmovers to remove debris from 36 of the worst war-damage sites in the city — to permit the start of rehabilitation work on sewage, water and housing.
* As one of the first relief agencies on the scene, the JDC provided local people with immediately necessary cleaning-up materials: mattresses, 900 cartons of cooking and eating utensils (each for a family of six), 15,000 plastic garbage bags, brooms, mops, brushes and pans.
Additional JDC relief material trucked into South Lebanon included 17 tons of powdered milk for infants, three tons of anti-biotic syrup, medicines and vitamins for children, 40 cartons of baby food, and 500 baby bottles.
The JDC is now preparing long-term rehabilitation plans which will be the basis of the JDC’s application to the U.S. Agency for International Development for a special grant.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
