JDC: Leaving No One Behind

When Nofar Elkabetz gets ready for work every morning, she sees a confident, strong, and independent woman in the mirror. “If you had seen me a few years ago, I would have been completely different,” she says. Nofar was born with cerebral palsy and has used a motorized wheelchair all her life. After years in institutional housing, she began participating in Supported Housing, a program developed by JDC and the Israeli government that helped Nofar locate an apartment suitable for her needs and develop independent life skills.

“Moving to my own apartment in the wider community changed my life,” says Nofar, who now enjoys a self-sufficient life together with her husband. She manages her monthly budget, works, drives, and chooses how she wants to live every day. In Israel, there are about a million people with disabilities of working age like Nofar – and ensuring they have a path to autonomy has been a multi-year priority for JDC.

“Independent living is a critical right for people with disabilities and that is why it is one of five areas of life JDC focuses on today in Israel,” says Sigal Shelach, Ph.D., Executive Director of Israel Programs for JDC. “In addition, we address socioeconomic mobility for children and young people from the periphery; optimal aging at a time of longer lifespans; quality employment and increased workforce productivity; and increasing the efficiency of public systems in Israel.”

More than a century of commitment

As Israel marks its 75th anniversary, the innovative, vibrant, and diverse Start-Up Nation is one of the leaders among the OECD countries in economic growth, low unemployment rates, high life expectancy, very high rates of higher education, and more.

This success story has another side: Israeli society also leads in socioeconomic disparities among the OECD countries, including high poverty rates, low median wages, low productivity, and inequality in education. Given projected growth trends of Haredi and Arab communities, aging populations, and the accelerated pace of digitalization, today’s socioeconomic challenges are expected to grow – and Israel is working to address this.

That’s where the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC or The Joint) comes in. JDC, the world's largest Jewish humanitarian organization, works in 70 countries around the globe to aid needy Jews and build Jewish life; and improves the lives of Israel's most vulnerable by reducing the most pressing socioeconomic gaps.

JDC’s success in these efforts results from leveraging its extensive professional experience developing longstanding and innovative programs in Israel and around the world, together with its unique ability to create complex partnerships among the government, local municipalities, NGOs, philanthropy, business, and at-risk communities. These factors uniquely position JDC to create social opportunity across Israel.

Since 1914, JDC has invested more than NIS 10 billion in the humanitarian and social needs of vulnerable populations in the land of Israel. Even before the founding of the State, the organization established soup kitchens and educational and social welfare institutions. After 1948, at the invitation of the Israeli government, JDC provided direct social services to the elderly and people with disabilities; and established geriatric hospitals and medical institutions, the social work profession in Israel, civil society organizations, and more.

Two decades later, JDC transformed its strategic government partnerships from providing direct services to developing expansive and scalable social services. The model was based on developing innovative pilots in select locations, alongside accompanying research. If the pilot proved successful, responsibility was transferred to the government to expand the program to all parts of the country, and then JDC proceeded with R&D on the next pilot.

The largest – and some of the most renowned – social services in Israel were developed through this model, including day centers and associations for the elderly, early childhood centers, the first child development center in Israel, employment centers for Haredi and Arab communities, regional clusters of local municipalities, Community Courts, and social clubs for Holocaust survivors.

“JDC's unique working model in Israel creates impact at the individual level and the systemic level throughout the country. For the vulnerable, the change is nothing short of life-changing. For the country, it fosters innovative expertise in the social service space resulting in groundbreaking impact on a national scale and makes Israel a leader in such efforts, sharing knowledge with Jewish communities, social service institutions, and governments worldwide,” explains Shelach.

Closing the digital gap

The dynamic and rapid pace of digitalization across the country has created great opportunities for many Israelis, but some parts of the population are not able to access these advances. For Avraham, who hails from a Haredi family, participating in the country’s tech boom was out of reach. At age 30, after years of studying Jewish religious texts at a yeshiva and kollel, he decided that the best way to support his large family was to pursue a tech career. But five years later, despite earning a B.A. in computer science from the Jerusalem College of Technology, Avraham could not find work. All his applications were met with the same response: come back after you’ve gained some on-the-job experience.

So Avraham joined JDC’s TechVenture’s bootcamp for Haredim with little or no work experience and a desire to grow in their careers. The program aims to increase the participation of Haredim in Israel’s high-tech industry and ensure their advancement.

While the Haredi community is 13% of Israeli society, it's only 3% of the high-tech workforce. JDC, in partnership with the Israeli government, the Haredi Coalition for Employment, and leading high-tech employers, utilize TechVenture to offer the training, mentoring, and assistance for Haredim to achieve success in this industry.

“This course changed my life,” said Avraham, who today has a job at Intel after gaining the experience he needed to jumpstart his career. “Just a few months ago, I was so frustrated that I almost gave up on ever working in high-tech, but now – the sky is the limit.”

For over 22,000 residents living in the southern Bedouin town of Kuseife, even clicking on a link used to be a frustrating challenge. “Some of the residents served by the council live in Bedouin areas that have no infrastructure – many without electricity or internet,” says Hussam Abu Siam, the Municipal Resources Integrator of Kuseife Municipality.

As part of JDC’s Digital Transformation in Local Government initiative, a strategic digital masterplan was created for the coming three years. WiFi was then deployed throughout the community and the municipality began meeting its residents’ needs in the most advanced way, by leveraging technology. Within the first year of the implementation of the digital masterplan, 50% registered digitally for educational enrollment. Today, almost all do so.

“It’s very encouraging,” says Abu Siam. “People’s lives are improved instantly with services available on their smartphones. We must move forward in closing the digital gap to improve the quality of life for the people of Kuseife.”

From risk to opportunity

Yael is a 36 year-old single mother from a low-income community in the south of Israel. After a difficult divorce, she was left with significant debt. She tried unsuccessfully to make a payment agreement with the bank, and her accounts were foreclosed. “I was facing debts to the municipality, to the bank, and impending eviction from my apartment, where I lived with three small children,” Yael recalls. “The bank demanded that I sell the apartment or be brought to court to give up ownership so that they could sell it to repay what I owed.”

Yael is one of more than half a million Israelis currently in debt, one-third of whom are young adults or families with children. For vulnerable Israelis, consumer debt and over-indebtedness ruins most prospects for social mobility. Families in debt enter a crushing cycle of continual repayment, insufficient disposable income, and increased levels of debt that are difficult to break without professional intervention.

Over the past year, JDC laid the foundations for a pioneering initiative that seeks to relieve the debt burden for struggling Israelis, with a focus on young Israelis and the Arab community. JDC has already succeeded in building a set of collaborative arrangements with nonprofits, including Ogen (formerly the Israel Free Loan Association) and the government, that will provide the impetus necessary to get this initiative off the ground. The program gave Yael a grant and a financial advisor who helped her arrange with the bank to remove the foreclosure from her account.

“I'm now working to repay the loan every month, and meet my mortgage payments,” Yael says. “Me and my children are safe in our home and can live our lives.”

New life at an older age

As Israel's population ages and average life expectancy increases, about 20% of older adults are in functional decline, creating a new cycle of risk that will see this number surge to 43% by 2035. To respond to this challenge, JDC and the Israeli government have been developing a set of unique initiatives for geriatric rehabilitation in the community.

For Ruth, an 88-year-old from central Israel, it was a transformative experience. “After surviving breast cancer, I have been diagnosed with Parkinson’s,” says Ruth. She began suffering from tremors, dizziness, falls, and difficulty with articulation and drinking; cognitively, she was unable to plan her daily and weekly routines. Thanks to JDC's Geriatric Rehabilitation Center, Ruth was offered a holistic personal treatment plan: she consulted with a geriatric doctor and receives physiotherapy, speech therapy, occupational therapy, guidance from a social worker, and spiritual care.

“Over several months, these interrelated therapies enabled me to reach all my rehabilitation goals. My symptoms have become more manageable, with the dizziness and falling virtually eliminated, and my ability to plan complex tasks largely restored,” she said. “I regained my independence and could live in my home, in my community.”

Israel’s socioeconomic challenges pose a major threat not only to individuals, but to the whole country. With an annual public budget of almost NIS 15 billion spent on nursing needs for older adults, solutions must be identified, or the needs will outpace available resources.

“This is exactly our role at JDC,” says Shelach. “We look ten years ahead and understand how to prepare today to make sure that at-risk Israelis are not left behind. Together with our partners, we chart a course for a strong future for Israeli society and continue to fulfill the promise we made in 1914 to always be a source of empowerment to Israel’s most vulnerable.”

High-impact partnerships enable global reach

JDC’s work in Israel, in Jewish communities around the world, and for populations facing disaster and strife is driven by high-impact partnerships with philanthropists committed to addressing the Jewish world’s most urgent needs.

JDC receives significant funding for this work from Jewish Federations across North America through cooperation with JFNA and UIA Canada. Major funding partners also include the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, the Maurice and Vivienne Wohl Charitable Foundation, the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation, World Jewish Relief (UK), the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, and tens of thousands of generous individual donors and foundations.

“For more than a century, we have given a voice, face, and dignity to those most in need and put into action the ideal that all Jews are responsible for one another. From our founding in the city of Jerusalem, JDC’s lifesaving and life-affirming work has radiated out to locations from Buenos Aires to Mumbai, from Budapest to Odesa, from Casablanca to Gaziantep, and beyond,” said JDC President Mark Sisisky and CEO Ariel Zwang. “At the heart of this work is a commitment to make the world a better place and to ensure the Jewish people and Israel are stronger for a future we will build together.”

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