World Jewish Relief’s annual dinner highlights help for Ukrainian refugees
British Jewish community's humanitarian aid organisation have helped more than 270,000 Ukrainians including thousands of refugees who've fled to the UK.
Justin Cohen is the News Editor at the Jewish News
Stars of the Kiev City Ballet performed to more than 600 people at World Jewish Relief’s annual dinner which showcased the charity’s work in the war-torn country since the outbreak of war two years ago.
The event at the Roundhouse, hosted by broadcaster Kirsty Young, also featured an address by the former British Ambassador to Ukraine Dame Melinda Simmons.
WJR works with partners in 23 countries from Moldova to Uganda, supporting vulnerable people affected by war, natural disaster and climate change. But over the last year the British Jewish community’s humanitarian aid organisation has helped more than 270,000 Ukrainians including thousands of refugees who’ve fled to the UK.
Chair Maurice Helfgott stressed how this work chimed with Jewish values even at a time when “our hearts” are in Israel where the charity has supported two projects since 7 October, and with the hostages in Gaza.
“Many of us felt an even more intense pull towards our Jewish Identity since October,” he told guests including the Chief Rabbi and Sir Clive Alderton, the King’s private secretary.
“An essential strand of that identity, is the responsibility to stand up to evil and injustice, and to support the vulnerable and oppressed wherever they may be. This is the Jewish way and the reason it matters more than ever is because October 7th was not just an attack on Israel. It was an attack on the very idea of Israel and an attack on our very identity as Jewish people. An attack on who we are, what we believe, and what we stand for. We can’t protect those ideals by narrowing our zone of interest.”
The charity’s director of UK programmes Janice Lopatkin spoke about how the charity’s STEP programme has helped more than 7000 refugees with English language and employment support – part of what makes WJR the UK’s largest provider of support to help refugees into work. The programme, she added, has a 40 percent employment rate compared to two percent overall for resettled refugees.
She said: “We have partners in 26 towns and sisters who are proud to work alongside a Jewish organisation. Our aim is to make this available to every refugees in the UK. Since 1933 we have been part of the refugee infrastructure and we’re very proud of our role.”
Opening the night, Young hailed the “compassion, warmth and generosity” of the Jewish community and said she had jumped at the chance to host the event for an organisation that had been responsible for helping Holocaust survivor Sir Ben Helfgott come to the UK.
Describing Sir Ben as trumping celebrities and politicians as her favourite ever Desert Island Discs interviewee, the presenter said: “The remarkable thing about this great man was not his horrendous story but rather his capacity not to hold hatred in his heart. Warmth and goodwill and gratitude shone out of him.”
Dame Melinda hailed the work of WJR in helping Ukrainians in need and while she insisted the country still had “unresolved history” with regards to its treatment of Jews during the Shoah, she pointed to various memorials as evidence of growing efforts to publicly acknowledge this. Her hope, she said, was that sustaining Ukraine in these time would not only protect land and infrastructure but also “sustain the whole of its history”.
CEO Paul Anticoni, who has recently returned from meetings with Government officials and clients in Ukraine, urged guests to continue supporting the country in its “very long hour of need”. Also during the evening, a number of speakers sent warn wishes for a full recovery to WJR patron, King Charles.
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