Edgar Snyder to Lead Local Effort

The United Jewish Federation of Pittsburgh will join federations throughout North America in launching a special campaign to help provide expanded lifesaving services to Ethiopian Jews and Jews in the former Soviet Union.

Called Operation Promise, the campaign, to be launched this spring, will have a $2.3 million goal as part of a North American goal of $160 million. The funding will be provided over a three-year period and will supplement the UJF Annual Community Campaign.

"Operation Promise is an important commitment we must make to fulfill our obligation to take care of those needy Jews who rely on us so they can live with some modicum of dignified life," said Barbara Burstin, UJF Chair of the Board. "Our leadership recognizes that it's not only important to increase their commitment to the 2006 UJF Annual Campaign but to also support Operation Promise for the life-saving services it will provide to these vulnerable populations."

Edgar Snyder, who co-chaired the Israel Emergency Appeal with the late Karen Shapira, has been named chair of Operation Promise. Snyder is also chair of the UJF's Israel and World Jewry Commission and serves as a member of the Israel and Overseas Pillar of United Jewish Communities. UJC, the United Jewish Federation's national organization, is coordinating Operation Promise.

Snyder is currently on a fact-finding North American mission to Ethiopia. He is also being accompanied by Meryl Ainsman, co-chair of the UJF's Israel and World Jewry Commission, and Brian Eglash, Director of Campaign and Resource Development.

They are among Jewish volunteer leaders and professionals from across North America who traveled to Ethiopia last week and arrived in Israel this week. They also accompanied an airlift of Ethiopians arriving in the Jewish homeland.

The fact-finding mission brought 101 mission participants from 26 communities to Israel, Addis Ababa and the Gondar region, and finally back to Israel. In Ethiopia, the mission visited a health clinic the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee operates; a North American Conference on Ethiopian Jewry compound with classrooms, crafts workshops and a feeding center; and the former Jewish village of Woloka. In Israel, the mission visited Ethiopian immigrants at an absorption center in Lod; an Ethiopian National Project program in Netanya; a Jewish Agency for Israel youth village; and JDC's Parents and Children Together (PACT) program, among other activities.

"In deciding whether to take this chairmanship, I knew that if Karen (Shapira) were here today and knowing the great work she had started on behalf of the Ethiopian community, she would have asked me to do this," said Snyder. "Karen knew the importance of helping the Ethiopians achieve their dream of going to Israel and ensuring they have a very successful absorption into Israeli society."

Shapira, a past chair of the UJF and a national Jewish community leader, went on a fact-finding mission to Ethiopia in 2003 on behalf of United Jewish Communities to assess the situation in Ethiopia. She later briefed high-level Israeli government officials, including Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, on the dire needs of Ethiopian Jews waiting to immigrate to Israel.

"I want to do this for Karen and continue the work she started," said Snyder.

Operation Promise comprises five parts. The first three parts call for $23 million in new funding to bring the Falas Mura from Ethiopia to Israel, $40 million for absorbing them, and $37 million to better integrate Ethiopians through improved education.

The Falas Mura are Ethiopian Jews who were converted to Christianity generations ago under duress. They have never forgotten their identity and have made a decision to convert back to Judaism. Their Jewish heritage was authenticated by the Chief Rabbi of Israel and he declared they can come to Israel under the Law of Return.

Currently, compounds exist in Ethiopia where the Falas Mura live while they wait to immigrate to Israel. Operation Promise will provide assistance to the Ethiopians with food, housing, healthcare, Hebrew-language education and eventually transportation costs to Israel. The UJF's overseas partners, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and the Jewish Agency for Israel, are providing these services on the ground in Ethiopia.

As the arrival of the Falas Mura to Israel is expected to double from 300 to 600 a month, Operation Promise will allow for expansion of the programs and services to support the Ethiopians in Israel. There are currently 20,000 Falas Mura waiting in Ethiopia to immigrate to Israel.

The Falas Mura arriving in Israel join an Ethiopian Israeli population of more than 100,000. This includes thousands of children who were born to those rescued in Operation Moses in the early 1980s and the dramatic airlift of Operation Solomon on May 30, 1991.

"Unless we are able to provide critical initiatives to improve educational opportunities for all Ethiopians, they are in danger of becoming part of a permanent underclass," Snyder said.

The remaining two parts of Operation Promise earmark $30 million in aid to improvished elderly in the former Soviet Union (FSU) and $30 million to be used to build Jewish identity among young Jews in the FSU.

"The amazing work we have accomplished in the FSU in the first 15 years of Jewish freedom demonstrates what is possible," Snyder said. "I have visited many of the countries of the FSU frequently in recent years and I have seen with my own eyes the plight of the people there. The needs are absolutely tremendous. People do not have enough to eat and are unable to receive proper medical care," Snyder added.

The elderly Jews in the former Soviet Union who have been designated as Nazi victims by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany receive roughly $260 per person annually in food, medicines, home care and social programs.

However, nearly half of the estimated 232,000 elderly Jews in the FSU are not considered Nazi victims. They are able to receive only half that amount through the JDC. Operation Promise will bridge that gap.

Amid these conditions in the FSU there is also the great risk of assimilation among the young people. An estimated 50,000 young Jews live throughout the FSU and all are considered at high risk for assimilation.

As a result the Jewish Agency for Israel has launched intensive Jewish and Israel-oriented identity development programs. Operation Promise will enable these programs to continue and expand to allow for greater participation of young Jews.