IsraAID activated domestic emergency operations immediately following the October 7 violence, the organization reported. The agency has sustained assistance delivery to at-risk Israeli populations for 26 months since, according to IsraAID. The Taipei office has joined international and charitable contributions to support multiple intervention streams: partnership with "255" establishing tailored support architectures for freed captives and family members; "Nitzanim Shel Ofir," a community-originated youth activation program at Kibbutz Kfar Aza; expressive arts therapy at Kibbutz Beeri, plus additional undertakings, the organization stated.

During her November 27 tour of Kibbutz Kfar Aza, the head of the Taipei office, Representative Abby Lee said the following, according to IsraAID:

"We are pleased to join the efforts of IsraAID in the reconnection, empowerment and rehabilitation projects in Kfar Aza, Beeri and with hostages and their extended families... I hope that the projects we are partnering on with IsraAID will help young leaders to reconnect to their communities and cultivate a sense of togetherness."

IsraAID Chief Executive Yotam Polizer expressed appreciation, saying it was "a powerful statement of solidarity."

IsraAID's intervention philosophy emphasizes extended presence in affected regions, working to amplify indigenous resilience mechanisms for sustainable futures, the organization stated. Alliances like the Taipei office collaboration enable persistent influence with crisis-impacted communities across national and international contexts, the announcement concluded.

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For years, Zebulon Simentov branded himself as the "last Jew of Afghanistan," the sole remnant of a centuries-old community. He charged reporters for interviews and held court in Kabul's only remaining synagogue. He left the country last month for Istanbul after the Taliban seized power.

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Now it appears he was not the last one.

Simentov's distant cousin, Tova Moradi, was born and raised in Kabul and lived there until last week, more than a month after Simentov departed in September. Fearing for their safety, Moradi, her children, and nearly two dozen grandchildren fled the country in recent weeks in an escape orchestrated by an Israeli aid group, activists, and prominent Jewish philanthropists.

"I loved my country, loved it very much, but had to leave because my children were in danger," Moradi told The Associated Press from her modest quarters in the Albanian town of Golem, whose beachside resorts have been converted to makeshift homes for some 2,000 Afghan refugees.

Moradi, 83, was one of 10 children born to a Jewish family in Kabul. At age 16, she ran away from home and married a Muslim man. She never converted to Islam, maintained some Jewish traditions, and it was no secret in her neighborhood that she was Jewish.

"She never denied her Judaism, she just got married in order to save her life as you cannot be safe as a young girl in Afghanistan," Moradi's daughter, Khorshid, told The Associated Press from her home in Canada, where she and three of her siblings moved after the Taliban first seized power in Afghanistan in the 1990s.

Despite friction over her decision to marry outside the faith, Moradi said she stayed in touch with some of her family over the years. Her parents and siblings fled Afghanistan in the 1960s and 1980s. Her parents are buried at Jerusalem's Har Menuhot cemetery, and many of her surviving siblings and their descendants live in Israel.

But until this week, she had not spoken to some of her sisters in over half a century.

"Yesterday, I saw my sisters, nieces, and nephews after around 60 years through a video call. We spoke for hours," Moradi said. "I was really happy, I saw their children and they met mine."

"They said 'it's like she came back from the grave,'" Khorshid said.

During the first period of Taliban rule, from 1996 until the 2001 US-led invasion, Moradi tried to maintain a low profile, but she risked her life by hiding Rabbi Isaak Levi, one of the few remaining Afghan Jews, from the Taliban.

Levi and Simentov lived together for years in the decrepit synagogue in Kabul but famously despised one another and fought often. The Taliban usually left them alone, but intervened during one such dispute, arresting them, beating them, and confiscating the synagogue's ancient Torah scroll, which went missing after the Taliban were driven from power.

"Isaak came to our home during the Taliban and we hid him for a month," Moradi said, as her grandson assisted her in retelling the story. They said when the Taliban came looking for him they said he was a Muslim. She made preparations to smuggle the rabbi out of the country, but his health degraded and he died in 2005. Simentov said he was happy to be rid of him.

Levi's remains were flown to Israel for burial, and Moradi has kept his old passport as a memento.

When the Taliban returned to power in August, weeks before the US completed its withdrawal after 20 years of war, Moradi and her family feared for their lives.

Khorshid said a relative had met an Orthodox Jewish businessman in Toronto, Joseph Friedberg, some years ago. After the fall of Kabul, he ran into Friedberg and sought help.

"He came to me and said 'they are going to kill my mother,'" Friedberg said. Friedberg said he reached out to IsraAid, an Israeli non-governmental humanitarian organization.

IsraAid CEO Yotam Polizer said the organization, which has provided relief after disasters such as the Japanese tsunami in 2011 and the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, had already successfully extracted the Afghan women's cycling team and dozens of other Afghans from the country when it got word about Moradi and her family.

He said the two-month-long endeavor to get them out was assisted by Afghan diplomats overseas, Israeli President Isaac Herzog's office, and Jewish businessmen, including Israeli-Kazakh billionaire Alexander Mashkevich and Israeli-Canadian billionaire Sylvan Adams, who tapped contacts in Israel, Albania, Canada, and Tajikistan to help facilitate the family's escape.

Mashkevich said he "involved all my friends because it was very difficult."

The Israeli president's office declined to comment.

"We are so thankful that they are safe now," Khorshid said. "For the last two months since the Taliban takeover, I did not sleep at night."

Now, Moradi and six of her relatives are in Albania, and another 25 relatives made it to Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates earlier this week. They hope to secure passage to Canada to reunite with her children who live there.

She also expressed hope she could visit Israel, see her siblings, and pray at the graves of her parents in Jerusalem. Her family in Israel could not be reached for comment.

"We still need for them to reach their final destination," Polizer said. "We're worried that they'll be stuck in limbo."

Adams, the Israeli-Canadian businessman, said he has appealed to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's office and Canada's immigration minister on behalf of Moradi in an effort to secure visas for the family, but efforts were hampered by September's Canadian election.

"We are in close contact and trying to put the appropriate amount of urgency in describing their plight," Adams said.

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Aid efforts to get to the remote site of Saturday's deadly earthquake in Haiti are ongoing but are being hampered by a tropical storm that brought heavy rains to the region.

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Among agencies providing assistance is the Israel nongovernmental IsraAID, which also provided help to the island nation following a 2010 earthquake and 2016 hurricane.

IsraAID spokesperson Ethan Schwartz told Jewish News Syndicate that two international team members, including the group's emergency coordinator for Haiti, were expected to land in Haiti on Tuesday and "will connect with our in-country team of Haitian former IsraAID staff members and partners, who are currently being mobilized to support this emergency response."

"Our initial priorities will be distributing urgently needed relief items and personal protective equipment, safe water provision, and providing psychosocial and mental health support to affected communities in the midst of this disaster," he continued.

As many as 2,000 people have been confirmed dead in the wake of the August 14 quake, which registered a magnitude 7.2 on the Richter scale, with some 7,000 more injured and homeless. Additionally, authorities are saying that nearly 85,000 houses have been damaged or destroyed, along with public infrastructure, including hospitals, schools and bridges.

Adding to the misery was the arrival on Monday of Tropical Storm Grace, which dumped at least five inches of rain on the island.

"Last night, I saw strong winds and heavy rainfall strike the same areas already affected by the earthquake," UNICEF's representative in Haiti Bruno Maes said in a press release on Tuesday. "Countless Haitian families who have lost everything due to the earthquake are now living literally with their feet in the water due to the flooding."

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He added that "right now, about half a million Haitian children have limited or no access to shelter, safe water, health care and nutrition."

Schwartz noted that the storm "compounds the existing emergency situation for communities affected by the earthquake, and, of course, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. With that in mind, our team is preparing to respond to these multiple concurrent emergencies when they arrive in the affected area."

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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In response to the devastating coronavirus outbreak in India, now at the epicenter of the pandemic, Israeli humanitarian-aid agency IsraAID will provide urgently needed medical supplies to the beleaguered nation.

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According to the World Health Organization's weekly epidemiological update on the virus, India has reported some 2.7 million new cases as of April 27 and more than 15,000 deaths in the last week alone. Since the pandemic began, there have been 17 million cases and nearly 200,000 deaths.

Hospitals, which have become full, are in dire need of oxygen. On social media, images of mass cremations have gone viral.

"The scale of the crisis currently unfolding in India is simply overwhelming. As a humanitarian organization that has responded to COVID-19 in 17 countries up to now, we felt we could not just stand by," IsraAID CEO Yotam Polizer said.

The organization will be sending medical equipment and supplies, including crucial oxygen concentrators, to health-care facilities and organizations in India.

According to a news release, IsraAID will also explore technological solutions to meet gaps in COVID-19 response and care, including data management, logistical support and vaccinations. It will also respond to the growing mental-health crisis left in the pandemic's wake by offering self-care programs for frontline health workers to build community resilience and "help the helpers."

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To have the most impact, staff will be working with their partners on the ground in India, including health-care organizations and civil-rights groups, and with the Israel-India Forum at Tel Aviv University. Relationships between the two countries have grown notably closer in the past few years.

Noting that life in Israel is returning to a pre-pandemic "normal," Politzer said, "it is crucial to remember our shared responsibility to partner with communities facing the worst of it.

"The pandemic will not be over for anybody until it is over for everybody," he concluded.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org

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"What happened now is an unprecedented disaster in the United States," said Seth Davis, executive director of the nongovernmental group IsraAID US. "We felt it was important to activate our local members. There was a huge gap because food pantries were seeing a decrease in volunteers, and yet there was a huge increase in the need for food." 

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Working with several other partners, including the Merage Institute and Shalom Corps, IsraAID reached out to local community members and asked for volunteers to help pack and distribute boxes of food on behalf of the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank. The boxes are distributed at Los Angeles public schools with parents coming to pick up prepared school lunches for their children. Each box contains enough food to feed a family of 4 for 1 week.

Some IsraAID volunteers help in the warehouse sorting food while others are on the front lines of the distribution – putting boxes directly into the cars of families when they arrive to get the food.

According to Davis, in just the first week, "we facilitated 30 volunteers and assisted with the distribution of 21,000 boxes, which feeds approximately 58,000 people. It's expanding very fast."

Because many children rely on the Los Angeles Unified School District for both breakfast and lunch, IsraAID asked the Modern Orthodox Pico-Robertson section for assistance.

Flora Glouberman, chair of the Chesed Committee at Young Israel of Century City, has been organizing support initiatives for area residents. When she previously asked for volunteers to shop for the elderly or immune-compromised, she had more helpers sign up than people who needed help.

When she heard about the new food-distribution efforts from her rabbi, Rabbi Elazar Mushkin, she immediately shared it.

"I thought it was a real kiddush Hashem ["sanctification of God's name"]. There's a real need to help everybody," she said. "Whenever there is a crisis, it's beautiful to see how many are willing to go out and help."

Los Angeles isn't the only place where IsraAID is stepping up its efforts. They are also helping with food-distribution programs in San Jose and the San Francisco Bay region, and in San Diego.

The organization is also looking to assist with the emotional impact of the COVID-19 outbreak, particularly in hard-hit areas of New York.

"There will be a high level of trauma that will need to be dealt with, and there has not enough talk about mental-health [issues] that people will endure," said Davis. "It will take years to bounce back, so we are now assessing which partners to work with so we can do this over the next year."

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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