In Israel, Oldest Charity Assists Tens of Thousands of Ukraine Refugees

JERUSALEM—For most of its 300-year history, Colel Chabad, the oldest charity in the Holy Land, has served Jewish refugees, immigrants and the displaced from around the world. Over the centuries, most who arrived in the land of Israel desperate and impoverished were, as in the current crisis, forced to leave their homelands as a result of war and famine. Even so, the current influx of tens of thousands of refugees from Ukraine—in its suddenness, its size and its demographics—is different than anything Colel Chabad has ever had to deal with for many reasons.

“People have a certain misconception of a refugee,” Rabbi Sholom Duchman, director of Colel Chabad, told Chabad.org. “These are mostly highly educated, successful people who have left everything behind and are arriving without the basic necessities of daily living that we and they have taken for granted. We can’t imagine what that is like. We are trying to provide a small measure of comfort and dignity to the tens of thousands of people who have just lost everything.”

Adding to the refugees’ emotional and financial challenges, most are women and children whose husbands and fathers have not been able to leave along with them—men whose fate may not even be known. This presents extraordinary and unprecedented challenges for social-services organizations like Colel Chabad.

Duchman is quick to point out that one great benefit in this situation is that everything is being done with the help of Chabad-Lubavitch emissaries from Ukraine, who are actively involved in every aspect of the refugees’ journeys, whether to Israel or elsewhere.

“None of what we are doing would be possible without the shluchim (‘emissaries’) in and outside of Ukraine coordinating everything,” says Duchman. In addition to dealing with everything going on at home, they are still taking care of their communities once the refugees arrive in Israel. “In fact, one of the first question that we ask is, ‘Who is your shliach?’”

That is truly important information because as an official organization maintaining ongoing contact with refugees after they arrive in Israel, Colel Chabad is working closely with the Chabad crisis centers that have been a lifeline for Jews of Ukraine, connecting refugees with loved ones still in Ukraine where possible, and providing information for family and friends worldwide.

For individual assistance, Colel Chabad has been enrolling the Ukraine refugees in its gift-card program that enables them to buy food, clothing and cribs for infants; toys for children; and other basics. Funds ranging from 3,000 to 10,000 shekels ($900 to $3,000) are being given to refugee families through this program, enabling them to survive in the short term.

Colel Chabad, which runs an extensive network of food programs in public facilities and for the homeboud is gearing up to provide food assistance to refugees. (File photo)

Longer-term, there will be additional benefits from the government ministries that are not equipped to process such massive needs in such short order. Even in normal times, the relevant ministries rely on Colel Chabad to be a key provider of social services. As a result, it has the long-established connections required to speed up a process that normally could take months.

In addition to the basics, Colel Chabad has become a central hub for logistics and information for the refugees. As the oldest charity in Israel, it is uniquely set up to coordinate an operation on this scale, notes Duchman. With connections forged from centuries of helping people, their range of influence stretches from local municipalities to customs officials to the medical field.

There are people who need Covid vaccines, medication or even hospitalization. All of this is arranged by Colel Chabad. Staff are also working closely with local municipalities to arrange housing and other provisions. More than $3.5 million has already been spent.

The organization has expertise in programs like this one for widows and orphans, which will be of benefit to the thousands of separated families (File photo)

The Rebbe’s Ongoing Inspiration

The close cooperation between Colel Chabad and the various agencies in Israel responsible for immigrants and the poor that is making this work possible is the result of the inspiration, guidance and direction of the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory. The Rebbe guided the activities of Colel Chabad from the very beginning of the modern state of Israel in 1948. And it is the ongoing inspiration of the Rebbe’s vision and values that inform all of the organization's activities today.

One ongoing project, said Rabbi Mendy Blau, director of Colel Chabad operations in Israel, is helping to care for the 140 children and their chaperones from Zhytomyr who arrived last week in Israel. In addition to providing clothing, toys and other necessities, Colel Chabad is providing three healthy meals a day for the entire group and has dispatched social workers who regularly work with orphans and widows.

Colel Chabad is the oldest continuously run charity in the Holy Land. (File photo)

Colel Chabad will be working closely with others to provide this aid. “There has been a massive outpouring of support,” says Duchman. “So many private companies and charitable organizations have contacted us to distribute and arrange relief.”

A tech company wanted to distribute laptops and cell phones to Ukrainians coming to Israel, but they had no idea how to begin facilitating it, the rabbi says. A call to Colel Chabad made it possible. The same goes for a local mayor whose city just built seven new apartment buildings and wanted to make them available for the new immigrants.

“Since the end of World War II, there has not been such a painful crisis for European Jewry, where families are being torn apart and literally running for their lives,” said Duchman. “The blessing is that Israel is here, and the Jewish world is an altogether different place, so that we can give these children and adults the assurance that they are being cared for and will get what they need.”

A Jewish mother and child on their way to Israel (Photo: Nati Shohat/Flash90)