A Sabbath eve chicken dinner is no big deal to U.S. Jews. But the Friday night dinner Joshua M. Fogelson attended last month was different.
For one, it took place in Havana, Cuba. For another, of the 1,200 Jews who live in that city — the majority of the 1,500 on the entire island — some 500 people attended the dinner.
Why? Not so much to hear the sermon, Fogelson joked in his presentation to about 15 Milwaukee Jewish Federation staff members on March 22, two days after he returned from Cuba.
Rather, the ration of meat for adults in Cuba is about ¾ of a pound per person per month. “There’s not a lot of protein” in Cuban diets, Fogelson said.
And if the country is so poor, where does that special dinner come from? It comes from the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, the organization for which Fogelson, 54, is the executive director for strategic development.
This is just one example of the JDC’s work in some 80 countries around the world — work that to a significant extent is funded by U.S. Jewish federation annual campaigns.
In his presentation, Fogelson described six primary tasks the JDC performs.
• Rescue of Jewish communities in danger. This is not so necessary now, as “Jews anywhere in the world can leave” their countries, Fogelson said. But it could become necessary at any time — potentially, for example, for the 25,000 Jews still living in Muslim fascist-ruled Iran.
• Relief of Jews in physical and material need. This work today is being done primarily in nations of the former Soviet Union and in Eastern Europe, which regions contain some of the poorest countries in Europe, Fogelson said. In such places, the JDC helps provide food and medical care to Jews who might not otherwise receive them.
• Rebuilding Jewish communal life in places where it has been nearly destroyed. The JDC performs this work also primarily in the former Soviet Union, where an estimated between 1 and 2 million Jews still live.
Fogelson described how the JDC has built Jewish community centers and camps, and instituted programs for college students. “Between these different programs, Jewish identity is forming” in these areas, he said.
Some 20,000 Jews were living there in 1959, when the Fidel Castro communist regime took over, Fogelson said. About 95 percent of the community left. Those who remained couldn’t carry on Jewish life in the officially atheistic state.
However, in 1991, the government changed its orientation from atheist to secular and began to tolerate some religious activity. So the Jewish community turned to the JDC for help in such matters as holding Sabbath dinners and building Jewish culture, Fogelson said.
• Enhancing social services in Israel. JDC initiates a wide range of programs to assist vulnerable populations in Israel, including youth at risk, elderly and disabled people, and the chronically unemployed.
However, JDC mounts such programs only when the Israeli government invites it to do so, and only if a national or local governmental body will be a financial partner, said Fogelson. Moreover, these are all “pilot programs” that JDC works with for the first three years, after which they become self-sustaining, he said.
• Non-sectarian disaster relief. In partnership with Jewish federations, the JDC collects funds for assistance in response to natural disasters.
For example, JDC raised some $8 million in response to the Haiti earthquake, which was used to build schools and to help rehabilitate people who had lost limbs because of the disaster, Fogelson said.
The JDC last year had a budget of $344 million. Of that, its “core budget” is $68.6 million, of which $40.75 million comes from North American Jewish federation campaigns.
The remaining $275.8 million consists of “leveraged funds” that come “from a range of partners,” Fogelson said — foundations, individual donors, $13.4 million from Jewish federations, and some $100 million from Germany and Switzerland in Holocaust restitution funds.
In a conversation with The Chronicle after his presentation, Fogelson, who is based in Minneapolis, said he spends about half his working time traveling within and outside the U.S.
He apparently had wanderlust from early on. A native of Boston, he spent his youth in Minneapolis, earned his undergraduate degree at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, lived in Israel from 1983-90, and worked for Jewish federations in Atlanta, Nashville, and Minneapolis.
He acknowledged that he loves working for the JDC and is “passionate about it.” And as he said to the group, “The work we do is unique and very essential. … The work we do saves lives and provides dignity to Jewish lives.”
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