The Joint

The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (a.k.a. the "Joint") is a Jewish-American charity organization. It was established to aid Jewish communities worldwide with direct financial assistance for and the establishment of projects for development and rehabilitation. Since its foundation, the Joint has supported Jewish communities in more than 85 countries. The committee was established in the United States in 1914 with the unification of three committees that worked to provide aid to European Jews. At first it was aimed at assisting European Jewry during the First World War, working to provide clothing and food to European refugees and to the Yishuv in Eretz Yisrael. Following the war it concentrated on collecting charity for Russian and Polish refugees on the run from pogroms, as well as for the rehabilitation of communities and for funding programs of mutual aid, education and culture. The Joint initiated organizations and loan funds throughout Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, Austria, Turkey and the Baltic States. It also cooperated with the Jewish Colonization Association and ORT in the fields of education, health and agricultural settlement. For a while the Joint also established "Agro-Joint" for executing the Soviet Union government’s agricultural settlement of its Jewry in the Ukraine and granting them the status of peasants in order to save them from starvation. In 1938 the "Agro-Joint" was banished from the Soviet Union. Following the rise of the Nazis in Germany, the Joint turned its efforts to assist German Jewry. Its work included the providing of grants, professional retraining for those forced to leave their place of work due to the Nuremberg Laws, and assisting in opening a network of schools for Jewish children expelled from their schools. The organization also took part in transferring funds to the Jewish underground movement in Poland. However, the Joint’s main activities were aimed at the salvation of European Jewry by financing the escape of approximately 180,000 Jewish citizens from conquered states. After the war the Joint focused on rehabilitating hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees found in the displaced persons camps across Europe. Some refugees were given professional training. Some 115,000 of them made Aliyah to Eretz Yisrael with the help of the Joint and many others were assisted in migrating to the United States, Canada, Australia and South America. Further actions taken by the organization included aid for "Aliyah Bet," as well as supporting 50,000 immigrants found at the detainees’ camps in Cyprus. In Western Europe the Joint helped to reestablish communities which ceased to exist during the war, to form new leadership within them, and to reinstate their formal institutions. The outbreak of the Cold War brought an end to its activities in Eastern Europe, but the Joint managed to continue and provide assistance discreetly. Its activities in Eastern Europe were resumed in the 1980’s. In the first years of the State of Israel the Joint assisted the Jewish Agency with the Aliyah of approximately 440,000 Jews from Eastern Europe, North America, and Sephardic countries. Because many of these immigrants were elderly and could not provide for themselves, the Joint established a fund for the needy immigrants which operated a chain of institutions for rehabilitation, hospitalization and housing. In Israel, the organization changed its status: Not only would it provide services for immigrants and the needy, but it had become a catalyst of social change. Its institutions formed in the first years of the state were transferred in 1969 to the government in the hope to improve their social services by mutual strategic planning. Through this partnership the Joint developed work plans which enabled operating its projects without their direct involvement. In 1983 the organization was given permission of the Ethiopian government to aid Ethiopian Jewry in Gondar. At a later time the organization took part in the Aliyah of Ethiopian Jewry – which reached its climax in 1991. Today, the Joint is focused on improving the lives of needy senior citizens, distressed juveniles, immigrants and others, as well as improving public service by training directors and volunteers and promoting research. The Joint also takes part in worldwide efforts to help disaster-stricken areas, among them the Tsunami victims in Southeast Asia in 2004. Joint institutions working in Israel Eshel – An organization founded in 1969 by the Joint and the Israeli government for planning and developing services for the elderly population and work to improve their quality of life and social status. Eshelim – An organization founded in 1998 by the Joint and the Israeli government to support children and youth in states of abuse and distress, to allow them to grow in a supportive community, and to improve their quality of life. Society for the development and promotion of manpower within Israeli social services – An organization founded in 1984 by the Joint and the Israeli government for supporting the employees in the social services and to improve the quality of their public service by enhancing their affect and ability over chief civil servants in governmental, municipal and volunteer sectors. Myers-JDC Brookdale Institute – A leading research center in Israel and the Jewish community worldwide. It was founded in 1974 to work towards the improvement of social services in Israel by development and spreading of knowledge concerning social needs and the effectiveness of policy and its execution. The Brookdale Institute is a leading Jewish institute in the research field of old age and policies of public health, invalids and youth. The Leonore and Larry Zussman Fund for Excellence of Social Services in Israel – A fund aimed at supporting single and multiple initiatives proven to have excelled in originality, inventiveness and implementation within the social services in Israel. Department for former Soviet Jewry – A department working to assist the Jewry of the former Soviet Union by conducting various welfare programs and renewing the customs of former Jewish communities. Mashav – A database of projections concerning the elderly population in Israel in different fields – demography, health, function, socioeconomic characteristics, services available and their use. It is meant to provide policy makers with a panoramic view of these issues.