Help Mumbai’s Jewish Community
URGENT APPEAL – Help Mumbai’s Jewish Community, 10 May 2021
Dear friends,
As you will no doubt be aware, COVID is raging in India, overwhelming the country’s health system.
This has heavily impacted our Jewish brothers and sisters, as it has everyone else.
We have been told that at least 15 members of Mumbai’s Jewish community have died, and many more are suffering.
What can you do?
Donate directly to the JDC [American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee] which is one of the few Jewish organisations that currently have permission to receive foreign donations in India.
Through its operations in India the JDC is pursuing the following initiatives:
- Logistical support for vaccinations – due to the lock-down it is difficult for some to get to a vaccination centre. JDC is making arrangements with local transportation companies to provide such services. (Some of the local young adults have also volunteered to accompany lonely elderly once current restrictions are lifted.)
- Critically needed ventilators, made in Israel, will be delivered to three hospitals in Mumbai and Ahmedabad, and oxygen concentrators will be distributed to public health centres around Ahmedabad.
- Health kits, filtered masks, and other medical supplies will be distributed in hard-hit villages to help more than 20,000 people.
- A medical helpline for local women to get guidance from doctors — along with WhatsApp audio and video messages about COVID-19 prevention, treatment, and care options — will be deployed to areas with growing infection rates.
- Local women entrepreneurs will be trained on best practices for COVID-19 prevention and use of oxygen concentrators to aid their communities.
- American and Israeli doctors are being enlisted to support Indian ICU doctors and nurses as well as establish telemedicine services in rural locations.
Thank you for helping at this extraordinary time. As the Talmud states:
“he who saves a life is as if he has saved an entire world.”
Stephen Goodman
New Zealand Jewish Council
Clive Lawton
Commonwealth Jewish Council
Garth Cohen
Auckland Hebrew Congregation
Richard Noar
Nelson Jewish Congregation
Vivienne Levy
Canterbury Hebrew Congregation
Olga Bernstein
Auckland Progressive Jewish Congregation
Sylvie Bolstad
Waikato Jewish Association
Jeremy Smith
Wellington Progressive Jewish Congregation
Marlene Levine
Wellington Jewish Community Centre