America’s Jewish community is supporting relief efforts for 43,000 people in Ukraine and more than 40,000 refugees in neighboring countries as well as globally, relief officials said Tuesday.
Those efforts include the delivery of more than 800 tons of humanitarian aid in Ukraine and nearby, as well as long-term care for thousands of Jewish refugees, they said.
Inna Vdovichenko, external affairs director for the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) in Odesa, Ukraine, said that unlike traditional Hanukkah celebrations in which a candelabra called a menorah is lit nightly to commemorate an ancient miracle, Jews and others in the war-torn nation are seeking another kind of light.