Disaster Relief

By now, you've all seen the pictures and heard the news about the terrible devastation to coastal communities in Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana.
Last week, I created an information section for the TCC campus on Disaster Relief, Donating Wisely - that lists major charities, identifies other lists of organizations providing disaster relief, and how to make sure you don't donate to a scam (fake) charity. I included major national organizations, the Florida Hurricane Relief fund, the Bush-Clinton Relief fund, and several animal rescue organizations.

I did not include Jewish charities on the TCC site, but here are some you can take a look at, also set up to help victims of the Katrina disaster:

United Jewish Communities
http://www.ujc.org/ has a Hurricane Katrina/Disaster Relief Fund - take a look at their site and see what other kinds of assistance UJC provides to the Jewish Community -

United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism http://uscj.org/Hurricane_ReliefYou_6553.html - in their Social Action: Repair the World section has a disaster relief fund set up -

B'nai B'rith International has set up a Disaster Relief fund in addition to the other projects they regularly cover - http://bnaibrith.org/pubs/pr/050829_hurricanekatrina.cfm -

Jewish Coalition for Disaster Relief - http://www.jdc.org/jcdr_main.html - an international organization helping victims of natural or man-made disasters, including Hurricane Katrina victims

Union for Reform Judaism- URJ Disaser Relief - http://urj.org/relief/index.cfm? - The need for food and other daily necessities is overwhelming. And so, as Reform Jews, we have no choice but to respond and help.

Chabad Lubavitch of Louisiana http://www.chabadneworleans.com/article.html?AID=306259 is accepting donations to help the Jewish Community affected by the storm

Zaka Rescue and Recovery http://www.zakausa.org/zaka_news.cfm Established in 1989, the ZAKA Organization identifies victims of and terror and disasters. They treat the human remains with utmost respect in accordance to Jewish Law. . . activities include: making travel arrangements to transport the bodies of the deceased, a service to loan mourning accessories and mobile carts for the handicapped and organizing lost and found spots for children.

and many individual Jewish congregations and communities around the US and in the world are fundraising to help people in the storm devastated areas -

in this class, we usually look at what Judaism says about the Mitzvot of Charity and Benevolence around spring time - this year we are going to move it up and discuss this topic in our next class on September 11th -

before coming to class on September 11th, either
1) bring in an article from a newspaper or magazine about disaster relief -
or
2) visit one or more of the Jewish websites listed above and make some notes or print a page and be prepared to talk about their activities to help others - who are they helping and how ?