Macedonian Jewish Community, JDC Aiding Thousands of Flood Survivors After Catastrophic Storms in Country

Relief efforts a partnership between JDC,
The Jewish Community of the Republic of Macedonia,
and the Holocaust Fund of the Jews from Macedonia

A week after disastrous floods struck Macedonia, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) together with The Jewish Community of the Republic of Macedonia and the Holocaust Fund of the Jews from Macedonia, have assisted thousands of flood survivors by creating and distributing 1,000 hygiene relief kits throughout the hardest-hit areas of the Balkan nation. The packages, created at a Jewish community volunteer event yesterday and distributed to aid approximately 5,000 people in Stajkovci, Smiljkovci, Brnjarci, Indzikovo, and Chento, will help address personal and household hygiene needs, a critical component in flood recovery zones.

Macedonia is home to approximately 250 Jews, mostly of Sephardic heritage, with an extensive network of social welfare services, Jewish educational, and religious programming. This is the second time that JDC and the Macedonian Jewish community have provided humanitarian relief in response to a local crisis. In 1999, JDC and the Macedonian Jewish community created an organization called Dobre Volje, or Good Will, to provide nonsectarian humanitarian aid to Albanian, Serbian, and Gypsy refugees who fled to Macedonia during and after the Kosovo War.