The United Jewish Communities (UJC), the chief fundraising arm of American Jewry, officially halted its sponsorship of aid programs in northern Ethiopia last week.

Writing in the Jerusalem Post this morning, Ruth Eglash continues,

In an internal memo recently sent to executives of the nineteen largest federations in the UJC system, UJC President and CEO Howard Rieger informed the federations that funds raised in a special campaign dubbed Operation Promise (OP), which was intended in part to help Ethiopian Jewry, have run out. “I have just informed NACOEJ that we are now running out of OP funds. We expect that these funds will be completely depleted by May 31,” Rieger wrote.

…Barbara Ribakove Gordon, director of NACOEJ, which is in the process of building a Jewish school in Gondar, said that the UJC’s withdrawal would be a tragedy. “Right away we’ll have to stop giving regular food distributions to the community – that means no food for families, for sick people, for old people, everyone. All over right now,” she said.

Read the complete article here.