At a Federation program last night, Arielle di Porto, the Director of the Aliyah Division of the Jewish Agency for Israel, spoke about her work in helping Jews from areas of the world under distress and/or danger escape to Israel. The Jewish Agency’s efforts in this area are extraordinary and life-saving. They are monitoring the situation of Jewish communities in countries like Iran, Venezuela, Yemen, Ukraine and Turkey. They devise plans to help those Jews who so desire, to make their way to new and free Jewish lives in Israel.

Like most of you, I am not constantly thinking about the safety of the 20,000 Jews in Iran or the 5,000 Jews of Venezuela. But each of us can sleep soundly because with our support of the Federation’s Community Campaign, we enable the Jewish Agency to do so on our behalf.

Shabbat Shalom.

P.S. Also this week, David Schizer, the CEO of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, Federation’s other historic overseas agency partner, penned an article about the valiant work by one of its employees during the Shoah (the Holocaust) – Isaac Giterman. I invite you to read it here on Tablet Magazine to be inspired.