The Jewish Coalition for Disaster Relief, chaired by the Joint Distribution Committee, has received slightly over $20,000 in donations for the famine in East Africa that is devastating millions of innocent lives.
But this time you cant blame the US economy for the modest financial turnout, according to Dr. William Recant, assistant executive vice president of the JDC.
Every time theres a disaster, the amount of funds we receive really depends on media attention, and the media has just now turned its attention to Somalia, Recant tells the Intermountain Jewish News from New York.
Its a unique crisis, says Recant, whose first experience with massive aid relief occurred during the Ethiopian famine that killed one million Africans in 1984.
Southern Somalia, the area hardest hit by the worst East African drought in 60 years, lacks a stable government and is fertile soil to a great amount of terrorist activity, he says, referring to the Islamic militant group al-Shabaab.
Al-Shabaab has forcibly prevented aid relief agencies from reaching the region of greatest need.
And because so few agencies have been able to access these areas, hundreds of thousands of people have lost their homes and are crossing into neighboring Ethiopia and Kenya, he says.
The JDC, which is working with other Jewish organizations, is establishing programs in Ethiopia and Kenya to assist refugees fleeing the country.
So far, the aid is getting where its intended to go, Recant says.
But the short-term prognosis is grim.
Recant says that the East African drought, coupled with a politically induced famine in southern Somalia, could impact 12 million human lives.
Gerald Martone, director of humanitarian affairs for the International Relief Committee (IRC), the 1933 brainchild of Albert Einstein to rescue Jewish and non-Jewish intellectuals and artists from Nazi Germany, agrees.
Twelve million are in need of emergency relief aid, says Martone, who recently returned from Somalia.
About three million are at risk of impending famine.
And it will get worse before it gets better.
Although JDC is beginning to penetrate areas of need, Recant is equally realistic in his assessment.
Were talking about a huge region, Recant says.
This is going to be the largest famine and drought since the famine in Ethiopia.
The New York Times wrote Aug. 1 that tens of thousands of Somalis are already dead and more than half a million children are on the brink of starvation.
That article appeared 17 days ago.
Those numbers have already changed.
Recant says that a direct correlation exists between media attention and monies donated to relief organizations.
Conversely, the lack of media interest shrinks gradual massacres into a global whimper.
Sudden disasters get all the attention, he says.
You saw this after the earthquake in Haiti and the tsunami in Japan. But in other circumstances, like Somalia, people dont see or feel it because its not on the medias radar screen.
Now that reporters are in the center of the storm, their stories make the front pages and proliferate over the Internet.
Photographs of children with emaciated faces and distended bellies grip the public and expand awareness on a daily basis.
Recant, who remembers these images from the Ethiopian famine in 1984, says the world is finally watching similar photographs coming out of Somalia.
The IRCs Martone, who says Somalia was in an informational quarantine until recently, brings up a current US drought to emphasize the dual nature of Somalias crisis.
The southwestern US is experiencing a severe drought, but not one child will die because of it, he says. Our country is able to absorb the shock. This is not the case in Somalia.
Drought, he says, is caused by nature. Man causes famine. In Somalia, its a political crisis, not just a humanitarian one.
Asked who or what he feels is responsible for Somalias famine, Recant voices a similar opinion. Its a combination of a natural environmental disaster and mans inability to get along peacefully with his fellow man.
The scope of the Somalis suffering knows no religious or ethnic boundaries, Recant says.
There are absolutely no boundaries. But there is a fully coordinated Jewish response for those who would like to use a Jewish vehicle to help.
Our response will not be enough. It will be far from enough. And yet, in the words of our sages, saving one soul is equivalent to saving the entire world.
To donate, access www.jdc.org, or call the Allied Jewish Federation of Colorado, which helps coordinate disaster relief efforts, at (303) 321-3399.
Copyright © 2011 by the Intermountain Jewish News
