UJA Slams as ‘Slander’ Reports They Boycott Yesha

The UJA-Federation of New York listed in an email several projects they have funded for terror victims in Yehudah and Shomron and ongoing missions across Israeli communities in the territories brought under Israeli control in 1967.

“The use of fictitious ‘facts’ slanders the organization I am head of and does a great injustice to the hundreds of dedicated professionals working around the clock for the better good of the citizens of Israel and the Jewish people,” Talia Levanon, director of the Israel Trauma Coalition, a UJA offshoot, told Hamodia.

Levanon said that the Israel Trauma Coalition has worked and are working in the Shomron area, the Golan Heights, in Gush Katif — both prior to the disengagement and afterward.

This contrasts with allegations laid out last week by Ron Jager, a former Israeli soldier who works as a strategic advisor to the Office of the Chief Foreign Envoy of Yehudah and Shomron.

“Sadly, the European Union’s decision to bind the 28 European Union member nations to label Jewish goods and services … is relatively recent yet no different than the ‘Gentleman’s Agreement’ that has been voluntarily adopted and implemented by the New York Federation for many years,” Jager said.

“The New York Federation does not cross the Green Line unless of course it’s to assist Palestinian Arabs,” he said.

Jager claimed that the “most blatant example of this voluntary boycott” is the Federation’s refusal to help victims of terror following the attack in Itamar, when five members of the Fogel family were massacred on a Friday night.

“If New York Federation-funded agencies can so blatantly boycott children who have lost their parents and siblings to terror,” he questioned, “why should we be so surprised when the Europeans adopt a similar policy of boycotting Jews?”

However, Levanon said that her UJA-funded Coalition “provided personal and group treatments for two years following the massacre to the entire community.”

Levanon alleged that Jager had been an employee of her group until “his employment was terminated.” That could not be verified at press time.

She added that Natal, the Israeli Trauma Center for victims of terror and war, also provided one-on-one personal treatments to Itamar residents in the wake of the attack.

The “UJA-Federation of New York provides support and services to all Jews, regardless of where they reside,” said Leslie K. Lichter, managing director for marketing and communications.

This article appeared in print on page 18 of the July 31st, 2013 edition of Hamodia.