Bob Schwartz

Tag: International Rescue Committee

December 2, 2025

Today is GivingTuesday, so…

About GivingTuesday

GivingTuesday is a global generosity movement unleashing the power of radical generosity. GivingTuesday was created in 2012 as a simple idea: a day that encourages people to do good. Since then, it has grown into a year-round global movement that inspires hundreds of millions of people to give, collaborate, and celebrate generosity.

Join the movement and give, whether it’s some of your time, a donation, or the power of your voice in your local community.

It’s a simple idea: whether it’s making someone smile, helping a neighbor or stranger out, showing up for an issue or people we care about, or giving some of what we have to those who need our help, every act of generosity counts and everyone has something to contribute toward building the better world we all want to live in.

Show Your Generosity

It’s more important than it ever has been to show up for our communities.

  • Support your local social good organizations, mutual aid networks, and community organizers
  • Do an act of kindness or help a neighbor
  • Identify your gifts, pick a cause that gets you fired up, and give back – not just for GivingTuesday but every day.

If you have favorite charities, give today, through the holiday season and whenever.

As previous posts have noted, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) is an excellent choice. Best of all, right now there is a 5X match for your donation:

Nearly all civilians in Gaza are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance. Children are dying of starvation and disease. With aid access severely limited, the IRC and its partners are responding where we can to provide nutrition, clean water, sanitation and hygiene services, along with child protection in some of the hardest-hit areas.

Today, your additional gift will be 5X-matched, helping the IRC make a lasting impact for people in crisis in Gaza and across the world—at a scale that truly makes a meaningful impact.

Thank you for your gift.

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July 14, 2025

‘Humanitarian city’ would be concentration camp for Palestinians, says former Israeli PM Ehud Olmert

Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert

It has been six months since my last post about Gaza.

I think I am weary of watching the situation daily devolve and yet seeing little change in the attitudes of many in the Jewish communities or of many Americans, including those in power. Among other things, we still hear those labeling this a humanitarian tragedy being called antisemitic, even if Jewish.

The following article in the Guardian moves me to post again.

‘Humanitarian city’ would be concentration camp for Palestinians, says former Israeli PM Ehud Olmert

Ehud Olmert says forcing people into camp would be ethnic cleansing, and anger at Israel over Gaza war is not all down to antisemitism

“When they build a camp where they [plan to] ‘clean’ more than half of Gaza, then the inevitable understanding of the strategy of this [is that] it is not to save [Palestinians]. It is to deport them, to push them and to throw them away. There is no other understanding that I have, at least.”…

“It is a concentration camp. I am sorry,” he said, when asked about the plans laid out by Israel Katz last week. Once inside, Palestinians would not be allowed to leave, except to go to other countries, Katz said.

Katz has ordered the military to start drawing up operational plans for construction of the “humanitarian city” on the ruins of southern Gaza, to house initially 600,000 people and eventually the entire Palestinian population.

“If they [Palestinians] will be deported into the new ‘humanitarian city’, then you can say that this is part of an ethnic cleansing. It hasn’t yet happened,” Olmert said. That would be “the inevitable interpretation” of any attempt to create a camp for hundreds of thousands of people, he said.

Whoever you are and whatever communities you are in, please consider what is going on and what is planned in Gaza, please consider Olmert’s thoughts, and please consider a donation to the International Rescue Committee.

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April 18, 2024

This Passover donate to the International Rescue Committee

Passover begins on the evening of April 22, 2024.

Some people, Jews and others, believe that the Israeli strategy in Gaza is justified and that the deaths and suffering of innocent people are unfortunate collateral damage of an important goal. Some people, Jews and others, disagree.

One thing we all can agree on is that when people, especially children, suffer, justifiably or not, it is our duty to help relieve that suffering in any way we can. People of all religious traditions or none can agree on this.

The International Rescue Committee is one of the most respectable and responsible organizations in the world working on this:

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) helps people affected by humanitarian crises—including the climate crisis—to survive, recover and rebuild their lives.

Founded at the call of Albert Einstein in 1933, the IRC is now at work in over 50 crisis-affected countries as well as communities throughout Europe and the Americas.

As Jews, on Passover we recall how our storied ancestors suffered—under the hand of a wicked ruler, wandering in a desolate desert. As we have suffered and suffer still, how can we deny the suffering of others and fail to relieve it?

When the Israelites were starving in the desert, we are told that God provided manna:

In the desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.” Then the Lord said to Moses, “I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. (Exodus 16:2-4)

We cannot wait for manna. It is up to you.

Please donate to International Rescue Committee. Chag Pesach sameach.

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