By: Jeff Basch and Alice Mishkin
Jewish Congregations Organized for Resettlement (JCOR), the all-volunteer Jewish community collaboration that includes our Congregation—in partnership with Jewish Family Services of Washtenaw County—is excited to report that our very successful and fulfilling first year will be complete the middle of August!
And now JCOR is planning to co-sponsor with JFS a new refugee family. To make this possible, JCOR must raise approximately $7,000 initially to get the new family settled in, with a goal of $20,000 for the full year to underwrite the co-sponsorship obligations. Generous donors made it possible for JCOR to help the current family. Our incoming refugee family needs that same help now. Federation provides fiduciary services to JCOR, and donations to JCOR can be made on their secure website.
Two additional opportunities to lend support are coming up fairly soon. On September 10 at JCC’s Apples & Honey, the Kona Ice truck will donate a portion of their sales to JCOR. On October 22, the community is invited to JCOR’s “Folk with a Klezmer Accent” fundraising concert featuring well-known local talent.
As individuals and as a Congregation we can help support the aspirations of the next refugee family. Please consider adding JCOR to our synagogue and your household charitable-giving allocations. Contact JCOR at jcorannarbor@gmail.com if you have or know of affordable housing that will be available by early fall; or if you or someone you know can communicate in Spanish or French, Tigrinya or Kituba, Farsi or Dari, Arabic, Ukrainian, or another language.
Please consider joining JCOR’s all-volunteer corps. This is a wonderful opportunity for all of us to seek to better the world, to express Tikkun Olam in ways that our interests and skills guide us to. Information about the teams and a volunteer sign-up form are available at JCORAnnArbor.org.
And, finally, we want to share a brief update on JCOR’s Colombian refugee family who arrived in Ann Arbor in mid-August 2022. Now, twelve months in, both parents are fully employed, both children have completed their first year of school in the United States in good form and planning for the first day of classes in late-August. The father has earned a driver’s license, and the family has purchased a (used) car, which saves $700/month that previously paid for contracted transportation to and from work. The family has completed their first year in the U.S.—both financially and operationally independent.
About JCOR: Jewish Congregations Organized for Resettlement is a participant in JFS’ refugee Co-Sponsorship Program. JCOR member congregations are Ann Arbor Orthodox Minyan, Ann Arbor Reconstructionist Congregation, Beth Israel Congregation, Jewish Cultural Society, Pardes Hannah, and Temple Beth Emeth, with administrative assistance from the Jewish Federation of Greater Ann Arbor. JCOR’s goal is to help refugee newcomers become our independent neighbors over the course of their first year
