Statement About the JCA’s Refugee Resettlement & Newcomer Services (RRNS) Program

In Fall 2021, the JCA was thrilled to become a HIAS affiliate in refugee resettlement work. Over the last four years, this area of our organization has expanded more than we ever could have imagined: our Refugee Resettlement & Newcomer Services (RRNS) staff grew to 18 dedicated individuals, welcoming a total of 571 people from 24 countries to Maine. This work includes meeting newcomers at the airport, getting them settled into temporary and then permanent housing, providing stipends for essential expenses like groceries and rent, and helping them adjust to life in the United States through cultural orientations, assistance with medical appointments, enrolling children in school, employment searches, and so much more. Under the federal resettlement program, refugees are entitled to up to five years of services after their arrival.

And so, it is with deep devastation and disappointment that we share a very difficult decision made by the JCA’s Board of Directors to pause federally-funded refugee work at the end of the federal fiscal year, on Sept. 30, 2025.

The JCA Board, with input from staff, has spent many hours discussing our RRNS program over the last year. We pushed ahead more than once, taking financial risks for the organization to continue providing vital services. We’ve done this because we value this work as part of our mission and Jewish values. We respect and honor the time and energy the RRNS staff has put into their work for the last four years. And we recognize the significant needs of the RRNS clients as they continue to settle into their new homes in Maine. However, in the current political climate with massive grant cuts and unexpected changes to programs and decisions, it is not viable for us to take on further, substantial financial risks to run this program.

The JCA is many things and provides such an array of valuable and important services and programs to so many different people. We cannot knowingly agree to put the organization in financial jeopardy for the sake of one program or service area, no matter how much we value it.

Over the last couple of months, our focus has been on helping both RRNS clients and staff be in the best position possible when September 30 arrives. In addition to the services we have continued to offer clients, we have been supporting staff as they look for their next roles and balance their ongoing work with their own well-being.

We’re truly sorry and heartbroken to be in this position. And yet, in hard times, we are always amazed by our wonderful community. Through the incredible generosity of a small group of transformational donors, the modest bright light we can share today is that we will be able to fund three RRNS staff positions privately in the next year. This will allow the JCA to continue to offer intensive case management services to many of the clients in continued need of care, as well as group programming. One position will include a caseload of clients who are experiencing significant barriers to self-sufficiency and need additional case management support to gain independence. Another position will offer case management to our most vulnerable Ukrainian clients, and the third position will directly serve our most vulnerable Afghan clients. We will also continue to identify ways we may be able to serve this population through other JFS programming in the months and years ahead.

The Board and leadership of the JCA are so proud and forever grateful for the incredible, selfless, and humanistic work of the RRNS staff, especially over these tumultuous past 10 months. We very much hope that one day the JCA can open our doors to this work more fully again, when the funding streams and federal partnerships required are more stable and welcoming of refugee populations. Please join us in gratitude for our departing staff, and support new Mainers in any way you are able.

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Event Recap: The First Annual Jewish-Asian Friendship Dinner

September 10, 2025

The JCA’s First Annual Jewish-Asian Friendship Dinner was a resounding success! On August 21, a sold-out crowd of 150 people representing both the Jewish and Asian communities gathered at the Jewish Community Alliance of Southern Maine. We began the night by blessing a “red onion curry challah” specially created by John Rudoy from Exile Bakery for the event. We then recognized all the organizations present: the Maine Jewish Museum, Chinese-American Friendship Association of Maine, Watt Samaki Buddhist Temple, Khmer Maine, the Maine Asian-American Community Center, and the Filipino-American Samahan of Maine.

What's New in Jewish News This Week

August 22, 2025

Important Note: The following articles do not represent an official position of the JCA, and are deliberately intended to mirror the wide range of diverse perspectives within Southern Maine’s Jewish community. Our goal is to deliver interesting news, reliable sources, and important perspectives on major Jewish issues. In IDF-controlled Rafah, an armed clan’s school plants seeds of a Hamas-free future (The Times of Israel) - The Palestinian Abu Shabab gang claims to have carved out an area where it is providing electricity, medical care and education for thousands of displaced Gazans under IDF protection. The school eschews Palestinian Authority textbooks previously prevalent in Gaza, with teachers apparently recruited from among displaced Palestinians living in a part of Gaza controlled by the Israel Defense Forces and appears to educate pupils along progressive ideas of pluralism and tolerance. “We want to create a generation of learners, not terrorists,” said Mohammed, a senior member of Abu Shabab’s forces, in a phone interview with The Times of Israel. Both initiatives appear to address longstanding Israeli concerns regarding Palestinian education, which critics say includes content that incites against Israelis and Jews, perpetuating narratives that fuel distrust and conflict rather than coexistence. After decades of conflict, Armenia-Azerbaijan peace plan gives Caucasus Jews new hope (Jewish Telegraphic Agency) - Two former Soviet republics that have been sworn enemies ever since the breakup of the USSR are suddenly on the verge of making peace. Since even before their independence in 1991, predominantly Christian, landlocked Armenia and mostly Muslim, oil-rich Azerbaijan have fought many wars over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region and accused each other of human rights abuses, ethnic cleansing — even genocide. But now, their leaders say they have decided to bury the hatchet — and Jews in both countries could benefit. Israel opens new embassy in Zambia, once home to a historic Jewish community (Jewish Telegraphic Agency) - Israel has opened an embassy in Zambia, more than half a century after it was shuttered following the Yom Kippur war and as the African nation’s Jewish population has dwindled to near zero. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar and Zambian Foreign Minister Mulambo Haimbe opened the embassy together on Wednesday. “It’s an honor to be in Lusaka for the opening of Israel’s embassy,” Sa’ar tweeted, adding that the two countries were “enhancing our partnership in agriculture, health and much more.” 80 Modern Orthodox rabbis call for ‘moral clarity’ in the face of Gaza humanitarian crisis (The Times of Israel) - Dozens of Orthodox rabbis have issued “A Call for Moral Clarity, Responsibility, and a Jewish Orthodox Response in the Face of the Gaza Humanitarian Crisis,” in an addition to a recent cascade of open letters from Jewish voices responding to a hunger crisis in the Palestinian enclave nearly two years into the Israel-Hamas war. Unlike some of the other letters, the new letter stresses condemnation of Hamas and does not call for Israel to end the war in Gaza. Instead, the rabbis write, “Hamas’s sins and crimes do not relieve the government of Israel of its obligations to make whatever efforts are necessary to prevent mass starvation." The Orthodox rabbis also lament the ascendance of extremist voices in Israel, the hardening of sentiments about Palestinians, and the explosion of settler violence in the West Bank — which they refer to using the Hebrew name for the region that conveys a historic Jewish connection to the land. “Hamas’s sins and crimes do not relieve the government of Israel of its obligations to make whatever efforts are necessary to prevent mass starvation,” the rabbis write. Israel Claims UN’s Gaza Famine Declaration Based on ‘Biased and False’ Hamas Report (The Media Line) - Israel has rejected a global classification of famine in northern Gaza, accusing the international monitoring body behind the assessment of using flawed data sourced in part from Hamas-affiliated individuals and organizations. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification system (IPC), a widely used global hunger monitor, declared on Thursday that famine is occurring in the Gaza governorate, which includes Gaza City, and warned that conditions are deteriorating rapidly across the territory. The declaration prompted a sharp rebuke from the Coordinator for Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), a unit of Israel’s Defense Ministry that oversees humanitarian efforts in Gaza. In a counter-report, COGAT said the IPC’s findings were “biased and false” and accused the organization of relying on “severe methodological flaws.” Massachusetts Man Who Threatened to Kill Members of Jewish Community and Bomb Synagogues Sentenced to Prison (Reuters) - A Massachusetts man was sentenced on August 14 to more than two years in prison after he threatened to bomb synagogues and kill Jewish children in a series of calls he placed to two local houses of worship and the Israeli consulate in Boston after Israel and Hamas went to war in 2023. John Reardon, 60, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Julia Kobick in Boston to 26 months in custody after pleading guilty in November to charges related to what prosecutors said were dozens of violent and antisemitic calls and voicemails he placed to Jewish institutions beginning on October 7, 2023.

What's New in Jewish News This Week

August 8, 2025

Hundreds of Rabbis Demand Israel Stop ‘Using Starvation as a Weapon of War’ - ( The Times of Israel ) Hundreds of rabbis in the US and worldwide, including many rabbis here in Maine, have signed a letter calling for Israel to stop using starvation as a “weapon of war,” bring home the hostages, and end the fighting in Gaza. The letter, posted on July 25 and featuring the names of several leading rabbis across denominations, said the “Jewish People face a grave moral crisis…[even as] we recognize, and many of us endure, the huge challenges the State of Israel relentlessly confronts, surrounded for so long by enemies and facing existential threats from many quarters.” The signatories also said they “unequivocally support” Israel’s battle against Hamas and Hezbollah and understand the IDF’s policy of protecting its soldiers’ lives. “But we cannot condone the mass killings of civilians, including a great many women, children and elderly, or the use of starvation as a weapon of war,” the letter stated. Palestinian Leader Condemns Hamas for Contributing to Hunger Crisis - “Producing mass death from hunger is Hamas’ final play,” Palestinian activist Ahmed Foud Al-Khatib writes in a piece for The Atlantic that both criticizes Hamas for deliberately manufacturing a famine against Gazans and calls upon the Israeli government to flood Gaza with food, in order to lessen the terrorist group’s influence. Al-Khatib states that "if the hunger crisis and humanitarian issues are addressed, Hamas can no longer use the suffering of Gazans to generate an international outcry or use the resultant leverage to end the war on its own terms." German Media Investigation Exposes Staged and Out-of-Context Photographs of Civilian Suffering in Gaza - A new investigation by German media outlets Süddeutsche Zeitung and BILD reveals that prominent Gaza-based photographers have been staging photos of Gazan civilians for propaganda efforts. While acknowledging the severity of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, the investigation found that photographers, including Anas Zayed Fteiah, were selectively staging images to “depict chaos and destruction” in order to serve Hamas’s propaganda wing and influence public opinion. One of Fteiah’s photos, depicting starving Gazan women and children desperately brandishing pots and pans to receive food, was published on the cover of the August 1 edition of TIME Magazine. Süddeutsche Zeitung ran a photograph of Fteiah taking the picture, revealing that the pots and pans were held out for the purposes of the photograph, not to receive food. Other photos from the same location showed adult males calmly receiving food. Israel's Security Cabinet Approves Plan for Israeli Military to Temporarily Take Over Gaza City - ( CBS ) Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office announced early Friday morning local time that Israel's Security Cabinet had approved a plan for the Israeli military to take over Gaza City. In a statement, Netanyahu's office said the Israel Defense Forces would prepare to take over Gaza City while providing humanitarian aid to the civilian population outside of combat zones. According to Netanyahu's office, the cabinet adopted five principles for ending the war: the disarmament of Hamas, the return of all hostages both living and dead, the demilitarization of the Gaza Strip, Israeli security control over the Gaza Strip, and the establishment of an alternative civilian government in Gaza that is not led by Hamas or the Palestinian Authority. 19 Former Israel Defense Chiefs Demand End to Gaza War - ( The Times of Israel ) More than a dozen former senior Israeli security officials issued a joint video message Sunday, August 3, with a call to end the war in Gaza, arguing that Israel has racked up more losses than victories and that the fighting has dragged on for political reasons rather than strategic military need. Among those backing the clip were former prime minister and IDF chief Ehud Barak and former IDF chiefs of staff Moshe Ya’alon and Dan Halutz. The group says that Netanyahu is avoiding agreeing on a permanent end to the war and the return of the 50 hostages still in captivity in order to preserve his coalition, which relies on far-right parties who insist on continuing the war. Israeli and American Assessments Agree Tehran’s Infrastructure to Finish a Bomb Is Shattered - ( The Washington Post ) Now that the rhetorical debris has settled from Israel’s 12-day war with Iran, there is growing evidence that Iran’s nuclear program suffered such severe damage that it will be neutered for at least a year, and probably far longer. “Iran is no longer a threshold nuclear state,” one well-informed Israeli source says. This account supports claims by both the Trump administration and Israel that the Iran campaign achieved its objectives. Jewish Community Remains Most-Targeted Religious Group in FBI’s 2024 Hate Crime Report - ( Security Community Network ) - The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) released its 2024 Hate Crime Report , confirming the Jewish community remains the most targeted religious group in the United States. The report documents 1,938 anti‑Jewish hate crimes, representing 69 percent of all religiously motivated incidents, up from 67 percent in 2023. Among these incidents were terroristic plots, assault, vandalism, harassment, burglary, false bomb threats, and swatting. The FBI’s report carries added significance in the years following the 07 October Hamas attacks, as anti-Jewish related crimes continue to reach all‑time highs.