May 5, 2022

JDC Call Center Operators are Saving Lives in Ukraine

“I'm sitting here in the office, but really I'm there. I'm in the war,” recounts Olga Lomkin, an operator at the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) call center in Israel where they are focused on one thing: saving lives in Ukraine. When the Russian invasion began, Greater Miami Jewish Federation overseas partner JDC opened a call center in Jerusalem that operates Ukrainian hotlines. Olga describes receiving a call from a client in Ukraine who desperately needed to evacuate his elderly mother. He was fleeing and had to leave her behind in Zhytomyr, where the war was escalating. “The whole time, I could hear bombs in the background or the boom, boom, like bullets,” she shudders. Olga, knowing if she didn’t act quickly the woman’s life would be in jeopardy, immediately secured a team to move the client’s mother to safety. “You start thinking your work is very important,” Olga admits, adding with obvious emotion. “We are really saving people’s lives.” To date, the hotlines have answered more than 52,000 calls. Click here to watch a video of Olga’s account in her own words. To make a donation to our Ukraine Emergency Fund, please click here.