Joint chat with Biden

Joint Australia national president Eva Fischl has recounted her meeting more than 10 years ago with US President Joe Biden, when as vice-president, he attended the 1914-2014 centenary celebrations in Washington, DC, for the international, US-based Joint Distribution Committee (JDC).

Biden, who made headlines last month with his milestone decision not to seek a second White House term, had spoken at the Joint centenary on Capitol Hill in late 2013 when president Barack Obama could not make it because he was attending the funeral of the late South African president Nelson Mandela.

Fischl took part in the JDC centenary as Joint Australia’s national president and as the only Australian on JDC’s international board.

Noting JDC has bipartisan support in the US, she recalled Biden stating “that he very proudly stands with the work the JDC does — and that he was very happy and proud” to be celebrating with the international Jewish aid organisation on its milestone birthday.

“When I privately spoke to him, I thanked him again for coming and he said he was delighted to have been part of our 100-years’ celebration,” Fischl told The AJN. “He was very complimentary about the work of Joint, reinforcing what he’d said in his speech, about how much Joint was admired on the Hill and how much they applauded the work we did for the world.”

She noted that the late US senator Joe Lieberman, who had run for US vice-president in 2000, had been a patron of JDC, as his wife Hadassah, a daughter of Holocaust survivors, had been helped by the organisation in earlier life. As JDC patron, he followed in the footsteps of acclaimed Holocaust survivor and scholar Elie Wiesel.

Fischl, who returned from Israel last month, her third visit since October 7, noted that JDC annually contributes $A150 million to projects in Israel and is a key Diaspora organisation in the rehabilitation efforts since the Hamas attacks.

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