United Jewish Communities of MetroWest New Jersey joined a national effort to aid Sderot, the Israeli town reeling under the bombardment of Kassam rockets hurled by Palestinian militants in nearby Gaza.

National United Jewish Communities, the umbrella organization that includes UJC MetroWest, and Jewish organizations worldwide are providing more than $2 million in funding through the Israel Emergency Campaign. IEC is using the money to bring 8,200 children living in Sderot and other areas near Gaza to a week of summer camp in the center of Israel.

National UJC also sent $400,000 to help evacuate the elderly and disabled for respite outside the targeted area. The attacks have traumatized many of Sderot's 22,000 residents and damaged much of its property.

The aid is being coordinated by the Jewish Agency for Israel.

"What is most important right now is solidarity with their suffering," said Amir Shacham, director of UJC MetroWest's Israel office in Jerusalem, who spoke with NJ Jewish News during a current visit to the Aidekman Jewish Community Campus in Whippany.

"One part of our mission is a post-trauma and relief program for kids and adults," he said. "We take the kids to summer camp, provide them with psychological and post-trauma treatment, and create the kind of social and recreation programs that will take them out of the mindset of being a target."

Another fund is being used to provide physical reinforcement of some buildings in Sderot.

"Money-wise, most of the burden is on the shoulders of the government to reinforce buildings and create bomb shelters," said Shacham. "We can do as much as we can, but most of the burden should fall on the government."

Shacham is a native of nearby Ashkelon, which has also been a target of the rocket attacks, as has Kibbutz Erez, a twinned community with UJC MetroWest in its Partnership 2000 program.

Shacham said he believes the besieged area has been neglected by the government, thus demoralizing many of its residents.

"Their feeling is something like this couldn't happen elsewhere in Israel or in any other country, where a region is a target for so many attacks, and nothing had been done," said Shacham. "They say if it was in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem or Ra'anana, then Israel would do something. But here, nothing is done. So the solidarity they get from outside communities like ours and JAFI and UJC is very important for them."

Israeli military experts, however, have suggested that the major ground offensive needed to stop the Kassams would come at great cost in terms of Israeli military casualties, Palestinian suffering, international opinion, and economic losses.

To Shacham, it is important that aid to Sderot and others in the Sha'ar Hanegev Region also provide "things that are not directly related to the current physical threat," he said. "Many people do not want to live there. It is a poor community. We need to help them have a feeling of a more secure community with things such as computers in their classrooms that will allow them to feel better about living there.

"While answering some of the immediate needs we should also answer for the long range in order for this community to succeed. We need to let them understand that we are with them."