Similar funds exist in Russia and Belarus.
Then the fund began demanding often-destroyed archival documents proving the existence of particular Jewish ghettos or that the applicant was on a list of concentration camp inmates. Last week's decision by the Initiation Society, the British Jewish mainstream Orthodox body in charge of brit milah, was criticized by the Reform movement, and the Initiation Society's president, Aharon Winegarten, said he did not back the move. The working group was established by the Jewish Board of Deputies last year to defend circumcision after a British television program criticized brit milah, causing an outcry in the Jewish community. Working with them would make it look as if they're under the same umbrella as the Orthodox and they're not. The agency is establishing a new organization, the Jewish Agency in the Russian Federation, which is intended to settle an ongoing dispute between the agency and Russian authorities about the agency's accreditation.