The below is from Jewish Telegraphic Agency, a worldwide Jewish news service and one of 32 agencies and programs funded by The BJF Annual Campaign.

Barack Obama won't show up on the vote tallies after polls close in Florida's Republican primary on Tuesday, but the president's supporters already are waging a fight for the Sunshine State.

Democrats are rolling out a campaign to rival any of the GOP candidates, with a particular focus on the state's substantial Jewish community. Democratic officials said that volunteers in Florida already had made nearly 600,000 calls to supporters and conducted thousands of training sessions, many of them focusing on the Jewish community, 10 months before the general election. The Obama campaign has opened nine offices in the state.

"Florida is the most significant battleground state, and will be in 2012," said U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), the chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, in a conference call with the Jewish media. "We're taking nothing for granted. We're in the process of using these primaries as an organizing tool." Wasserman Schultz said Jewish surrogates were targeting communities across the state, defending Obama's Israel record as well as emphasizing differences on health care and social issues, like abortion.

The rollout was planned months ago, well before Newt Gingrich's stunning upset win in the South Carolina GOP primary buried the notion of Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, as the party's impervious front-runner.

Noam Neusner, a former domestic policy adviser to President George W. Bush, said that Gingrich had upended the race with his South Carolina victory and the race was now wide open. Neusner, who has not endorsed a candidate, noted that Romney had won the "Jewish donors" primary, drawing the largest assemblage of Jewish supporters. But he noted that Gingrich was a known quantity among Jewish conservatives going back to his days as House speaker from 1995 to 1998.

Sheldon Adelson, the pro-Israel casino magnate who has long been close to the former House speaker, helped boost his prospects in South Carolina with a $5 million infusion to an independent pro-Gingrich group, Winning America's Future. And on Monday it was reported that the billionaire's wife, Miriam, was donating another $5 million to the group.

The below is from the website of the Joint Distribution Committee (JDC). Funds raised through The Birmingham Jewish Federation Annual Campaign help provide the services described below.

Mentioned in the story is a Hesed welfare center. Representatives of The BJF have visited Hesed centers throughout the former Soviet Union to learn more and meet the people we are helping. (Hesed centers are named for the Hebrew word for kindness, compassion and benevolence.)

January brings the heaviest snow in Moldova, so Tatiana, 11, is spending most of her days huddled around the gas stove with her parents, two younger sisters, 9 and 6, and a teenage cousin who lives with them. Like millions of people in the former Soviet republic of Moldova, Tatiana's unemployed parents are struggling to survive the harsh conditions of an economic depression that began in 1991 and continues today.

This family's two-room apartment is in an old Soviet-style building that has no electricity or running water, no kitchen or bathroom, and no heat. Thankfully, the local JDC Hesed (welfare center) has supplied coal to tie them over for the long, icy season, and sealed their drafty windows to keep in the heat as long as possible. The girls learn about Jewish traditions and holidays from their father. Their grandmother, who passed away two years ago, taught them what she knew about her family and Jewish food.

The local Hesed worker who delivers their aid packages is the family's main link to the local Jewish community.

Photo caption: For families like Tatiana's, who barely make ends meet on a monthly income of $70 in the good months, the Federation-funded JDC is a lifeline. (From JDC)