Sasha, 24, is still glowing with enthusiasm, energized by the 800-person Havdallah ceremony—the biggest he’s ever seen in Poland—that culminated this October’s Limud learning fest in Warsaw. For a young man who grew up in a secular family in Dzierżoniów, a small Polish town with no Jewish community, seeing this convergence of Jewish life of all denominations and every corner of his country was an unparalleled experience.
Odelia knew her five-year-old daughter “Tamar” was different. After learning she’d been a victim of abuse at the first day care she ever attended, Odelia was reluctant to enroll her in kindergarten full time. Then she heard about the New Beginnings program at a local kindergarten in Netanya.
Anya’s home smells of freshly baked sweets and is abuzz with a cheerful mix of Russian, Yiddish, and Ukrainian. Each week, this 70-year-old hostess opens her living room to a group of fellow elderly Jews who have been convening here for over a decade with the support of JDC’s Warm Homes program.
Mila A., 24, loves her job. Every day she helps immigrants set out on their life’s course at the very same JDC Center for Young Adults where she was once received help on her own challenging journey, which has now come full circle.
Sarah Goldenstein, 25, never imagined she’d go from teaching Sunday school in her home state of North Carolina to helping build Jewish community among Russian immigrants in Germany, but that’s exactly what she’s been doing for the past two years as a Jewish Service Corps fellow through JDC’s Entwine initiative for inspired young Jews.
For the past two years, Masha Aryeva, 39, has been the Director of the Yesod Jewish Community Center (JCC)—the first-rate, central hub of Jewish life in the cosmopolitan city of St. Petersburg, Russia.
Olga grew up under communism, when religious practices were outlawed and Jewish life was hushed for decades. She never learned any Jewish history or traditions in her home as a child; when she became a mom, she had none to pass on to her daughters.
Young Israelis in JDC’s Afikim program benefit from both individual mentorship and group workshops that help them gain self-assurance, develop professional skills, and learn real-life problem-solving strategies.
“If you see far, you will go far,” is the first thing a teen orphan will hear when they climb atop the mountain peak in Rwamagana, Rwanda to join the community of the Agahozo-Shalom Youth Village (ASYV). Home to 500 students from each of Rwanda’s 30 regions, the village is a safe-haven that offers education, family, and hope for the future to young people who had lost everything in the country’s genocide and its aftermath.
For Konstantin, 25, and his family, the global financial crisis isn’t a newspaper headline. It’s a chapter in their tumultuous story, which has been playing out in Riga, Latvia for decades.