Holocaust Remembrance Day: JDC Staff Share

As JDC staff in Jerusalem gathered, along with other Israelis, to mark Holocaust Remembrance Day on April 29, three staff members brought very different perspectives to the day's somber proceedings.

Mati, the director of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee's Aleh leadership program, had never heard of the Holocaust before he came to Israel at age ten.

"In Ethiopia, the kessim (religious men) and elders were told by Italians, who were occupying Ethiopia at the time, that Jews were killed in Europe," recounts Mati. But the elders were not told the gravity of events. He explains: "Only when we came to Israel, when the children began to learn in school, did we truly understand the extent of the tragedy. We never imagined."

Today, he leads a program that strengthens young Ethiopian-Israeli leadership.

"The young leaders understand the importance of Holocaust Remembrance Day," Mati notes. "They participate in events sponsored by the communities in which they live. Some activists intend to carry out special activities for the Ethiopian-Israeli community, separately, to educate and to raise awareness," he adds.

Ashalim professional Amos' mother escaped certain death in Austria by virtue of the kindertransport. In England, a Christian family adopted the eight-year-old girl. After the war her family was reunited, but not without bearing the burden of the trauma of survival.

"There is no doubt that what I am doing today is directly related to my mother's experience," reflects Amos.

Amos directs a new initiative that recruits volunteers to work with children at risk. Now being replicated on a national level, it is providing critical lay support to an overburdened professional social system structure.

"My mother was a child at risk," he says. " My mother was saved by people, not by professionals. There is a strong symbolic connection with what I am doing today."

Twenty-nine-year veteran JDC staff member Moshe himself endured the horrors of the Holocaust. A child in Nazi-occupied Holland, he survived Bergen Belson concentration camp, and later came to pre-state Israel.

Twelve years ago, he documented his story in a book. This Holocaust Remembrance Day, Moshe chose to retell his story to his colleagues at JDC.

"There are two types of survivors," he explains. "Those who talk about their experience and those who do not. I am a talker." Today, Moshe is the Director of JDC-Israel's Computer Department.

"For me, as a child, it was not important whether I received a food package or a blanket. Simply knowing that there was someone, something, out there that cared to help was enough to give hope."

Offering that hope, today as then to Jews in need, remains our enduring responsibility.