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‘This can be a message of revival, particularly following the occasions of October 7,” affirmed KKL-JNF chairwoman Ifat Ovadia-Luski, following the “We’re Nonetheless Standing” particular occasion held on the UN on January 27, Worldwide Holocaust Remembrance Day.
The exhibition was launched by Israel’s Everlasting Mission to the UN in cooperation with Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael-Jewish Nationwide Fund and the World Jewish Restitution Group.
“The occasion on the UN is a salute to those that survived the Holocaust and rebuilt their lives in Israel. A few of them needed to survive the horrifying terrorist assaults that came about on October 7,” mentioned Ovadia-Luski. “The lesson that I be taught from them is one in all renewal. Though we’re referred to as a individuals whose historical past is stuffed with struggling, disturbances, and terror, we all the time knew – even in instances of despair and melancholy – how you can flip this into a possibility for renewal, and at present it’s extra related than ever.
“Worldwide Holocaust Remembrance Day can also be the day of the liberation of Auschwitz. We lastly emerged from the bottom level within the historical past of the Jewish individuals and established the State of Israel.
“This era is a really tough time for Israel and the Jewish individuals usually, together with the conflict, the horrible lack of human life, and, after all, the Israeli hostages who’re in Gaza,” Ovadia-Luski continued. “The message we’re continuously attempting to convey – even in our visits to Jewish communities overseas – is that we are going to develop and grow to be stronger from this. We now have chosen renewal, and we additionally study KKL-JNF, which lately has additionally entered the sphere of casual schooling and the complexities of Israeli society.
“We not deal solely with the bodily act of constructing the nation and forestry but additionally contact the Israeli public, by schooling and reaching totally different segments of the inhabitants,” she mentioned.
“We’re Nonetheless Standing,” which focuses on the tales of Holocaust survivors who demonstrated extraordinary resilience and rebuilt their lives, has taken on specific significance this yr following the occasions of Oct. 7, through which total households have been annihilated just because they have been Jewish.
“When KKL-JNF established a particular committee for Holocaust survivors as a part of our schooling committee, it wasn’t as a result of it’s simply one other sector of Israeli society that must be preserved and brought care of,” mentioned Ovadia-Luski. “We all know that, finally, time works towards us, and these survivors are the final ones who can actually inform us firsthand in regards to the atrocities that came about in Nazi Europe. As a part of this committee, we handle numerous actions for the survivors, resembling taking them on particular excursions, offering vacation present packages, and, after all, aiding populations in financial or psychological misery.”
Earlier than attending the principle occasion in New York, Ovadia-Luski visited Jewish communities in France towards the backdrop of a rising wave of antisemitism.
“Once I was in a Jewish faculty in Paris, we mentioned planting and the way development doesn’t come instantly; it requires persistence and perseverance,” she mentioned. “This can be a message that can also be true of our scenario at present on the earth. In the long run, issues will work out, however this won’t occur until we plant, and it’ll not occur immediately. We’d like persistence. The historical past of Israel is stuffed with atrocities dedicated towards the Jewish individuals. In the present day, we should give attention to the historical past of our renewal.
“Diaspora Jews have a substantial amount of hope, they usually depend on the State of Israel. They know that we’re a robust individuals, and it is extremely lovely now to see the Jewish individuals united. It’s a very transferring occasion.”
A necessary and extraordinary manufacturing
On January 27, the “We’re Nonetheless Standing” photographic exhibition was launched, which incorporates 34 distinctive pictures that inform of the triumph of the lives of Holocaust survivors – chosen from a group of 400 images taken by 320 worldwide photographers from 30 nations. Photographers Jim Hollander and Rina Castelnuovo initiated the venture, which has been included right into a ebook in reminiscence of Holocaust survivors and introduced on the occasion.
“That is a unprecedented and very important manufacturing of pictures printed over the previous 5 years in dozens of nations,” mentioned KKL-JNF Appearing CEO Yuval Yenni. “You will need to give credit score to the Israeli delegation to the UN, after three and a half difficult months skilled by Israeli society. It’s symbolic to mark Worldwide Holocaust Remembrance Day on this method, particularly to point out help for Jewish communities towards the background of rising antisemitism. It’s most likely no coincidence that on January 25 we marked Tu Bishvat, the vacation that symbolizes the renewal and the institution of the roots of the Jewish individuals.
“Because the starting of the conflict, KKL-JNF has been aiding the residents of the Gaza border communities and the South,” he famous. “We volunteered our help, with monetary assist in the primary week of the preventing to the heads of councils and communities, along with the thousands and thousands of shekels for gear for emergency squads and donations of ambulances, by the Affiliation for Israel’s Troopers, to the southern communities.”
Odeya Bilig, who heads the group, immigrant, and particular wants initiatives in KKL-JNF’s Schooling and Neighborhood Division, works carefully with Holocaust survivors in Israel. She mentioned that working with Holocaust survivors on an intensive foundation started through the corona pandemic. “Even earlier than that, the difficulty of loneliness arose, however the pandemic made it much more tough for them to take care of it. We began joint actions so as to create alternatives for them to do issues collectively and to create a shared expertise that would come with values of the Land of Israel, nature, and heritage. This got here from the understanding that these actions strengthen them.
“Yearly, we provide organized and experiential nature excursions at heritage websites for Holocaust survivors that inform the story of the Land of Israel. We’re current in all communities, along with organizations of Holocaust survivors and numerous nonprofit organizations. As well as, on Rosh Hashanah and Passover, we distribute meals packages to 2,000 Holocaust survivors in want, from Israel’s geographic and social periphery. The distribution is carried out with volunteers, youth, and college students and in cooperation with numerous organizations. This creates an intergenerational encounter, and it is extremely important, particularly on the subject of Holocaust survivors.
“The distribution of meals packages makes them particularly completely satisfied through the holidays. One of many survivors instructed us that he hid within the forests through the Holocaust, and in his expertise the forest saved his life. For him, hiding within the forest was accompanied by emotions of concern and anxiousness. Now he feels that, along with the excursions and the celebrations on Tu Bishvat, when he talks in regards to the connection to the forests it permits him to derive a constructive expertise from the forest and to make a correction of kinds.”
Holocaust survivors on Oct. 7
Esti Goldwasser, director of the Worldwide Relations Division of KKL-JNF’s Fundraising and Exterior Relations Division, emphasised the significance of holding the occasion on the United Nations and the affect of the occasions of Oct. 7 on the group of Holocaust survivors in Israel.
“Many ambassadors from numerous nations participated within the occasion, and it was a possibility to hyperlink the Holocaust horror experiences to the horrors that occurred on October 7. Sadly, there have been incidents there that reminded us very a lot of the Holocaust. It’s unattainable to disregard the tough tales of Holocaust survivors who, after World Conflict II, immigrated to Israel to construct their houses in a secure, protected land and have been pressured to endure these pogroms once more, this time on kibbutzim in Israel.
“The picture exhibit introduced up the tales of the survivors of the occasions of the Black Shabbat of October 7, resembling that of Moshe Ridler, the ‘grandfather of Holit,’ a 91-year-old survivor who was murdered by terrorists. Or the story of Ruth Haran, who survived each the Holocaust and the bloodbath at Kibbutz Be’eri however whose members of the family have been murdered and a few kidnapped. They as soon as once more needed to endure their expertise of childhood trauma; a part of the importance of this occasion is to make these tales accessible to the world.
“For KKL-JNF, this occasion is a continuation of the group’s ongoing actions all through the generations, honoring the Holocaust victims, survivors, and Righteous Among the many Nations. Holocaust remembrance is in our hearts, and the connection between the group and the Holocaust could be very deep. The truth is, KKL-JNF has a particular Holocaust survivor committee, led by David Yaari, KKL-JNF vice chairman.
“Since World Conflict II, now we have strived to strengthen Holocaust survivors and commemorate its victims. We join the individuals of Israel to the Land of Israel. The survivors who made their option to Israel requested that KKL-JNF plant bushes in reminiscence of their family members. A complete of six million bushes have been planted in Martyrs Forest within the Jerusalem Hills; and in numerous forests all through the nation, groves have been planted commemorating Jewish communities destroyed within the Holocaust.”
And, after all, the enduring Blue Field: “The Blue Field is one in all KKL-JNF’s most enduring symbols and has been in Jewish houses, organizations, and faculties because the institution of the group over 122 years in the past. There are testimonies from the ghettos that the Blue Containers have been discovered there – empty, after all – however for the Jews who skilled the Holocaust, the Blue Field and what it stood for was a ray of hope for a greater future.
“That is what KKL-JNF desires to supply – a greater future for the Jewish individuals and the Land of Israel.”
This text was written in cooperation with KKL-JNF.
Translated by Alan Rosenbaum.
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