Assisting Israel’s Holocaust Survivors

The Fellowship  |  January 26, 2017

As International Holocaust Remembrance Day is observed each January, fewer and fewer survivors of this dark chapter of the Jewish people – and the world – remain. However, the elderly survivors who are still living all too often still struggle – with health issues and extreme poverty. USA Today’s Michele Chabin reports on how The Fellowship and our faithful Christian friends are doing God’s work by providing for His people and assisting Israel’s Holocaust survivors who have already suffered far too much:

The Fellowship recently earmarked $52 million over four years to expand its services to needy elderly Russian Jews, including tens of thousands of survivors, in partnership with the Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), the leading Jewish humanitarian assistance organization.

The Fellowship, which like the ICEJ says it does not evangelize to Jews, also distributes supermarket vouchers to 20,000 Israeli survivors and sends volunteers to visit the lonely.

Avraham Marek, 103, who has lived alone in his Jerusalem apartment since his wife died 10 years ago, recently welcomed a visit from Jancy Benvenishti, The Fellowship’s Jerusalem coordinator.

Marek’s parents and all 10 of his siblings were murdered in Czechoslovakia during the Holocaust; he managed to survive because he enlisted in the Czech army. He moved to Israel in 1949 with his wife, a survivor of Auschwitz.

In his apartment in a working-class Jerusalem neighborhood, Marek expressed his appreciation to Benvenishti, who had come to check on his well-being.

At the visit’s end, Marek took her hands and gave her a Hebrew blessing.

“May God give you a life as long as mine, with health as good as mine,” he said. “And may God give you the ability to continue your holy work to those of us who need it.”