Last week, just days before Shavuot, Fellowship staff traveled to Haifa to deliver special holiday packages to elderly beneficiaries who are also Holocaust survivors. Faced with rising living costs, limited family support, and the ongoing challenges of current events, many are once again forced to choose between essential care and their next meal. To help them celebrate the holiday, the packages included traditional dairy items such as cream cheese so they could prepare their favorite Shavuot dishes.
One of the beneficiaries staff visited in Haifa was 93-year-old Yelena. Christian fellowship has been part of her story since birth. She was born in a monastery in Moscow, where Christian women helped her mother deliver her. Yelena describes her grandmother as an extraordinary woman who was among the first female psychiatrists in the region. After losing many family members during a typhus epidemic, her grandmother dedicated herself to studying medicine, and also reminded Yelena how violence and chaos can change a person’s life forever.
Yelena said, “I grew up in the Soviet Union during a time when religion was forbidden. I already grew up as a communist. Still, even though Jewish life was hidden, we always knew we were Jewish. Later, anti-Semitism became stronger again, especially after World War II. My grandmother understood how dangerous those years were for Jews. She even sent me away from Moscow to study in the south because, as she said, there was no anti-Semitism there.”
During World War II, Yelena and her family were evacuated to the Ural region, where they endured severe hunger and hardship. She remembers surviving on potato peels and singing in a military hospital in exchange for extra food donations. Her performances often brought soldiers to tears. Yelena was not alone in helping the war effort — local children also came together to support the soldiers however they could.
Life did not become easier after the family returned to Moscow following the war. Many of Yelena’s relatives were killed during Stalin’s purges, arrested by the KGB and never heard from again. As an adult, Yelena studied art history and later worked with the Soviet Artists’ Union.
Yelena and her husband had two children, both of whom tragically passed away at a young age. Yelena believes their deaths were connected to the radiation exposure her husband experienced through his work at a nuclear facility. After making aliyah to Israel in 1991, her husband later became ill and passed away as well. Despite these hardships, Yelena built a meaningful life for herself in Israel.
“Today, at 93 years old, I face many health problems after several strokes,” she says. “Daily life is not simple. The support I receive from The Fellowship means a great deal to me. The food packages help not only me, but also many other elderly people around me.”
“Remember the days of old; consider the generations long past. Ask your father and he will tell you, your elders, and they will explain to you” (Deuteronomy 32:7).
