From our partners at JDC
For Jewish communities across the world, Passover is a time to come together, gathering with family and friends to commemorate the journey from slavery to freedom.
JDC supports individual and communal Passover Seders and celebrations in dozens of countries, helping Jews share in this meaningful cultural experience and rediscover and explore their heritage.
For many — like Kaja in Poland, Milka in India, and Bella in Ukraine — the connection with JDC helps them obtain “a seat at the table,” rejoining the global Jewish family and sparking a new and vibrant connection to Jewish traditions.
KAJA’S STORY
When 21-year-old Kaja Siczek was a small child, religion wasn’t a big part of her family’s life in Warsaw, Poland.
Then her older sister went to high school, beginning to learn Hebrew and study Jewish customs and traditions — and telling her little sister. Kaja was hooked.
“One day 10 years ago, I went to my first Jewish youth camp. Now everything has changed. I’ve developed my Jewish identity and become really active in the community,” said Kaja, now a second-year Jewish studies at the University of Warsaw. “Now, my mom’s joined me and both of us are strengthening our Jewish identity.”
Since her first experience at Jewish youth camp, she has sought out new programs, lectures, projects, and ways to get involved, she said.
The JDC-supported JCC Warsaw helped catalyze her connection to the Jewish community, Kaja said.
“At the very beginning of the JCC, I was at literally every event. Nowadays, with my studies, I’ve scaled back a bit, but I’m still doing my best,” she said. “It’s just amazing. I know for sure that I don’t want to leave the Jewish community. It’s an important part of me.”
Passover has helped cement the connection, too.
Kaja recalled how moved she was to receive an invitation to a friend’s Seder.
“She gathered a few of her closest friends, and we did our own Passover evening. We had everything: the Haggadah, matzah, wine,” she said. “It was a fantastic experience. Now I feel like I have a Jewish community to spend the holidays with.”
MILKA’S STORY
One of the last surviving members of a prominent Jewish family of carpenters in the Konkan villages about three hours south of Mumbai, India, 73-year-old Milka Waskar depends on the help she receives from JDC to live.
A retired plantation farmer, Milka suffers from asthma and allergies, but she still loves to pray, attending holidays and festivals at the Rewdanda Synagogue and traveling for other programs and events when she can.
Milka lives with her 70-year-old sister, Shoshanna, a former municipal worker who suffers from diabetes. Both unmarried, they turn to JDC for financial support and medical assistance.
On the second Sunday of each month, Milka and Shoshanna travel an hour to the Laxmi Nursing Home in the village of Alibag, 14 kilometers from where they live in Cheul. There, a doctor examines the sisters and all of JDC’s other Indian welfare clients, prescribing medicines and carrying out other important medical follow-ups.
“Always, but especially during the holidays, we are reminded that we are not forgotten — that the global Jewish community cares about us in good and hard times,” Milka said.
BELLA’S STORY
This year is Bella’s first Seder.
As a child in occupied Odessa, Ukraine, 81-year-old Bella Yurash was forced to share sleeping space on the floor of a family’s friend’s basement with her mother and younger sister — and rats.
The most festive Jewish meal she can remember from that time were potato-peel pancakes.
Now, JDC brings matzah to Bella each year, and her homecare worker Valechka has promised to teach her recipes for Passover.
JDC has been assisting Bella since 2015 with homecare, medical equipment, emergency financial assistance, and food and medicine made possible through the IFCJ Food and Medicine Lifeline, JDC’s operational partnership with the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews (IFCJ).
This help is critical, since she lives on a $63/month pension and suffers from a host of medical issues — diabetes, high blood pressure, and various gastrointestinal disorders — that keep her largely homebound.
A mock daytime Seder event on April 14 will be a welcome reprieve. It is designed to teach elderly Jews like Bella about Passover, since their lives under Communism had many barriers to access for learning about Jewish culture and tradition.
Forty-five clients of Odessa’s JDC-supported Hesed social welfare center are expected to participate in the program.
“I’m looking forward to the being surrounded by friends on such a festive occasion,” Bella said. “I have a very vague idea of what Passover is. Mostly, I just know that it’s got something to do with matzah. But as to why matzah and what it means, I have no clue. I’m excited to find out!”