Valleywide : Holocaust Memorial to Aid Jews in Minsk

The link between Jews in Los Angeles and Minsk, Belorussia, boils down to beshert, or “destiny,” Cheri Dekofsky thinks. Particularly on Sunday, international Holocaust Memorial Day, or Yom HaShoah.

In honor of the day, volunteers from 31 Jewish groups across the San Fernando, Santa Clarita, Conejo and Simi valleys will gather at the Bernard Milken Jewish Community Campus in West Hills to remember all Holocaust victims.

Throughout the day, the Kehillah Project Los Angeles, which Dekofsky chairs, will collect food and medical supplies for 40,000 or so surviving Minsk Jews. The donations will be packed into a 40-foot cargo crate the U.S. State Department will ship for free.

The symbolism of the Minsk Jews is great, Dekofsky explained.

“Minsk was the city the Nazis used to instill in us that we would not survive,” Dekofsky said. “But we survived.”

Minsk was once the cradle of Soviet Jewry, she said, so the tie to the city is a genealogical one as well.

According to the Washington, D.C.-based National Conference on Soviet Jewry, many of the surviving Minsk Jews are frail, infirm and impoverished. Forty percent of them are 70 or older. Many live on the equivalent of $10 to $20 a month.

But, through the aid of humanitarian groups, the Minsk population has revived two synagogues, a Jewish day school and a cultural center over the past two years.

Requested donations include cooking oil and dried foods in bulk that will travel well, such as rice, beans, lentils, pasta and oats, Dekofsky said. Medical supplies should include bandages, antibiotics, aspirin or Tylenol and cold medicines, she said. The medical supplies will be distributed to doctors.

Russian-speakers will be on hand to translate letters accompanying the shipment.

The day is organized by the Jewish Community Relations Committee of the Jewish Federation Valley Alliance. Also during the 1 to 5 p.m. remembrance will be art and drama programs for children, a name-reading of friends and family lost in the Shoah, a memorial and candlelighting service and a tribute to non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust.

All events will occur at the Milken Campus, 22622 Vanowen St. in West Hills.

Call (818) 587-3200 for more information.