In late 2014, Nikita Didenko was living a dream. In his small hometown of Alchevsk, in eastern Ukraine, he was a counselor at the local Jewish youth club and a proud graduate of Metsuda, a program of Federation partner agency the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) that develo…
Angelina had lived through more by age 8 than most people will experience during their entire lives. Growing up in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, she lost both of her parents, then lost her 23-year-old brother shortly afterward in a construction accident.
Orphaned and alone, the young girl moved…
When he left the Soviet Union with his family at age 7, Michael owned nothing but the shirt he was wearing—complete with grease stain on the front pocket.
He had safely tucked the butter served on his flight to Israel there because he couldn’t imagine a life different than the one h…
Though he’s been in Israel for less than a year and is far from his family, Thibault already feels more at home there than he ever did in his native France.
In Paris, he felt like an outcast. Though his grandparents are Holocaust survivors, Thibault grew up in an assimilated household…
“Completely alone.”
That’s how Anna Kushnir has felt since fighting broke out in her town of Slavyansk in eastern Ukraine last year. Amid constant gunfire and mortars, her beloved husband of over 50 years died unexpectedly. Every house in her town has been destroyed, replaced with…
