The Moroccan food was a hit.
The team from Beit Hallel had brought lunch from Ashdod for a gathering with Holocaust survivors in Jerusalem, and before long the people around the tables were asking questions about the city. What is Ashdod like? Could they come and visit sometime? Somewhere between passing plates, talking across the table, and getting to know one another, they were already imagining another day together. The team had come to Jerusalem to spend an afternoon with them, but before it was over, everyone was talking about the next time.
There were 34 Holocaust survivors gathered that day, including Yosef Levin, who was celebrating his 91st birthday. The team and volunteers set the tables and served lunch, but they did not want to spend the afternoon serving people from a distance. They sat down too. They ate together, asked questions, and listened to stories.
Many of the survivors are wonderfully active and social, and when the Keytlin Jerusalem Band began playing familiar Jewish music, the room came alive. Birthdays were celebrated with small gifts, people began singing, and before long there was dancing. For an afternoon, the room was filled not with the painful history these men and women carry, but with food, friendship, music, and joy.
A pastor from Ukraine had also joined the gathering that day. He had not come as a speaker; he simply came to help, setting tables alongside the other volunteers. Later, he was invited to share a few words and told the survivors that despite everything happening in Ukraine, believers there continue to pray for Israel and stand with the Jewish people. He spoke about God’s love for them and reminded them that there are people far beyond Israel who have not forgotten them.
Those words carried particular weight in a room filled with Holocaust survivors. These are men and women whose lives are connected to one of the darkest chapters in Jewish history, when so many were abandoned and the world too often looked away. Several listened closely and later shared how much it meant to know that believers in another country were praying for them and standing with Israel.
But perhaps the words that stayed with the team most came near the end of the afternoon.
Some of the survivors invited them to visit their hostel and said simply:
“Don’t forget us. Come again.”
There was something wonderfully direct about that request. They were not asking for another elaborate event. They wanted to know that the people who had sat with them, listened to them, celebrated their birthdays, and shared a meal with them would return.
And that is exactly what the Beit Hallel team wants to do.
These gatherings are becoming an important part of the ministry’s relationship with Holocaust survivors in Jerusalem. The meal matters. The music matters. Celebrating someone’s 91st birthday matters. But returning month after month creates something a single afternoon cannot. Faces become familiar. Conversations continue instead of starting over. Someone remembers what you shared last time. Birthdays are known before they arrive. Little by little, trust and friendship grow.
You cannot build that kind of relationship in one visit. It takes another visit, and then another.
Through Voice of Judah Israel and our partnership with Beit Hallel Congregation, we have the opportunity to help make those return visits possible. Your support helps provide the meals, bring the ministry team to Jerusalem, celebrate birthdays, and continue these regular gatherings. But underneath all those practical things is something even more important: it gives people time to sit together.
It means the team does not simply arrive with something, hand it over, and leave. They can pull up a chair. They can listen. They can remember. And when someone says, “Come again,” they can do everything possible to keep that promise.
For those of us standing with Israel from thousands of miles away, perhaps there is something beautiful in that too. We may not be sitting around those tables in Jerusalem ourselves, but through our prayers and generosity, we can help make sure these precious men and women continue to know that they have not been forgotten.
Will you help us keep coming back?
“Do not cast me off in the time of old age; do not forsake me when my strength fails.”
Psalm 71:9