Thanks to what Jewish Family Services calls its greatest ever collective gift, about 100 remaining Holocaust survivors living in Greater Rochester will receive more support.
"We want to respond in an immediate and a compassionate way, and we want to do it now as these folks are approaching the final chapter of their lives," Deb Rosen, president and CEO of JFS, said before a news conference announcing the funding on Thursday.
The grants totaling $255,000 come from the Jewish Federation of Greater Rochester, KAVOD-Ensuring Dignity for Holocaust Survivors, and from New York state's Holocaust Survivors Initiative.
Jewish Family Services provides programs to support the senior members of the local Jewish community, including those who survived the Holocaust. This includes mental health and wellness services such as individual and group therapy, affordable housing, and on-site social services.
About 40 Holocaust survivors live at Ellison Park Apartments in Brighton, where they receive help from a JFS social worker free of charge. Part of the new funding will support this "naturally occurring retirement community," or NORC, as it's called.
Survivor Noyema "Emma" Averbakh, 86, and her husband, Zigmund Averbakh, emigrated from Ukraine to Rochester in 1992.
Emma Averbakh, a former math teacher, said NORC director Talya Brea has been a lifeline for them.
"Talya take good care of us like a mother," Averbakh said. "She did everything for us to be involved in the life in America. She did everything."
Brea helps residents apply for SNAP benefits, navigate the insurance and Medicare systems and go to medical appointments, stores, and community outings. Sometimes she helps the Averbakhs find Russian television on YouTube.
Like many immigrants and refugees in the U.S., some Rochester-area Holocaust survivors are living at or near poverty levels, according to Rosen. So some of the grant funding will provide support for housing, health care, transportation, and other emergency needs. She said Americans may believe that survivors have been made more financially comfortable through government support than they actually have.
"Survivors of the Holocaust who, against all odds, made it through incredible oppression and trauma," Rosen said. "And we are very, very motivated to ensure that this chapter of their lives is comfortable and supportive."
In addition, she said Jewish Family Services has reduced the caseloads of some of its social workers so they can provide more assistance to survivors and relief to the survivors' second- and third-generation relatives who care for them.
Because it is possible there are some survivors of the Holocaust living in Rochester who Jewish Family Services are unaware of, Rosen encouraged anyone who believes they may qualify for assistance to call the JFS help line at (585) 461-0114, or email Helpline@jfsrochester.org.
She noted that survivors also include those who did not live in a ghetto or concentration camp. Some endured horrors across a vast landscape of urban, suburban, and rural settings.
"We are very hopeful that this news may get the word out to people who did have that experience but who did not previously identify themselves as survivors," said Rosen.
