JCCGI Spreads Chanukah Joy to Holocaust Survivors in Brooklyn

By Yehudit Garmaise

   Just to spread simchas Chanukah to elderly Holocaust survivors, from 11:30am to 5pm yesterday, four Jewish Community Council of Greater Coney Island (JCCCGI) vans and one truck blaring joyous Chanukah music made their way throughout Brooklyn: to Boro park, Flatbush, Coney Island, Brighton, and Midwood.

   The volunteers on the cars and the truck, which were escorted by Shomrim, also distributed thousands of two different kinds of bags that were filled with Chanukah surprises. One bag was filled with Chanukah treats, such as latkes, applesauce, sour cream, and doughnuts, and the other bag included fun gifts, such as chocolate Chanukah gelt, menorahs, candles, t-shirts, and gaiters. 

    “Everyone was really excited,” said Zehava Birman Wallace, who is JCCCGI’s director of case management services for Holocaust survivor support services.

   So that clients could get ready for the fun, they received texts 10 minutes before the vans were to arrive.

   “Clients were waiting for us,” Mrs. Wallace said. “They came out of their apartments or stood on their porches. We saw people dancing to the music. It was really, really special.”

  The JCCGGI travelling Chanukah party was especially meaningful because throughout the year Wallace directs a staff that usually conducts monthly events for the elderly Holocaust survivors to meet, socialize, eat, and have fun in person.

   Those parties, called Club 2600 because they originally took place at 2600 Ocean Parkway Ave., are lifelines for the Holocaust survivors, many of whom are single and do not leave their homes often.

   Mrs. Wallace said that at least one 95-year-old woman makes sure to visit a manicurist and hair stylist before each Club 2600 event.

    Also at a Club 2600 event, two gentlemen reconnected after not having seen each other since World War II. 

   “They recognized each other and reconnected at one of our parties,” said Mrs. Wallace. “Now they are friendly again.

   “All of our clients have their crews, their groups, their chevra: they save seats for their friends.”

   The freilach Club 2600 events, which serves hot meals to Holocaust survivors and their home health care workers, have, unfortunately, during the pandemic, been replaced by phone calls and virtual events on which the 100 participants have to remain on mute.

   “Our staff has not gotten to see our clients in so long, but after our event today, one client called us crying,” Mrs. Wallace said. “She said ‘I haven’t seen you in months and now I got to see your faces again.

   “Another woman said, ‘You are my Chanukah miracle.’ Yet another lady said, ‘Jewish Community Council of Greater Coney Island, you are the best thing in my life.’”

   Mrs. Wallace said gratefully that her clients really appreciate all of their efforts to help them with socializing, daily transportation, home care, case management, access to government benefits and reparations from Germany, Austria, Poland, and other countries.

    “I always hear, ‘You guys never forget about the Holocaust survivors,” Mrs. Wallace said. ‘You take care of us. You treat us so well.’

 “I hear a lot that we don’t forget them. They just don’t want to be forgotten.”