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Planting the Seeds in the Frozen Tundra
Many of us still recall the days before the fall of Communism. They recall the ardent desire to see an end to the seven-decade campaign to eradicate Yiddishkeit from the hearts, and the generations, of the Jews of the Former Soviet Union. They desperately wanted to see their brethren freed from the material and spiritual incarceration.
And then there were those who acted.
In those treacherous days, there were those who thought about the day after; what would be the spiritual future of these Jews, and of their children and grandchildren? The work began before the fall of the Evil Empire—with faith in yeshuas Hashem—and the tens of thousands of who have been impacted through Yad Yisroel’s work over three decades have been the fulfillment of Hashem’s Guiding Hand.
The Spiritual Center of Belarus
A region that once teemed with Jewish life—led by Gedolei Olam, Admorim, and Roshei Yeshiva—was laid to spiritual waste. Thirty years later, the great city of Pinsk—the home of Yad Yisroel’s institutions—is not only a center of education in Torah and Yiddishkeit; it is the center of Jewish life for the entire region.
While Yad Yisroel’s primary mission is to place the hundreds of boys and girls who come from throughout Belarus on a path of Torah for life—infusing them with love for Hashem and for His Torah, holding their hands as they find their life-partners, and establish upstanding Torah homes—Yad Yisroel has served as a center for Jews of all ages, in the entire region, for the gamut of their needs.
Providing food for the needy and the elderly, a kever Yisroel for those who have passed on, kosher food for Jews in the region, and the long-elusive connection to Yiddishkeit for young and old that has so cruelly been torn away from them for more than seventy years are just some of the ways that Yad Yisroel is growing and expanding its work.
Rav Elyashiv, zt”l: ‘Anieyei Ircha’
The thousands of Jews of Belarus have no one to care for their material needs and for their spiritual futures, and that of their future generations.
It is for this reason that Rav Yosef Sholom Elyashiv ruled that Yad Yisroel’s constituents have the status of “aniyei ircha,” the highest priority in giving tzeddakah. Rav Elyashiv had known of the life that once was in Belarus, and surely felt the pain of seeing our brethren of the region abandoned and forlorn, but that Yad Yisroel was providing a ray of light, a hope for the thousands of neshamos that would otherwise be lost.
While the success of Yad Yisroel in the past and the present has been incredible—as evidenced by the hundreds of Torah families that have been established by its alumni—there is so much work yet to be done. The Covid-19 epidemic has only added challenges to our fundraising this year, and we need your partnership for our work to continue.
Your unimaginable reward will surely likewise be doubled!
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