Teens and Holocaust Survivors Make Challah Together at JFS Event

By Cailin Acosta

SAN DIEGO – Jewish Family Service hosted a challah bake that included 14-year-old girls and boys and Holocaust survivors on Sunday, Sept. 14. Milana, a teenager, organized this event and coordinated with Cally Clein, Senior Director of JFS’s Supporting Our Survivors program (SOS). Marisa, the challah baker for JFS, was on-site giving the teens instructions on how to braid and form the round challah that is made for Rosh Hashanah.

Milana introduced herself and welcomed everyone to the event. She mentioned this program is part of her 8th-grade service project for school and that she has a passion for Holocaust remembrance and honoring the survivors. When she brought this event to JFS, the adults helped her bring this program to life. Survivors and teens worked together to make some delicious challah.

Milana instructed the teens and survivors to come to the tables where the challah dough was already made and had them start with an ice breaker game to get to know each other.

Part of the ice breaker activity was asking the participants where they are from and a fun fact about them. One of the participants had a map on a board, and people could put a tack on the board indicating where they were born. Many of the survivors were from Ukraine. Most of the teens were born in San Diego.  Gerry, one of the survivors, had a fun fact: he stated that he is alive. Many of the survivors had the same common interests in enjoying reading, walking, and a few enjoyed playing chess. One of the teens mentioned a fun fact was that she has a twin brother.

As the teens and survivors talked and started shaping the round challahs, I talked with Clein and Tanya Hackel, Chief Advancement Officer. JFS has been and making sure these survivors’ needs are met through different grants. The definition of being a survivor has evolved over the years, Clein started. It is not just those who were in the concentration camps and ghettos but who suffered persecution just for being Jewish. This also encompasses those who were born after 1945, after liberation, since their parents suffered persecution just for being Jewish.

As the survivors and the young teens took braiding instructions from Marisa, the room was filled with conversations, laughter, and smiles all around. It was heart-warming seeing the young engage with the “young at heart”, working together, making challah that our ancestors have been making for generations.

The round challah made for Rosh Hashanah is a symbol of eternal life, and at this event, it symbolized the future of these young teens, preserving the past and carrying on the legacy that we will not forget, and the hope for the future to be bright.

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Cailin Acosta is the assistant editor of the San Diego Jewish World.