A group of Jewish teens recently cleaned and restored 16 graves in a Jewish cemetery in Lausanne, Switzerland, as part of the growing activities of the tight-knit Jewish community of the area.
The cleanup project was conducted in stark contrast to recurring desecration and vandalism of Jewish cemeteries across Europe, the Yael Foundation, a philanthropic organization that invests in Jewish education worldwide, said in a statement released on Thursday.
Simon Bismuth, director of the Youth Department at the Jewish Community of Lausanne and the Canton of Vaud, was quoted explaining what led to the project.
Since the Hamas-led invasion of Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, “we have tried each year to organize several major projects with real meaning for our young people, not just activities, but moments of transmission, responsibility and commitment,” Bismuth said.
“The idea also came from something very personal. Since the loss of my daughter Tsofia, I sometimes go to clean her grave. One day while I was there, I looked around and thought there was something incredibly powerful to pass on to young people: taking care of memory, taking care of those who came before us, even when nobody sees it, even when there is nothing to receive in return,” he continued.
The teens who participated in the project restored “dignity to graves that had sometimes been a little forgotten. For me, this is a very beautiful form of leadership: quiet, humble, concrete, but profoundly powerful,” Bismuth said.
The Jewish community of Lausanne and the Canton of Vaud consists of around 2,500 people (some 600 families), yet has built one of the more vibrant and youth-driven Jewish community ecosystems in Europe, according to the Yael Foundation, which began investing in the Lausanne Project in 2023, as one of its first investments.
What began as small-scale programming for children ages 5-15 over the past two decades gradually expanded into a broader youth infrastructure that today reaches hundreds of young people, including a large student population in Lausanne.
The community operates daily and weekly educational and social activities, leadership training for madrichim (young counselors/leaders), holiday programming, camps and community service initiatives. One of the major focuses has been empowering young people to actively shape and lead Jewish life, the Yael Foundation said.
The aim of the program is to build a future generation that is proud of its identity, deeply connected to Jewish values and Israel, and committed to communal continuity in Lausanne and across Switzerland.
The philanthropic group further quoted Bismuth as saying that the energy radiating from Lausanne’s Jewish community was recognized by the Yael Foundation.
In 2024, Lausanne’s youth center “received the Yael Foundation’s Informal Education Prize,” Bismuth said. “For us, this prize was recognition of the work happening on the ground, of the commitment of our madrichim, of the trust of families, and of our deep belief that Jewish education is not transmitted only in a classroom, but also through a song, a game, a camp, a Shabbat, a conversation, a volunteer project, or a responsibility entrusted to a young person. That is Lausanne. A small village with the energy of a great Jewish capital.”
