A report that the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany published today about aging Holocaust survivors suggests “sobering insights into the future of this incredible community,” per the nearly 75-year-old nonprofit, which estimates that it will distribute about $530 million in compensation this year to Holocaust survivors worldwide, and $960 million for welfare needs of survivors.
Some 1,400 (.6%) of the estimated 220,800 survivors in 90 countries today are centenarians, and half of the survivors live in Israel, according to the Claims Conference. The median age of survivors is 87, and 61% are women, per the nonprofit.
The Claims Conference’s new report, titled Vanishing Witnesses: An Urgent Analysis of the Declining Population of Holocaust Survivors, projects that just half of Holocaust survivors worldwide will remain in six years, with just 30%, or about 66,250, remaining in 2035. By 2040, just 22,080 survivors will remain, according to the Claims Conference.
Mortality rates differ, per the nonprofit, with 39% of U.S. survivors (from 34,600 to 21,100) and 54% of survivors in former Soviet countries (from 25,500 to 11,800) expected to be lost by 2030. Israel, which has the most survivors (110,100, as of last October), is projected to lose 43% by 2030, dropping to 62,900.
“This report provides clear urgency to our Holocaust education efforts,” stated Gideon Taylor, president of the Claims Conference. “Now is the time to hear first-hand testimonies from survivors, invite them to speak in our classrooms, places of worship and institutions. It is critical, not only for our youth but for people of all generations to hear and learn directly from Holocaust survivors.”
“This report is a stark reminder that our time is almost up, our survivors are leaving us, and this is the moment to hear their voices,” Taylor said.
Greg Schneider, executive vice president of the Claims Conference, told JNS that "we need to know the data around survivors—where they live, poverty rates, the type of persecution that they endured—and then to project that into the future first and foremost so that we can secure the maximum amount of funding and benefits.”
"Survivors are living longer, and we need to plan for that even as we are helping it happen. There are 300 agencies around the world that we fund to provide services, and this data is essential as they plan the coming years," Schneider.
It is also important to be realistic about "the inevitability of the loss of survivors" and to ensure "that institutions of memory and communities understand the projections," according to Schneider.
"Overwhelmingly, Holocaust survivors are comforted to know that they and what they endured will be remembered. Demographic reports about trends, timelines and projections help to focus communal attention on these essential issues," he told JNS. "In highlighting the fragility of the survivor community, if we are able to move even one person to spend more time with a survivor, realizing the limited opportunity, then for sure we have done some good."
"We take every opportunity to emphasize to our young people that they'll be the last in history to meet living Holocaust survivors," he added. "We can't squander those opportunities."
Nechama Grossman, 110, who lives in Israel, is one of the oldest Holocaust survivors, according to her son, Vladimir Shvetz. “She lived through the worst of humanity, and she survived. She raised her children, her grandchildren, her great-grandchildren, to teach them that unchecked hatred cannot win,” Shvetz stated. “We must remember her story, remember the Holocaust, remember all the survivors. Learn from it so that her past does not become our future.”
Leonard Zaicescu, 98, is one of the last to survive the death train from Iasi, Romania. “As long as I am still alive and have strength, I will do everything I still can so that future generations will learn about what happened—the Iasi Massacre—and that it may become known in the memory of future generations,” he stated.
“It’s sobering to see exactly how few of us Holocaust survivors are left,” stated Pinchas Gutter, one of the last to survive the Warsaw Ghetto uprising.
“We have an important piece of history that only we hold and only we can tell. I hope, in the time we have, we can impart the learning from the Holocaust so that the world will never again have to endure that level of hate. I am a witness,” he stated. “Those of us witnesses still alive are working to make sure our testimonies are heard and preserved through any means possible.”
“We are counting on this generation to hear us and future generations to carry our experiences forward, so that the world does not forget,” he said.
Reps. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.), chairman of the House Education and Workforce Committee, and Burgess Owens (R-Utah), chairman of the House Higher Education and Workforce Development Subcommittee, sent records request letters to the presidents of three universities scheduled for a May 7 congressional hearing on antisemitism.
The presidents of California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, Calif., Haverford College in Haverford, Pa., and DePaul University in Chicago will “answer for mishandling of antisemitic, violent protests” during the hearing, titled “Beyond the Ivy League: Stopping the Spread of Antisemitism on American Campuses.”
The hearing is part of an effort to “ensure Jewish students across the nation don’t face threats or harassment in violation of Title VI,” Walberg said.
Each letter cited different instances of antisemitism, but all three letters requested the same records in addition to specific campus incident records. The records request included documents and policies showing changes to each school’s code of conduct following the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, as well as documents detailing each school’s relationship with pro-Palestinian and pro-Hamas groups such as Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace.
“In the month after the attack, antisemitic incidents in the United States increased 388 percent,” read the letter to Cal Poly. “America’s colleges and universities have been a major source in this rise in antisemitism.”
“In particular, the committee has found that ‘in the aftermath of that horrific event, American institutions of higher education were upended by an epidemic of hate, violence, and harassment targeting Jewish students,’” the letter continued.
Earlier in April, the Lawfare Project filed a lawsuit against DePaul on behalf of two students who allege antisemitic discrimination.
Toronto-area Jews told JNS that they aren’t surprised that three Jewish-owned stores in heavily Jewish Thornhill, just north of the city, were attacked over Passover and that they suspect that antisemitism motivated the vandal or vandals.
On Saturday, on the second to last day of the holiday, the front doors of the Judaica shop Shainee’s Gift Selections, the kosher pizzeria My Zaidy’s Pizza and a pharmacy that is part of the chain Shoppers Drug Mart were smashed in. All three are Jewish-owned, and all are part of the Spring Farm Marketplace, which locals call the Sobeys Plaza, after the large supermarket chain anchoring the plaza at Clark and Hilda Avenues.
David Fleischer, a neighborhood local, wrote on social media on Saturday that “when I heard the plaza had been hit, I correctly guessed it was the two stores with Jewish names.” (Despite its lack of a Jewish name, Shoppers has a mezuzah on the door.)
“The Shoppers is a bit of an anomaly, but it is right next to those stores in the plaza,” he wrote. “I expect to soon be assured that this is not who we are as Canadians, and so forth.”
Fleischer told JNS that “when stuff like this happens, I don’t feel like giving the benefit of the doubt.”
“There’s a concern that it’s not just some break-in, and there’s a possible antisemitic subtext,” he said. “I hope it turns out it’s just some stupid kids robbing the registers or whatever, but it feels like it’s something all the time now.”
Arnie Gotfryd, who lives in the area and runs Maxi Mind Learning, which helps train children and adults to focus and learn better using lessons from the Lubavitcher Rebbe, told JNS that he was shocked to hear of the attacks.
“I hope that our antisemitism problem is finally addressed in some meaningful way, but this is horrible,” he said. “It keeps happening. Really, things are getting worse.”
Gotfryd suspects the attacker or attackers committed hate crimes.
“Why did they hit a pizza shop? There’s nothing that you’re gonna get from there. It’s pure hate,” he told JNS. “It’s not like there’s high-priced items from inside a Judaica shop. It can’t be anything but a hate crime.”
Ahead of Canada’s federal elections, slated for April 28, Gotfryd told JNS that the Conservative Party is the only one that “knows how to bring safety and security to our neighbourhoods.”
JNS sought to interview staff members at all three stores on April 21. Staff members at the Judaica store told JNS that the cash register was targeted, and an employee at the pharmacy said that shampoo bottles were taken. Staff at the pizza place wouldn’t comment, even anonymously.
The doors at all three stores had been boarded up on Monday.
Golden Chopstix, which is kosher and part of the shopping center, was not attacked, nor was Sobeys, which has a large kosher section.
Melissa Lantsman, a Jewish member of the Canadian Parliament who represents Thornhill, wrote that “three Jewish businesses, in the largest Jewish community in Canada, were attacked on a Jewish holiday. Call this what it is. A blatant attempt to intimidate and target our community.”
“My grandfather started one of these businesses when he came to Canada to give us a better life. Today, this country is unrecognizable,” Lantsman stated. “Since 2015, hate crimes are up 251%, while antisemitic hate crimes are up a staggering 405%. Jewish Canadians deserve to feel safe and secure in their homes, schools and businesses, but after 10 years of this Liberal government, it’s the exact opposite.”
The York Regional Police stated on Saturday that “cash registers were targeted in all three incidents.”
“There is no evidence to suggest that this is hate-motivated,” the police stated. “We are asking anyone with info or video to come forward.”
Steven Del Duca, the mayor of Vaughan, where the attacks occurred, stated on Saturday that the vandalism and thefts were a “clear attempt to intimidate our Jewish residents in Vaughan.”
“This is just the latest example of behavior that has been tolerated for far too long,” the mayor stated. “Leaders at all levels of government need to move beyond words and start taking action before this unbearable situation gets worse.”
Amir Epstein, co-founder and director of the Jewish civil rights group Tafsik, told JNS that My Zaidy’s Pizza has been “a beloved staple in the community for 40 years.”
“The level of antisemitism and intimidation we are experiencing has never been this severe,” said Epstein, who lives in the area. “Under the current government, we have witnessed an unprecedented rise in hate and violence.”
“The influx of extremists into our country has contributed to the alarming increase in attacks on our places of worship, schools and restaurants,” Epstein said. “The stores which were attacked will survive and thrive, but the fabric of our Canadian values has eroded and decayed under the Liberals.”
“They have allowed and in some circumstances encouraged this hateful behavior. What these hate-filled individuals fail to understand is that our community is among the most resilient in the world,” Epstein added. “We will continue to stand strong and unite in the face of adversity.”
The top editor of Columbia Journalism Review was fired on Thursday after he objected to a “significant ethical problem” in a reporter’s coverage of the detention of a Palestinian graduate of Columbia University.
Sewell Chan, the former executive editor of CJR, wrote in a series of social-media posts on Friday that Jelani Cobb, the dean of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, which publishes CJR, fired the longtime journalist after “three pointed conversations.”
“One was with a fellow who is passionately devoted to the cause of the Gaza protests at Columbia and had covered the recent detention of a Palestinian graduate for an online publication he had just written about, positively, for CJR,” Chan wrote. “I told him there was a significant ethical problem with writing for an outlet he had just covered.”
The other two incidents related to a CJR report on a sexual harassment investigation that remains unpublished and a dispute over the writing output and office presence of another employee, per Chan’s account.
Chan did not name the reporter with whom he allegedly had the ethical problem, but his account appears to describe Meghnad Bose, a fellow at CJR who wrote a glowing profile in February of Drop Site News for its coverage “documenting Israel’s crimes” and its decision to interview Hamas officials while seeking minimal comment from the Israeli military.
In March, Bose wrote a profile for Drop Site News of Mahmoud Khalil, an Algerian national of Palestinian descent who recently graduated from Columbia and who was one of the leaders of the anti-Israel protest movement at the school.
The Trump administration arrested Khalil in March and has initiated deportation proceedings against him over his alleged support for Hamas. (JNS sought comment from Bose about Chan’s dismissal.)
Chan, who was previously editor-in-chief of the Texas Tribune and who also worked for The Los Angeles Times, New York Times and Washington Post, wrote that his oversight of the work of his reporters was intended to provide “rigorous, fair, careful editorial oversight” at a publication that is “supposed to monitor the media.”
“The norms at Columbia are apparently very different,” he wrote.
“This sounds like a prime example of why Columbia is so deeply off-track and why actual ‘journalism’ has almost completely been abandoned,” wrote Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas).
“Never Again” is what I heard all my life. Not just once, but over and over, as if saying it enough times could make it true. The meaning was clear. The world had learned. Humanity had seen where hatred leads. The horrors of the Holocaust would never be allowed to happen again.
I believed that because I trusted that the lessons of history had been absorbed—that antisemitism, exposed in its most horrific form, had been rejected by the international community. I believed this hatred belonged to the past.
I believed the world had changed—that after the Holocaust, antisemitism had become morally indefensible. I believed that institutions, governments and civil society had internalized history’s lessons and that the success and integration of Jews in democratic societies, alongside decades of interfaith dialogue and Holocaust education, had created a genuine shift. The State of Israel—strong, sovereign, open to the world—seemed proof that we had entered a different chapter.
But then came Oct. 7, and I woke up to the fact that I was very wrong.
Antisemitism is not a relic of the past. It didn’t die with the liberation of the camps or the creation of Israel. It has simply learned how to survive. It adapts to its surroundings, shifts its language, moves from theology to ideology, from race theory to political cause. It doesn’t disappear. It mutates. And always, at its core, remains the same impulse: to cast the Jew as the problem.
Israel was attacked. Families were slaughtered in their own homes. Children were taken hostage. It was the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust. Yet the predominant response was often not one of grief, shock or moral outrage.
In city after city, people marched calling for the end of the Jewish state. “From the river to the sea.” “Globalize the intifada.” “Resistance is justified.” These weren’t fringe chants—they were shouted by tens of thousands of people in capitals around the world. Flags of terror groups were raised. On campuses, Jewish students were harassed and isolated. In much of the public conversation, the outrage wasn’t directed at the terrorists but at Israel itself.
Perhaps most painful of all, many voices we once stood beside—civil rights groups, progressive leaders, minority communities we had supported and defended—were suddenly silent. Or worse, joined in the criticism.
But not everyone turned away. For the first time in history, the Jewish people were not abandoned entirely. On Oct. 7, as the world regressed into hatred, the Christian community stepped forward—a global movement of more than 700 million evangelical Christians, many of whom raised their voices with clarity and conviction.
Their support was not theoretical. It was loud, clear, personal. It came through prayer, through giving, through public statements, through messages of love. In churches across the world, Christians prayed for the hostages by name. They gave generously to help families under attack. They carried Israeli flags when many Jews were too afraid to do so themselves.
This mattered.
When so many chose silence, they spoke. When others turned away, they stood beside us. They reminded us that “Never Again” is not something Jews carry alone—and not something we can abandon when it becomes uncomfortable to uphold.
This week, we mark Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Memorial Day, starting on the evening of April 23 in Israel. We remember the 6 million Jews murdered not only by the machinery of death but by a world that looked away. We remember the families destroyed, the communities erased, and the silence that made it possible.
But remembrance is not enough. Not this year. Because the evil that led to Auschwitz has resurfaced—this time in language dressed up as justice, in hatred disguised as equity. This year, Holocaust Memorial Day isn’t only about what was done to us; it’s about what is being done to us now. Here in Israel, the warning couldn’t be more urgent.
A week before Passover, I was in a meeting in Jerusalem when sirens went off. We ran for shelter. Within a minute, I got a message from my daughter. She was in Poland. “Are you OK?” she asked, and then sent a photo of herself walking through Auschwitz, draped in an Israeli flag. “Even with sirens,” she said, “you’re lucky to be home.”
She didn’t hear sirens that day. But she wasn’t safe. Her group traveled with armed guards. They weren’t allowed to post their location. Because even in Auschwitz, even now, Jewish children are still targets.
This Holocaust Memorial Day, I am mourning the collapse of a vow. “Never Again” fell on Oct. 7 as quickly as it rose in 1945. And yet I am still hopeful. Still grateful. Because history is not repeating itself entirely.
The Jewish people have a state. And we have friends.
Although many turned away, millions of Christians did not. Quietly, steadily, without needing to be asked, without needing to be taught—they see, and they stand by our side.
Maybe that is what gives “Never Again” a chance to remain true. Not because the danger has faded—it hasn’t. Not because the hatred is gone—it isn’t. But because this time, when the words could have emptied out completely, someone stepped into them—and held them up.
And maybe that is what it will take, people willing to stand inside those words—not just to repeat them, but to carry their weight.
Maybe that is what “Never Again” has always meant. Not a promise but a shared responsibility.
And that, more than anything, is what we need now.
The U.S. Department of Education announced that it had sent a records request to Harvard University last week, after a review of the university’s foreign assets revealed “incomplete and inaccurate disclosures.”
“As a recipient of federal funding, Harvard University must be transparent about its relations with foreign sources and governments,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said. “Unfortunately, our review indicated that Harvard has not been fully transparent or complete in its disclosures, which is both unacceptable and unlawful.”
The records request asks Harvard to comply within 30 days of receipt.
“This records request is the Trump administration’s first step to ensure Harvard is not being manipulated by, or doing the bidding of, foreign entities, which include actors who are hostile to the interests of the United States and American students,” McMahon said. “We hope Harvard will respect its own motto and be truthful in its federal filings and foreign relationships.”
U.S. law requires postsecondary institutions that receive federal funding to disclose foreign gifts and contracts to the Education Department if their value exceeds $250,000.
U.S. President Donald Trump and the federal Joint Task Force to Combat Antisemitism recently froze $2.2 billion in grants and $60 million worth of contracts to the Ivy League school unless it met certain demands, which Harvard rejected. Trump also directed the Internal Revenue Service to look into removing Harvard’s tax-exempt status.
Last week, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security canceled $2.7 million in grants to the Ivy League school.
Would you hide me?
That’s a hypothetical question that Beth Lane asks several Berlin youths in her directorial debut, “Unbroken.” The answers they give her might surprise some. The documentary chronicles how her mother, five sisters and brother all survived the Holocaust, a near-miraculous feat. They were the largest number of Jewish siblings who survived together unseparated during the course of World War II and made newspaper headlines when they settled in Chicago.
The 2025 film, distributed by Greenwich Entertainment, tells the story of Alfons, Senta, Ruth, Gertrude, Renee and Judith Weber, and Lane’s mother, Bela, who goes by Ginger. Their parents (Lane’s grandparents) would have seemed an unlikely match. Lina was of short stature and from an Orthodox family; her father was a cantor. Alexander Weber was tall and Catholic; he converted and underwent a circumcision so he could marry the Jewish woman he fell in love with in 1926.
In 1933, Weber spent nine months at the Oranienburg concentration camp in Berlin, and Ruth says in the film that he said he was lucky he didn’t go meshuga, “crazy,” like some held in isolation did. He was put to work in the laundry, though still said he came away emotionally broken.
The family was taken to jail, though the children were released after two weeks. A friend of the family, Arthur Schmidt, took them on his truck in the middle of the night from Berlin to his farm in Worin, Germany.
Renee says in the film that she remembered Schmidt’s order: “Don’t raise that tarp” as they hid underneath it for the drive. The children lived in a small laundry room but at times could be outside.
“We were always afraid of strangers, always hungry,” Ginger says in the documentary.
Why did Schmidt and his wife, Paula, risk their lives to save seven Jewish children?
“I have my suspicions, but none of them were verified,” Lane told JNS. “One of his children died, and I’ve wondered if that made him a courageous and benevolent human being.”
The mayor, Rudi Fehrmann knew there were Jewish children being hidden and kept the secret. In the film, Lane visits the farm and is surprised to meet Fehrmann’s grandson.
“I felt like I was touching history, and my mother felt the same way, too,” Lane said. “It was very hard to describe knowing someone whose grandfather had the kindness and courage to do the right thing as a humanitarian.”
Lane’s grandmother, Lina, died in Auschwitz in 1943. Lane says she wishes she could have met the spitfire and chain-smoker who helped Jews in need and had been arrested a few times.
“People ask, ‘Who in history would you most like to meet or have dinner with?” Lane said. “Sometimes, I answer Queen Elizabeth. Most of the time, I answer Lina. I’d like to find out who my grandmother was. She had more chutzpah than one could imagine.”
‘We all get so defeated’
Ruth provides some surprising comic relief early on in the film. But she also talks about a dramatic journey on her bike, evading bombs that were dropping from the sky, as she pedaled to Berlin.
She says her father told her she needed to keep all the siblings together. They were advised to lie and say they had no living parents so that they could immigrate to America. They went to a displaced person’s camp in Munich, then a nunnery, which Lane visits. There, a nun, speaking about how people can be brave, says: “Unless your courage is challenged, you’ll never find out.”
On May 11, 1946, the children boarded the SS Marine Flasher that took them to the United States.
“I remember throwing up a lot,” Ginger says in the film.
They arrived in New York and were sent to Chicago, and were written about in many newspapers. Nevertheless, they were separated and sent to different foster homes.
“It destroyed me,” Ruth says, “because I couldn’t keep my word to my father.”
Bela would be adopted by a family.
Their father had been denied entry into America until he finally came in 1956. He had remarried and had two new children in Germany.
There are a few twists, as well as video footage of a dramatic reunion in 1986 that includes Ginger. The seven Jews who were saved eventually became an extended family of 72.
There is also narration from the diary of Alfons, as well as some from Lane. She said decades ago, she had read her uncle’s 40-page description of what happened to the family, but she again read it meticulously to make the film. She incorporates animation in a few scenes as opposed to re-creations; Lane said she didn’t want to have actors do them since she felt it would feel inauthentic.
She said it is a blessing to be alive as she knows her mother could have easily been caught or not had a place to hide, and she likely would have never been born. Lane, an actress, said that when it was time for her bat mitzvah, her parents asked her if she wanted a party or a trip to Europe. She chose the latter.
“We did and were driving in a mini-bus from France to Dachau, and halfway there, my mother made him turn around,” she recounted.
She said she had no issues going to Germany, however. “I think we have to acknowledge the past and find a way forward,” she said, adding that it was a “mind-blowing research journey.”
Lane said she is happy that the film will be viewed by many people, besides being shown at festivals. It was screened last week at the Paris Theater in Midtown Manhattan and will stream on Netflix beginning on April 23, timed to Yom Hashoah.
“I hope people come away with the notion that one person can make a difference,” Lane said. “We all get so defeated. The world has gotten so huge in terms of population, media and the Internet. We feel like we can’t make a difference.”
Of course, she acknowledged, “not all of us can hide seven children. But we can do something. We have a choice. How can we use our privilege to make the world a better place?”
The Israel Defense Forces will maintain ambiguity as its soldiers operate throughout the Gaza Strip to return the 59 hostages held by Hamas and collapse the terror organization's abilities, IDF Spokesperson Brig. Gen. Ephraim "Effie" Defrin said during a visit to the enclave on Monday.
"From the beginning of the operation, we have maintained ambiguity. This is not just a slogan—ambiguity is part of the method, part of the operational concept. We don’t want to share with Hamas what we are doing," the spokesman said during a tour of the Morag Corridor, which separates Gaza's southernmost city of Rafah from the rest of the Strip.
"Now that we've finished cutting things up here, we'll open up more and more and continue to surprise them," Defrin told reporters on the tour.
"We are operating in northern and southern Gaza, where we are now," Defrin said in remarks shared by the military. "We are striking Hamas infrastructure. There are many achievements, both underground and above ground, and we are targeting Hamas’s chain of command—we will continue to strike consistently and persistently.
Defrin emphasized that returning the remaining hostages was not only the reason Jerusalem returned to fighting, but that the mission remains the top priority for the entire IDF, "From the head of the command, through the division commanders, down to the last soldier.
"We will pursue Hamas wherever it is—whether in the northern Gaza Strip, the southern Gaza Strip, or outside the Gaza Strip—everywhere. We will not rest until we bring our hostages home, every last one of them, both the living and the dead," vowed the top spokesperson.
The Israeli Air Force struck more than 200 targets across Gaza over the past 72 hours, including "terrorist squads, rocket and sniper positions, weapons depots and buildings used for terror activity," the IDF has said.
Soldiers from the IDF's Gaza Division operating in Rafah destroyed infrastructure and discovered a weapons cache containing grenades, ammunition and other military equipment used by terror groups.
In northern Gaza, forces from the IDF's 252nd Division identified a number of terrorists in a building housing underground infrastructure, and carried out an aircraft strike against the site, according to the IDF.
The IDF resumed military activity in the Strip on March 18 after Hamas rejected a proposal to extend the ceasefire through the Passover and Ramadan periods, during which time the Palestinian terrorist group would release 11 living hostages and half of the bodies it still holds.
The renewed Israeli military campaign has been officially named “Operation Strength and Sword.”
Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, launched the deadliest single-day attack on Jews since the Holocaust, murdering some 1,200 people and kidnapping 251 more into the Gaza Strip. Of the latter, 147 have been returned to Israel alive in two separate rounds of ceasefire agreements, which included the release of thousands of Palestinian terrorists from Israeli prisons.
Jerusalem believes that out of the 59 remaining captives held in the coastal enclave, 24 are still alive, including one Thai and one Nepali.
Yoshi Zweiback, the senior rabbi at the Stephen Wise Temple, a more than 60-year-old Reform congregation in Los Angeles, pressed his feet into tiles on the ground as he gazed out over the Santa Monica Mountains.
“Watch this,” he told JNS excitedly.
The tiles played music. “You should see their faces when kids discover this for the first time,” the rabbi said.
Zweiback gave JNS a recent tour of the $35 million Aaron Milken Center for Early Childhood Education, whose March 23 ribbon-cutting drew more than 500 people.
The center’s new campus “builds on parenting and early childhood education, physically, conceptually and professionally,” stated Lowell Milken, founder of the Lowell Milken Family Foundation. “It expands, enhances and enriches efforts to embrace children with the kind of attention and care, with the kind of love, that has everything to do with who they become.”
The center is a tribute to Aaron Milken, the late son of Milken and his wife, Sandra Salka Milken, its lead donors. Aaron Milken died on Jan. 20, 2018, at the age of 23.
“I’ll never forget the first day of preschool for Aaron, 17 years after his oldest brother, Jeremy, when Aaron and I walked hand in hand into the same classroom and greeted Cynthia, the same teacher,” Lowell Milken said at the ribbon-cutting, per the Jewish Journal. “Nor will we forget all the memorable experiences that we enjoyed in all the years thereafter.”
“While this occasion is one of great joy and accomplishment, it is also bittersweet for Aaron’s absence is reflected in a constant presence,” Milken added at the ceremony. “The school and new facility will perpetuate Aaron’s memory, creating a living memorial, stemming from something that mattered greatly for him throughout his life.”
The new center, which is part of the synagogue’s campus, is distinct from but shares principal donors with the Milken Community School in Los Angeles.
Zweiback showed JNS outdoor play areas, classrooms, a rooftop pavilion and a Beit Midrash during the tour. It also has a lounge for parents to use after they drop their children off at school.
“If you’re going to be doing Jewish early childhood, then it should be outstanding,” the rabbi told JNS. “Anything worth doing is worth doing well.”
‘Gratifying, inspiring’
Zweiback told JNS that the synagogue’s “beautiful” campus, which was constructed in the 1970s, was due for an upgrade. The first phase of the renovation, a pavilion, was completed in 2017. The main sanctuary of the synagogue and its administrative offices were slated to come next, but on a walk around the campus, the rabbi and Milken decided to change course.
“He said, ‘I think phase two should be the early childhood center,’” Zweiback told JNS. “He said, ‘That’s the funnel into the Jewish community. That’s the entry point, and we should be investing in that entry point.’”
The COVID pandemic interrupted the fundraising campaign, but the necessary monies were raised. The center is slated to open officially in June. “The dominant feeling was a sense of gratitude,” Zweiback told JNS of the completion of the center renovation.
The rabbi hopes the Aaron Milken Center will be a model for others nationwide.
“It was not lost on me that in the midst of this project, we experienced the trauma of Oct. 7,” he told JNS. “To think about what it means to be part of a Jewish community that says, ‘We will never stop learning. We will never stop hoping. We will never stop investing and planning for our future no matter what challenges come our way.’”
“To achieve this in the midst of all of that was gratifying and inspiring,” he said. “For the Jewish people, it’s a real gift.”