Pictures from our wonderful Holocaust survivor social event today in Queens at the Rego Park Jewish Center

Full 2hr Video - Met Council Holocaust Survivor Program Boro Park Pre-Chanukah Event

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Thank you letter from one of our Holocaust survivors who received a medal from the Ukrainian ambassador

Thank You Letter March 17 2017 by Holocaust Program on Scribd

An interview with our program director

An interview with Judah Zellermaier, LCSW - Met Council Holocaust Survivor Program Manager

By Ademola Bello

1. What is the Met Council Holocaust Survivor Program and how long have you been in charge as the program manager?

The Met Council Holocaust Survivor Program is a multi-faceted program that assists Holocaust Survivors with services such as emergency financial assistance, kosher food package delivery to their home, holistic case management, short-term counseling and social events. The goal of the program is to provide holistic services to Holocaust Survivors in a patient-centered trauma-informed way. This means to be able to assess the client and to provide them with wraparound services in a manner that is sensitive to the trauma that they have experienced in their life. Our program has many funding sources such as through a federal grant by the Jewish Federations of North America, the NYC Council Holocaust Survivor Initiative, the UJA, the Claims Conference and other funders. I have been in charge of the Holocaust Survivor Program since it started in May of 2016.

2. What are your job responsibilities as the program manager?

As Program Manager of the Holocaust Survivor Program I oversee a team of licensed social workers and a case worker. My responsibilities include working with my team on client outreach and engagement through the many services our program provides. My responsibilities also include interfacing with our many JCCs and with many social service and governmental agencies and on collecting data and reporting on our work and on the accomplishments and efficacy of our program. I am happy to report that we are doing well helping many, many people.

3. How many Holocaust Survivors benefit from Met Council Services?

In the short time since this program has started we have been able to interact with over 2,000 Holocaust Survivors, providing them with emergency financial assistance, case management services, kosher food package delivery to their home, short-term counseling and with social events. That is an amazing amount of lives that we have been able to touch in such a short amount of time.

4. What are the socialization programs you provide for elderly Holocaust Survivors?

We have been so fortunate to be able to do so many exciting things for our Survivors. Events that we have done in the past include, beautifully prepared hot meat meals, showing Yiddish films, live Klezmer concerts, trips to museums and to Broadway shows. We’ve put on events featuring some of Jewish Music’s biggest superstars, such as, Lipa Schmeltzer, Shloime Dachs, the Shelly Lang Orchestra, Zisl Slepovich and Russian superstar accordionist Yuri Lemeshev. Just recently we flew here to New York a photography professor from Cypress College in California, a child of Holocaust survivors himself, to photograph many of our Survivors in their home. This was an amazing three-day event with over a thousand photographs taken of the Survivors. This photography event will culminate with an amazing photo-gallery event for our Survivors in the upcoming fall season.

5. In what ways do you work with social workers to connect them with your clients and to provide customized care for survivors who have been traumatized through their experiences during the Holocaust?

As mentioned before, with our program a tremendous emphasis is put on providing services to our clients in a patient-centered trauma-informed way – being sensitive to the trauma that our clients have experienced in the past during the Holocaust. The focus of our program is to help our clients in a way that we are being especially sensitive to their trauma and how, asking for, or taking help, may make them feel and how this may play into their past trauma. Our workers receive special training on how to work with this unique population and to help them feel safe and dignified while providing them with services.

6. Can you discuss Met Council’s partnership with the JCCs in providing assistance for Holocaust Survivors?

The Met Council Holocaust Survivor Program has social workers stationed within some of our JCCs and works very closely with all of our JCCs. For many of our clients the JCCs are their main connection to services. Since our JCCs are centrally located within the communities we serve, many of our clients will visit the local JCC to get the help they need. Our in-house social workers at the JCCs can immediately work with the client on the spot or the JCC staff can refer the client to us to help them directly with their needs.

7. Do you conduct home visits with your clients? And what was your experience with them?

Our program is able to provide home visits to our Survivors to provide them with specific services or to just provide them with friendly home visits. As mentioned earlier, the program also has social workers stationed at our local JCCs to provide services to our Holocaust Survivors. This way we are able to serve our Survivors where they are at – in their homes and in their community. An added bonus with the home visits is that we are able to do an assessment of the Survivor’s living condition and to determine with them what services to put in place to help them best. We have had so many positive experiences from our home visits with the Survivors. People who are mostly home-bound and don’t usually get to spend time with other people are able to spend time with the program workers and are able to have them help them with the things they need.

8. What is the Fourth Week Initiative and what are the benefits Holocaust Survivors derive from it?

The Fourth Week Initiative is an amazing program that brings fresh kosher food packages delivered right to the door of our survivors. This program is funded by a grant from the New York City Council. The goal of this program is to provide fresh kosher food package delivery to the homes of our Holocaust Survivors that receive food stamps and cannot afford to purchase food for the entire month – hence the name. This is an indispensable program for our Survivors that are living with a very fixed budget and cannot afford the expense of purchasing food for the entire month. Since the food is delivered to the door of the Survivor it is especially helpful for people who have difficulty getting out of their home to do their food shopping.

9. What is the satisfaction you get from helping your clients?

Being that all four of my grandparents were Holocaust Survivors, this is a population that is very near and dear to me. I get tremendous satisfaction knowing that I am able to help out our Survivors in so many ways and to be able to help put a smile on their face. Our Survivors have gone through so much in their life and deserve to be able to spend their remaining days with dignity and peace of mind.

10. What are some of the innovative programs you have in future for the Met Council Holocaust Survivor Program?

At the Met Council Holocaust Survivor Program we are always doing new and exciting things. The program has plans for many new and innovative programs for our survivors. One of the ideas we are working on for the very near future is a special live Yiddish-language comedy performance for our Holocaust Survivors by the famous Yiddish Theater Folksbiene. This performance will be held right in the neighborhood where the Survivors live so that even the people who have difficulty traveling will be able to enjoy the performance. Another wonderful event that we are working on is a challah-baking class where our survivors will get to prepare their own challah dough and then bake the challah and take it home with them. We are also working on an event centered around pottery painting where the Survivors will paint their own pottery and then once glazed and fired it will be sent to their home for them to use. We will be continuing with our local hot lunches, our Broadway shows and museum trips. We have so much more in store for our Survivors to enjoy in the coming time.

Video of News 12 TV coverage of our Pre-Chanukah event in Boro Park

Beautiful thank you letter from one of our survivor clients

Met Council Holocaust Survivor Program Newsletter - New Spring 2017 Edition

Tzeit Schrift - Met Council Holocaust Survivor Program Newsletter - March 2017 hsprogram by Holocaust Program on Scribd