Surviving War Through Hope for Peace- the Jewish Journey of TiKVA Children’s Home

Description

The short documentary, Surviving War Through Hope for Peace- the Jewish Journey of TiKVA Children’s Home transports the viewer not only through time, but also to the battlefields of today’s Ukraine where members of a small Odessa Jewish community -supported mostly by generous American and British donors – bravely help defend the principals of freedom and Jewish life. This Children’s Home has been supported in part by Temple Beth Am.

Odessa’s Jewish community, the 3rd largest in the world prior to World War II, was nearly wiped out by the Nazi Germans. After 30 years of TiKVA reviving the Jewish life in Odessa and rebuilding a community, the survival of the community seemed to be at risk.

As the full-scale Russian invasion of the Ukraine began, a decision was made to evacuate everyone but a group of Jewish Ukrainian men. It was a painful decision – but one that had to be made. Little children, hundreds of orphans, had to be taken to safety until the war ended.

On February 24th 2022, thousands of Odessa’s children and most vulnerable made a dramatic escape to the safety of bordering NATO countries. TIKVA’s community ended up in a small Romanian town along the Black Sea. The question now became how to house, feed and financially support this community in exile.

This half-hour documentary will be followed by a Q & A with the filmmakers, Jody Benyunes and Yanna Begelman.