Published: 26 November 2019
Last updated: 4 March 2024
“WE HAVE TO understand history to build our future.” These were the words of Maya Mizrachi, who was part of a group of 30 students who recently spent time restoring one of Greece’s oldest Jewish cemeteries as part of an Ayalim leadership program.
The Ayalim Association was established in order to consolidate the communal and social involvement in the Negev, Galilee and the city of Lod. Ayalim does so by building student villages in these areas – exposing the young population of Israel to the inherent value in them, as well as encouraging community life and social involvement.
“By going to these Diaspora communities, we can stop and actually see where these people came from,” Mizrachi said.
She explained that, as part of the program, they look for places in historical Jewish communities where they can do some sort of renovation or building restoration, and this led them to the Jewish cemetery in Ioannina in north-western Greece, which has Jewish roots dating back some 1,300 years.
FULL STORY Israeli students revive 15th-century Jewish cemetery in Greece (Jerusalem Post)
Photo: Israeli students from the Ayalim Association fix neglected tombstones at the Ioannina Jewish cemetery in Greece. (Ayalim)
