Hope for Hanukkah: Bronya

IFCJ Canada  |  December 12, 2025

IFCJ Canada has been providing Holocaust survivors in northern Israel with light and hope just in time for Hanukkah. These special gifts of food and aid boxes included Hanukkah treats, as we joined elderly beneficiaries to light candles. One of those beneficiaries is 88-year-old Bronya.

Bronya, born in Chernobyl, was just under four when the Nazis came to Ukraine. She recalls the German bombers making their way toward Kyiv, hitting anything they came across. Many people were killed, and even though she was a toddler, she recalls parents throwing themselves over their children to protect them. Bronya’s grandmother was killed in these bombings. Her family was evacuated to Chardzhou while her older brother volunteered to fight against the Nazis. Several other members of her family, who had stayed behind, were murdered.

“Our house was still standing, but empty. Everything was taken,” she remembers. “There was tall grass everywhere and no water in the city. We had to walk to the river. People came back with nothing – barefoot, without clothes … It was December, and it was freezing. The school was destroyed. I only started at nine because there was nowhere to learn. Jewish life in the town had been almost completely wiped out. Half of Chernobyl’s Jews were murdered. When my wounded brother and his friends returned, they found many bodies not properly buried.”

Bronya moved to Kyiv later in life with her husband, but her brother remained in Chernobyl. She recalled the 1986 nuclear disaster that caused the city to be abandoned entirely. She only learned what really happened later, as the authorities kept the extent of the disaster secret. When she visited, they would walk outside as if nothing was wrong. Bronya had to have her thyroid removed because of radiation exposure.

In 1991, Bronya made aliyah with her husband. After being married for 57 years, he passed seven years ago. Bronya currently lives in a hostel in Carmiel, where her biggest struggle is loneliness – every week, someone else is gone, she says. Her two sons, who live in Israel, help in any way they can. Bronya remembers Hanukkah as a child, her father sewing the children’s bags that adults can put their gifts inside. This year, the companionship and help of IFCJ Canada is how she celebrates Hanukkah.

“Prices rise all the time, and pensions are small,” she says. “Many of us live only thanks to IFCJ Canada’s monthly help. The assistance I receive –those 300 shekels each month –that’s enough for me, and I don’t go hungry. It helps me live. It helps all of us old people who are alone. May God give health to the people who help us.”

Hanukkah arrives in less than a week, but winter has already begun. Give hope and aid to elderly Jews and Holocaust survivors like Bronya this holiday season through lifesaving care.