Yaroslava Levitska from Haifa • The last surviving Righteous Among the Nations

Dozens of students from the "Basmat" school in Haifa participated in a ceremony to mark the 89th birthday of Yaroslava Levitska - the last surviving Righteous Among the Nations who lives in Haifa.

The past of Yaroslava Levitska

Jaroslava Lewicka was born in 1935 in Poland and grew up with her mother and grandfather. Already at the age of 6, Yaroslava helped her grandfather save Jews during the Holocaust by providing food and bringing medicine, while acting as the grandfather's messenger and managing to smuggle the large amount of food and medicine without arousing the guards' suspicion.

In 1943, Yaroslava's family hid two Jewish survivors and even made sure to supply a lot of food to a group of Jews, who hid in the basement of a destroyed house two kilometers from the family's place of residence.

In 1989, Yaroslava Levitska, her mother and grandfather were recognized as Righteous Among the Nations. In 1995 she was granted Israeli citizenship and residence in Haifa and since then she has been living in a home for the elderly in the city.

Levitska's birthday

The ceremony to mark Levitska's birthday was held for the second year in a row, as part of the activities of the Municipal Institute for Holocaust Studies, which works to commemorate the Righteous Among the Nations and to honor them for the assimilation of Holocaust memory. As part of its activities, the institute maintains a joint program together with the Moriah-Haifa Rotary Club and the Basmat school, in which the school's students learn about the work of the Righteous Among the Nations, collect information about them, and commemorate them. The event was in collaboration with the Holocaust Institute in Haifa "Beit Eivshitz" under the direction of the Honorable Rabbi Aharon Finkelstein.

In Haifa, 11 followers of Olam Olam are buried in the city's Latin cemetery, and as part of their honor, the Haifa municipality established a unique garden in their honor in the city's Ramat Alon neighborhood. During the ceremony, the students recited greetings, which they wrote especially, as well as a letter of appreciation, which was written and dedicated to Yoroslava by the President of the State, Yitzhak Herzog, in honor of her birthday.

The students celebrate Yaroslava

The excited Yaroslava thanked the students from the bottom of her heart for the gesture they made in her honor, and pointed out that she does not see her act as particularly important and an extraordinary act deserving of special recognition, since at the time she was active, everyone was considered equal in each other's eyes.

At the end of the ceremony, the students presented Yaroslava with a birthday cake, sang songs in her honor, in Hebrew and Russian, and wished her good health and a long life.

Avi Ziegler, the principal of the Basmat school in Haifa:

Despite the difficult days we are all going through, it was important for us to hold the ceremony in honor of Yaroslava's birthday this year as well. I have no doubt that we will continue to observe this very important tradition, which we started last year, as well as the ceremonies that we hold every year in the cemeteries in memory of the Hasidic of the Nations buried in Haifa, in the years to come.