This is a picture of me and my colleagues at a meeting of the Jewish Charity Committee in Chernovtsy, taken in 1995. After Ukraine gained independence in 1991 many Jewish organizations opened in Chernovtsy. I was retired and became a volunteer.

There were 12 of us. We had to make lists of needy and elderly people and think of how to help them. Then there was a vacancy for a social worker and I got the job. In due time I founded the Jewish Charity Committee. I’m its director now. We look for opportunities to help needy and ill people.

It’s most important that my people live and remember the place where we grew up. And that we know who we are, why we are here and what we are to do.