For over 35 years, Project Ezra is proud to have worked with Action Reconciliation Service for Peace (ARSP), a German peace service organization founded to confront the legacy of Nazism. Through this partnership, each year a young volunteer from Germany comes to America and works with our elders, building extremely close relationships with them.
Our ARSP volunteer serves our seniors every day by making home visits, helping with shopping, doctor appointments or other errands and assists with group activities, trips and many other Project Ezra programs.
We are proud that Project Ezra was the first Jewish organization to work with ARSP. When this partnership was first proposed, understandably there was a great deal of concern about how Jewish elders, many of whom experienced the horrors of the Holocaust, would respond to a German volunteer. But the results have been outstanding and our seniors and volunteers develop personal bonds that enrich them both. Elders (including Holocaust survivors) grow to know and like these talented and generous young Germans and the ARSP volunteers, in turn, learn more about Jews and the elderly and return home with positive feelings about Jews and Judaism.