Zak Jeffay, at The Blogs

Zak Jeffay

Apr 23, 2025, 10:50 PM

Holocaust education was spiritual armor for hostages in Gaza

Holocaust Survivors visiting Auschwitz with JRoots to mark the 75th anniversary of the liberation in 2020 (credit JRoots)

Memory is the Jewish superpower: Stories of those who clung to Jewish life in darkness helped our current heroes do the same

Nov 9, 2023, 5:16 PM

Even Kristallnacht wasn’t Kristallnacht, it was much worse than that

SS guards force Jews, arrested during the November Pogrom, to march through the town of Baden-Baden. Onlookers watch from along the street and walls. Baden-Baden, Germany. November 10, 1938. (USHMM)

It matters what we call things. We are in a battle to prevent the truth being distorted or disputed. The way we talk about our past has a very pressing message for today. We are trying to find the right...

Jul 28, 2023, 1:12 AM

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My tears for ‘Falafel Dugo,’ the Holocaust survivor who screamed before kings

Dugo sits among survivors singing Hatikva outside Auschwitz, 27 January 2020 (credit Zak Jeffay)

On the passing of David Leitner, known as Dugo, a magnetic individual who refused to be defined by what happened to him

Mar 1, 2022, 5:16 AM

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In a Polish church hall, UK Jewish students meet Ukraine’s newest refugees

Ukrainian refugee children at a shelter in Krakow, Poland, February 26, 2022. (photo credit - author)

The teens were quick to pitch in to help the Ukrainians, with all the moral clarity I'd hoped they'd absorb from studying the Righteous Among the Nations

Oct 14, 2020, 2:16 PM

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With one post, Mark Zuckerberg changed Holocaust education forever

The hatred of anti-Semites and Holocaust deniers that was allowed to germinate and grow in the fertile soil of cyberspace has suffered an unimaginable blow

Aug 19, 2020, 10:30 PM

Ever Again: A Jewish Persective on China and Genocide

Detainees in a Xinjiang Re-education Camp listening to de-radicalization talks (credit: Wikimedia Commons)

Our Holocaust history compels us to take up the cause of China’s repressed Muslim minority. We’re all busy. We’re in the middle of fighting a pandemic. We’re battling to keep economies running. These are hard times. And that’s exactly why...

Aug 6, 2020, 1:15 PM

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Unpronounceable, overlooked, ignored: A Holocaust heroine

Her name was Stefania Wilczyńska, and when Janusz Korczak walked with 192 orphans to board a train to their deaths, she walked with them too

May 8, 2020, 8:35 AM

It’s ‘victory’ day, but the win still hasn’t sunk in for some

It's Victory in Europe Day. But 75 years to the day after the allies declared victory in Europe, some people still haven't come to terms with the news. We all know about the survivors who have become icons of resistance....

Mar 23, 2020, 12:44 PM

Will survivors ever visit Auschwitz again?

Holocaust Survivors on a JRoots journey to Auschwitz in 2020 (credit JRoots)

In a cruel turn of history, a man who survived the most horrific crime against humanity has lost his life to a plague. Aryeh Even lived through the Holocaust, and died on Saturday from coronavirus. All Holocaust survivors are in...

About Me

Zak works for JRoots, leading Jewish heritage trips to Poland, Italy, Ukraine and beyond. He has a degree in History and a master’s in Jewish Education. Zak also guides at Yad Vashem. He made Aliyah from the UK and was involved in founding Darchei Tzion, a growing community in Modiin. He previously served as Mazkir of Bnei Akiva UK and Head of Informal Jewish Education at JFS.