What We Carry With Us

We’ve partnered with Citizen Film to explore connections between the ancient Jewish people’s escape from Egypt and their journey through the desert, and the experience of modern-day refugees and their descendants. Listen to people tell their story and hear how they preserve memories and traditions of their past while building a future together in California.

While all the stories below tell a modern version of the Passover story, the objects and stories of Richard, Elizabeth, Gerda, Kurt, Luke and Sarah, also share a special significance with Yom Hashoah, the Jewish holiday honoring those people who perished in the Holocaust. Learn more about Yom Hashoah and the opportunities to honor Holocaust victims and survivors that we have available to our community from April 6 – 9 this year along with other ongoing resources.

Video Collection

Discussion Guide

Using our video haggadah and discussion guide below, bring these stories to your seder table and imagine what objects you would carry with you if you were forced to flee your home.

Refugee Resources

Bay Area refugee resettlement efforts:

• Catholic Charities of San Francisco
• Immigration Institute of the Bay Area
• JFCS East Bay LGBT Refugee Services
• La Raza Centro Legal
• Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights, SF Chapter
• Mujeres Unidas y Activas
• Refugee and Immigrant Transitions
• SF-CAIRS

National efforts:

• HIAS
• International Rescue Committee
• SIREN
• US Holocaust Memorial Museum Resources for Survivors and Their Families
• Yiddish Book Center’s Wexler Oral History Project