Swiss Jewish Teens Restore Forgotten Graves in Act of Memory

A group of Jewish teens in Lausanne, Switzerland, recently cleaned and restored 16 graves in a local Jewish cemetery, according to a Yael Foundation statement reported by JNS on Monday.

The project was part of the growing youth activity of the Jewish community of Lausanne and the Canton of Vaud, a small but active community that the foundation said has built one of Europe’s more vibrant youth-driven Jewish ecosystems. It was carried out in contrast to recurring desecration and vandalism of Jewish cemeteries across Europe.

Simon Bismuth, director of the Youth Department at the Jewish Community of Lausanne and the Canton of Vaud, said the community has focused since October 7 on creating projects that give young people a deeper sense of responsibility.

Since Oct. 7, “we have tried each year to organize several major projects with real meaning for our young people, not just activities, but moments of transmission, responsibility and commitment,” Bismuth said.

He said the idea for the cemetery project came from a personal place.

“The idea also came from something very personal. Since the loss of my daughter Tsofia, I sometimes go to clean her grave. One day while I was there, I looked around and thought there was something incredibly powerful to pass on to young people: taking care of memory, taking care of those who came before us, even when nobody sees it, even when there is nothing to receive in return,” he said.

The teens restored “dignity to graves that had sometimes been a little forgotten,” Bismuth said, describing the project as a model of Jewish leadership through action.

“For me, this is a very beautiful form of leadership: quiet, humble, concrete, but profoundly powerful,” he said.

The Jewish community of Lausanne and the Canton of Vaud numbers around 2,500 people, or about 600 families. According to the Yael Foundation, what began over the past two decades as small-scale programming for children ages 5 to 15 has grown into a broader youth infrastructure that now reaches hundreds of young people, including a large student population in Lausanne.

The community runs daily and weekly educational and social activities, leadership training for madrichim, holiday programming, camps and community service initiatives. The foundation said one of the main goals of the program is to empower young people to actively shape and lead Jewish life.

The Yael Foundation, a philanthropic organization that invests in Jewish education worldwide, began investing in the Lausanne Project in 2023 as one of its first investments. The aim of the program is to build a future generation proud of its Jewish identity, connected to Jewish values and Israel, and committed to communal continuity in Lausanne and across Switzerland.

In 2024, Lausanne’s youth center received the Yael Foundation’s Informal Education Prize. Bismuth said the award recognized the work being done by families, madrichim and educators on the ground.

“For us, this prize was recognition of the work happening on the ground, of the commitment of our madrichim, of the trust of families, and of our deep belief that Jewish education is not transmitted only in a classroom, but also through a song, a game, a camp, a Shabbat, a conversation, a volunteer project, or a responsibility entrusted to a young person. That is Lausanne. A small village with the energy of a great Jewish capital,” he said.