28% of regional Jewish households consist of adult singles. 74% of those residents are above the age of 50, according to the 2017 Greater Pittsburgh Jewish Community Study. How are adult singles engaging with Pittsburgh’s Jewish community?
Person-to-Person (P2P) would like to thank the community for supporting the record levels of assistance it has provided since the start of the pandemic. In 2020, P2P’s emergency assistance programs provided groceries to prepare 1.9M home-cooked meals, over $850,000 in financial support and holiday programs to support families and individuals struggling to make ends meet. More than 2,000 winter coats were distributed in partnership with Beiersdorf’s Keep Norwalk Warm event, more than double last year’s distribution. And rather than cancel its annual Toy Store, P2P created a winter wonderland drive-through distribution so 2,000 children could receive board games, books, stuffed animals and gift cards for toys.
Shulamit Bastacky, right, speaks at Community Day School in 2018. Photo courtesy of Community Day School
Shulamit Bastacky’s childhood was spent in hiding. As an adult, though, she was anything but covert.
During her years in Pittsburgh, Bastacky, a Holocaust survivor who died Jan. 1 at 79, spoke with thousands of students in scores of public settings. The conversations, which often recounted Bastacky’s haunting childhood, were unforgettable. In a classroom, at a library or over lunch, listeners learned how two months prior to Bastacky’s birth on Aug. 25, 1941, in Vilnius, Lithuania, the Nazis occupied the Lithuanian capital and quickly began murdering its Jewish population. Terrified about their newborn’s chance at survival, Bastacky’s parents, Simon and Dora, gave their baby away. Bastacky was taken in by a Polish Catholic nun, who, at great risk and for nearly three years, kept the Jewish child hidden in a cellar.