The Together Plan

The Together Plan A UK registered charity supporting community empowerment and capacity building in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union.

It’s been an active week full of amazing moments! 🤍Although Debra and Tracey are now back home in the UK, we have so muc...
01/06/2026

It’s been an active week full of amazing moments! 🤍

Although Debra and Tracey are now back home in the UK, we have so much more to share with you.

Our team travelled thousands of kilometres across Belarus – from Grodno to Brest, from Volozhin to Nesvizh. We visited historic synagogues and overgrown cemeteries, stood in quiet forests where memory still speaks, beta-tested a brand-new audio tour in Brest, and signed a historic agreement at the Minsk Jewish Heritage Centre.

Everywhere we went, we were welcomed with warmth and friendship. Jewish Belarus is not just a story of the past – it is a living community with a future.

Read the full article on our website:
👉 https://www.thetogetherplan.com/on-the-road-in-belarus-a-journey-of-jewish-heritage-memory-and-new-beginnings/

Stay tuned – there is so much more to come ✨

28/05/2026

Volozhin. The mother of all yeshivas ✡️

Our journey across Belarus continues, and yesterday we visited a place that once held a central place in the Jewish world.

The Volozhin Yeshiva – Etz Haim, Tree of Life – was founded in 1803 and became the most important centre of Jewish religious education in Eastern Europe. Students came from America, England, Germany, even Japan. In the Jewish world, it is still called "the mother of all yeshivas."

After more than 85 years without prayer inside these walls, the building has been carefully restored. Original layers of history have been revealed. And a Torah scroll, over 100 years old, has been returned to where it belongs.

Before the war, Jews made up over seventy percent of Volozhyn's population. In June 1941, the Germans arrived. Tens of thousands were killed. Among the victims were the last sixty-four students of the yeshiva.

The building still stands. Pilgrims still visit the grave of its founder. And something of that history carries on.

Our trip is full of new places and powerful impressions. We keep exploring, learning and sharing. Thank you for following along with Debra, Tracey and our Belarusian team.

26/05/2026

Yesterday we travelled to Ivye and the nearby forest of Stonevichi. It was a day of deep history and quiet reflection 🕯

Before the war, Ivye was extraordinary. Four communities lived here side by side: Catholics, Orthodox Christians, Muslims and Jews. Jews were the majority – seventy percent of the town's population. They had their own theatre, their own football team, a synagogue courtyard filled with prayer and study. Life was modest, but it was alive.

Just outside town, in the forest of Stonevichi, that life was cut short. On 12 May 1942, over 2,500 men, women and children were shot in a single day – among them infants only months old. A memorial now stands among the trees. Every year on 12 May, descendants of Ivye's Jews come from around the world to light candles and recite the memorial prayer.

Today we are travelling to Novogrudok and Volozhin. More stories await. More places that once thrived. More memories to honour.

We will share what we find. Follow along!

25/05/2026

We're on the road across Belarus – and we want you to come with us!🤍

After a long time apart from our Belarusian team, Debra Brunner (CEO and co-founder of The Together Plan) and Tracey Kieve (Trustee of The Together Plan) have arrived from the UK. We've been travelling together ever since.

This is just the beginning of our journey. We'll be visiting Jewish heritage sites across Belarus, meeting local partners, and sharing stories from the communities we work with.

Today, we explored Grodno and Ivye.

In Grodno, we stood inside the Great Choral Synagogue – one of the oldest functioning synagogues in Europe, built in 1578. Before the war, Grodno had 43 synagogues. Today, only this one remains. It's a reminder of a community that once thrived here for over six hundred years.

In Ivye, we walked through the central square where four communities once lived side by side – Catholics, Orthodox Christians, Muslims and Jews. Jews made up seventy percent of the town's population. Today, there is no Jewish community. But the memory of that vibrant community lives on.

We also visited the memorials in the forests outside Ivye. Quiet, sacred place. Not easy to see. Essential to witness.

This is only the start. We have more towns to visit, more stories to uncover, and more memories to honour.

Follow along as we travel. We'll be sharing updates, photos and reflections from the road!

Haven't made plans for Sunday evening yet? Let us help you with that.Join us for Worlds Remembered, Worlds Lost, an evoc...
24/04/2026

Haven't made plans for Sunday evening yet? Let us help you with that.

Join us for Worlds Remembered, Worlds Lost, an evocative evening exploring Jewish life, memory and loss through art and photography 🎨📸

The first part of the evening journeys into a vibrant prewar shtetl through the paintings of Mayer Kirshenblatt, who taught himself to paint at 73 to preserve the world of his youth in Poland. This curated session is based on the original exhibition at POLIN Museum in Warsaw, designed by the Taube Center for Jewish Life & Learning, with the support of the AEPJ.

After a break for drinks and light bites, the evening continues with landscape photographer and Together Plan volunteer Lewis James Phillips. In conversation with our CEO Debra Brunner, he will share his personal journey documenting sites of memory and absence in Eastern Europe.

The evening takes place this Sunday 26 April at 6.30 PM. A light buffet supper and non alcoholic drinks are included in your ticket.

Don't miss this rare and moving evening 🤍

Register on our website: https://www.thetogetherplan.com/events/worlds-remembered-worlds-lost/

23/04/2026

Behind the scenes at The Together Plan! 🧷✂️

Debra Brunner and Olivia Boyd are hard at work, hands-on, preparing every single material for the launch of Making History Together, getting everything ready to present the programme to students.

So, what is Making History Together?

It's an educational programme and travelling exhibition uncovering the little-known history of the Holocaust in the Soviet Union, with a focus on Belarus. Through real people, places and events, learners explore six carefully designed themes, fostering empathy, reflection, and moral awareness. Most importantly, it teaches young people to be changemakers.

It provides a safe, age-appropriate introduction to the Holocaust, offering a strong and sensitive foundation for understanding one of the most complex periods in modern history.

🎓 Want to explore the programme? Our online supplement is available on our website: https://www.makinghistorytogether.org/

It offers key highlights from the full programme, helping learners encounter history in a deeply meaningful way.

Together, we uncover the past to help shape a more thoughtful and informed future.

In the lead-up to Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, we are sharing something truly special with you 🕯Last month, w...
13/04/2026

In the lead-up to Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, we are sharing something truly special with you 🕯

Last month, we gathered in north London for a deeply moving UK premiere of Memory Embrace: The Brest Jewish Cemetery, followed by two online screenings that brought our global community together. The response was extraordinary.

Now, the film is available for you to watch.

Watch here: https://plus.jltv.tv/show/401b16ea-b780-415e-8ee0-786ec176f9b1

You can watch in English or with Russian subtitles.

Memory Embrace traces the 12-year journey of The Together Plan’s campaign to reclaim Brest’s lost Jewish heritage — from scattered gravestones to an enduring memorial. It is a story of destruction, restoration, and quiet defiance against forgetting.

We are especially grateful to Brad Pomerance and the entire team at Jewish Life Television JLTV for bringing this story to the screen with such care, depth, and humanity. Thank you for helping us ensure that Brest’s voice is heard.

This Yom HaShoah, as we remember the six million and honour the communities destroyed, we invite you to watch, reflect, and share.

5,000 lives lost. And today, hands that remember 🕯Before Pesach, there's a tradition of cleaning and preparing: getting ...
07/04/2026

5,000 lives lost. And today, hands that remember 🕯

Before Pesach, there's a tradition of cleaning and preparing: getting rid of chametz, making space for the holiday. This year, the staff of the Jewish Religious Union in Belarus and the young people of the Lech-Lecha Jewish community decided to take that tradition beyond their own homes.

They came together to clean the grounds of the Yama Memorial in Minsk.

For Belarusian Jews, Yama is one of the most sacred and painful places. It marks the divide between a vibrant, centuries-old community and the silence that followed. In March 1942, over 5,000 Jews were murdered here during what became known as the "Purim Pogrom".

Today, young Jewish hands swept paths, cleared leaves, and prepared the memorial for the holiday. Not out of obligation. Out of love.

Because memory is not passive. It's something we tend to. Something we carry forward.

Chag sameach from Minsk ✡️

We’re in the middle of Pesach, but the story of this year’s matzah distribution is too beautiful not to share ✡️Weeks be...
06/04/2026

We’re in the middle of Pesach, but the story of this year’s matzah distribution is too beautiful not to share ✡️

Weeks before the holiday began, the Jewish Religious Union of the Republic of Belarus, our partner in Belarus, was already working tirelessly. Because matzah cannot be bought in Belarus. Every year, it must be sourced, procured, and brought into the country before the holiday starts.

This year, with the help of our dedicated volunteers and partners, approximately one ton of matzah was distributed to communities across Belarus.

And then the messages started arriving. Photographs of community members holding their boxes. Words of thanks from communities across the country: from Slutsk, Polotsk, Klimovichi, Mozyr, Minsk, from towns and cities where Jewish life is not just surviving but being revived.

This is what Jewish revival in Belarus looks like. Not just in the quantity of matzah, but in the spirit of mutual support that makes it possible year after year.

Chag sameach to all who are celebrating ✨

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