JAHF & AMHN
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JAHF

Adam Aaron Wapniak is a young American architect (of Polish-Jewish heritage) from an Orthodox Jewish family in Brooklyn. A few years ago, he and his family became interested in the problems of disused Jewish properties in Central Europe. Inspired by the possibilities for adapting historic Jewish buildings to contemporary uses, they began to look for ways to solve the problems, both practical and emotional, that naturally attach to so many Jewish buildings in the wake of the Holocaust.

On 11 September 2005 they opened the first (and so far the only) Holocaust Memorial Museum in Romania. As part of their project they looked beyond the purely Jewish possibilities and created a community multi-media center for the whole community, now mostly Romanians and some Roma. Without JAHF and its Romanian counterpart foundation, AMHN, the children of that area of northwestern Romania would have remained on the wrong side of the digital divide. Now, thanks to a Jewish project, Romanian and Roma children are receiving much needed assistance with their education and connection to the wider world. As a result, in the long-term everyone benefits. PSP finds this sort of vision and dedication to creating 'win-win' solutions to long-standing problems inspiring, and is greatly honored that Mr. Wapniak and JAHF have elected to assist in developing the best possible solutions for the similarly difficult and emotionally-charged problems facing the former synagogue in Poznań.

http://www.jahf.org