When Rona Kaufmann moved from Israel to Buffalo nine years ago, the reason was simple.
“In one word, what brought me here was love,” she said.
Rona had reconnected with her high school sweetheart, an Israeli who had moved to the United States years earlier. After spending years apart, the two found their way back to each other. Rona visited Buffalo one summer, loved it, and she ultimately left the country she had called home for 35 years to build a new life and family in Western New York.
While love brought her to Buffalo, Jewish community helped make it home.
Shortly after arriving, Rona sought out a local organization connected to Holocaust education. As the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, she wanted to find a way to preserve and share her family’s story. Meanwhile, motherhood introduced another important connection: the Jewish Community Center of Greater Buffalo.
Both of Rona’s daughters have attended the JCC’s early childhood program, and her younger daughter recently graduated. Being Israeli, she especially appreciates that her daughters received a Hebrew lesson weekly.
“I’ve been there ever since starting my oldest daughter there. It’s like a second home to me,” Rona said. “There’s no other place in Buffalo that I can…just walk in and see Israeli flag and say hi to everyone. All the holidays are celebrated, and there [are so many] events.”
Those relationships gradually connected Rona more deeply with Jewish Buffalo, including the Buffalo Jewish Federation and its Holocaust Education Resource Organization (HERO). Today, she is working to bring her grandfather’s Holocaust survival story to local students through HERO’s Speakers Bureau.
It is a deeply personal undertaking. Rona recently translated their testimony from Hebrew into English and is now figuring out how to gather photographs and documents from Israel to help tell his story here. Her grandfather, a math teacher in Herzliya, Israel, shared his experiences with his students every year for Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day).
Before coming to Buffalo, Rona served for two years in Israel’s Ministry of Defense and earned an MBA in Business Management from Bar-Ilan University, along with other degrees. Her professional experience in Israel included work with Microsoft and Ernst & Young. In Buffalo, she later became certified as a health and wellness coach, reflecting her longtime commitment to healthy living.
Israel, however, remains an inseparable part of her identity. She visits annually, her parents travel to Buffalo, and she eagerly volunteers whenever there is an opportunity to speak about Israel, Israelis or her family’s history.
“I feel like I’m on a mission,” she said.
Buffalo has also given her something that forever connects the two places she calls home.
“My daughters were born here,” Rona said. “I’ll always be grateful to Buffalo for my daughters.”
