We own a historic vessel that originally was a German U-Boat during WWII that was split into multiple vessels after the war. It was in Dutch hands for many years before sailing under the US flag in the 80’s and ending up in our hands in the US a few years ago. The vessel is in need of more restoration and preservation work than we can fund alone, and we are looking into applying for grants under the non-profit (a local maritime history association) we have agreements with.
We are also Jews, and one of our dreams (with the irony of a German WWII asset now being in the hands of Jews) has been to utilize the vessel as an informational piece to educate the public on the international history of the Jewish Mariners & Privateers, in addition to being a Torah-observant vessel to teach the community about Jewish heritage. We are struggling with finding grants we could fit under, A. because it is such a unique project, and doesn’t necessarily meet the typical grant guidelines for historical preservation, and B. We also know anything religious in nature is not viewed favorably for most government funding, despite Judaism’s role in WWII. We have looked into applying for Jewish-specific grants, but the majority of granting organizations we are finding only fund scholarship, research, the arts, Holocaust-specific, or architectural preservation projects in Europe. Despite this, we feel there must be other Jews out there that would appreciate our mission and potentially want to help contribute to the project.
Does anyone have any ideas for Jewish granting organizations we could potentially approach regarding the project? Or other channels we could go through to garner interest?
submitted by /u/dartarro21
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Source: Reditt
