The Joint Distribution Committee, or JDC, more commonly known simply as the Joint, is a participant in Lithuanian Jewish Community activities and youth programs, and selected three students for a trip to the United States.
Edvinas Puslys is a member of the LJC’s Ilan Club and native of Vilnius whose mother is Jewish. He is 16 and is in the 10th grade at the Sholem Aleichem Jewish Gymnasium. He was grateful for the opportunity the Joint provided him to travel in Poland last summer and visit Jewish locations in Warsaw and Cracow, and Auschwitz. In January he travelled to America to take part in the second part of the program, and saw firsthand there how Jewish families and others live in America. He said Jewish life and making friends were much easier there, and that American Jews are much more open, communicative and friendly.