Every year, tech entrepreneurs and brothers Zach and Max Bruch celebrate the day that their distant grandfather, Rabbi Yom-Tov Lipmann Heller, was set free. The 17th-century Torah scholar was imprisoned in Vienna for 40 days after being accused of blasphemy against Christianity.

Last February, over 350 years after Lipmann Heller’s death, Max visited his forefather’s grave in Kraków, Poland, along with 30 young Jewish peers, and the experience brought the 28-year-old to tears.

The Bruch brothers, who co-founded the online gambling site MyPrize, are now offering young Jews the opportunity to visit Auschwitz and Birkenau.

Ahead of this year’s Yom HaShoah, the brothers announced a $360,000 endowment established for Olami Manhattan, the Jewish engagement organization that organized Max’s trip last year, funding Olami’s annual Poland trip for young Jewish adults, which will be renamed the Bruch Family Foundation Poland Trip.

Olami Manhattan has run the yearly Poland trip for over a decade, with a flexible itinerary that tours the Auschwitz and Birkenau concentration camps alongside sites curated based on attendees’ personal histories.

“Bella stood outside her great-grandmother’s apartment building,” the flyer for this year’s trip said. “Jonny found his great-great aunt’s grave. Eli visited the concentration camp that his grandfather helped liberate.”

During February’s trip, participants crawled into a cramped attic that sheltered a 5-year-old boy during the Holocaust. There, they could imagine being in his shoes, trapped for two years, terrified, with only his mother because his father had been killed. 

Even though the trips stare directly at the horrors of the Holocaust, they are also filled with joy, Rabbi Avi Blachman, director of education for Olami Manhattan, told eJewishPhilanthropy. After exiting the gas chambers, attendees dance and scream that Jews are still here, still celebrating their heritage.

“Sometimes people have a little bit of a wrong conception of what a Poland trip could be because you do go back to a place that was basically a factory of death,” Blachman said. “But the amazing thing about it is, we learn about the beautiful Jewish community that was in Poland prior to the war. Jews lived proudly in Poland for thousands of years, [yet found themselves] in the worst place in the world, but they still tried to maintain their heritage and connection to who they are.”

The relationship between Olami Manhattan and the Bruch brothers began when Max’s rabbi at the University of Michigan introduced him to Blachman. Since then, Max and Blachman have met weekly, sometimes in person, but often virtually due to Max’s frequent travels. Together, they study Jewish philosophy and holidays.

“I met a guy [who’s] very much devoted to his Jewish connection,” Blachman said. “More than just being Jewish, it’s about learning and connecting to his heritage. Most importantly, he also sees the importance of [the] continuation of the legacy of making sure that Jews who are growing up in America are still proud to be a Jew, even though at times it’s not so popular and sometimes it may be dangerous.”

The Bruch brothers, who descend from Holocaust survivors themselves, have both faced success and loss. In 2021, they made Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list and co-founded Recur, an NFT startup which partnered with high-profile brands including Hello Kitty, Nickelodeon and Paramount, but the company went under in 2023 due to a plummeting cryptocurrency market.

“I know I need to be successful because I need to have money to ensure that there’s going to be a Jewish future,” Blachman recalled Max telling him before launching MyPrize soon after he left Recur. “Someone needs to fund it. I need to do it.”

When Max was told he was going to be honored with the organization’s Young Leadership Award at this year’s Olami Manhattan Gala, held in March at Manhattan’s One State Street Plaza, the rabbi said Bruch told him that he planned to make a sizeable donation to the organization to inspire others to do the same.

While other younger people their age are looking “for the Ferraris and for the girls,” Blachman said, the Bruchs are looking to help.

“Being Jewish is something we’re born into, but living an active Jewish life is something we have to choose,” Max said during his speech at the gala, when he first announced the donation. “As a generation of young Jewish adults, we have to collectively get into the driver’s seat and become the leaders our community needs.”