|
No.1, August 2005/ Tammuz 5765
Observations on Jewish Community Life in Moscow
Report of a Visit
November 22 to December 2, 2004
Betsy Gidwitz
This report reviews a visit by the writer to Moscow from November 22 to December 2, 2004.1 During the first three working days (November 23-25) of this period, the writer was accompanied by Gerda Feuerstein, Director of the Former Soviet Union Division of the Jewish Agency Department of Jewish Zionist Education, and Susan Peled, whose responsibilities in the Jewish Agency Department of Jewish Zionist Education include relations with western diaspora communities.2 All of the day schools noted below and certain other education-related institutions were visited in the company of these Jewish Agency officials.
Moscow in early winter of 2004 was a city blanketed by snow and unusually cold for that time of year, even by local standards. Traveling from place to place within the city by private car strained one’s patience and endurance as 21st-century post-communist traffic confronted a street system designed according to 20th-century Soviet canon idealizing public transportation. An accumulation of snow did little to ease movement from one part of the Russian capital to another. A metropolis of some 11 million people, Moscow is the undisputed political, economic, and cultural center of Russia.3 Notwithstanding routine traffic congestion, the center of the city exudes a raw energy similar to that of other primary cities throughout the world. New construction is ubiquitous, upscale private shops are plentiful, and many Russians are busy studying foreign languages.
In all, the writer conferred with approximately 50 individuals in more than 30 formal and informal meetings. Several, including a total of five diplomatic personnel from the United States and Israeli embassies, requested that their remarks be off the record.
Although most professionals in Jewish education elected to confine their comments to the subject of education, many others did not hesitate to declare their concern about “political regression” in Russia. Continuing centralization of Russian media, more limited access to Russian government officials, increasing authoritarianism of President Vladimir Putin, and pervasive corruption were all cited as disturbing factors. The Russian government attack on oil producer Yukos, ostensibly for failure to pay taxes, has frightened potential foreign investors. The general lack of transparency in Russian business transactions is a deterrent to economic growth. Capital flight is increasing, and inflation is growing.
Recalling an earlier era, some local people are hesitant to speak with foreigners. Also evoking previous years, Russian foreign policy is perceived as imperial in character, a recrudescence of both imperial and Soviet strategy toward its closest neighbors (the “near abroad,” as many Russians refer to the other former Soviet republics). “The Russians have dug a big hole for themselves in Ukraine,” said one foreign observer. Georgia and Moldova also were cited as victims of Russian imperialism.4
Although state-directed antisemitism has ceased, many individuals with whom the writer spoke have observed an increased level of street antisemitism. Much of such prejudice appears to be a by-product of growing Russian nationalism.5
Estimates of the size of the Moscow Jewish population range from 120,000 to 500,000 core Jews, with five of nine Moscow respondents to this question offering answers in the range of 200,000 to 250,000.6 Several respondents pointedly discounted the figure of 108,000 estimated by noted demographer Sergio DellaPergola of Hebrew University.7 The number of core and extended Jews in Russia eligible to immigrate to Israel under provisions of the Israeli Law of Return was estimated at between 400,000 and 3 million, compared to DellaPergola’s figure of 252,000.8
Whatever the precise number of Jews living in Moscow (and Russia), almost all observers believe that the Jewish population is in “catastrophic demographic decline,” reflecting an aging Jewish population, high mortality rate, low fertility rate, high assimilation, and massive emigration. A Moscow newspaper declared in 2003 that Moscow Jewry was “on the verge of extinction,” citing a 10:1 death-to-birth ratio and an average age among Moscow Jews of between 52 and 56. The paper stated that the leading reason for the Jewish population decline was “large-scale emigration.”9
Notwithstanding the reality that the Jewish population of Moscow (and Russia) is diminishing precipitously in numbers, Jews remain prominent in Russian culture, science, mathematics, and academic life. However, such eminence may be coming to an end as remaining younger Jews abandon these fields in favor of careers in business and, to some extent, law. Opportunities for greater remuneration seem to be the major factor motivating career choices for Jews and non-Jews alike. Reports of Jewish adolescents from middle-class families forgoing post-secondary education in favor of entering business at age 17 also are common.10
The consensus among individuals interviewed by the writer is that only a small minority of the Jewish population, perhaps two to eight percent of younger and middle-age Jews, is engaged in any type of Jewish activity. (This number may climb to 20 percent if elderly and infirm Jews receiving assistance from Jewish welfare organizations are included in calculations.) Non-participation derives from several factors, including an absence of high-quality programs in non-religious settings that appeal to the largely secular Jewish population, continuing apprehension rooted in the Soviet period about the wisdom of associating with Jewish organizations, uneasiness about political attachments of some organizations and the fear of being drawn into larger conflicts, and discomfort with the perceived low cultural level of several rabbis who lead organizations, especially those rabbis associated with hasidic movements.
Notwithstanding these factors, some observers estimate that as many as 500 Jewish organizations exist in the Russian capital, the overwhelming majority of which are small groups with minuscule followings and equally insignificant budgets. Conflicts between these groups are numerous and concurrently trivial and complex, often exasperating foreign organizations (such as the Jewish Agency, Joint Distribution Committee, and embassies) that desire to maintain good relations with all segments of the Jewish population. The lack of an established civil culture in Russia further impedes development of Jewish organizational life.
Toward the end of the 1990’s, the Russian Jewish Congress, led by now-exiled oligarch Vladimir Gusinsky, appeared to be developing into a broad-based Jewish civil organization with an expanding program reaching well beyond Moscow into regional Jewish population centers far from the Russian capital. Mr. Gusinsky contributed his own resources and engaged other Jewish businessmen in these endeavors. However, in late 2001, President of Russia Vladimir Putin seemed to signal an end to an independent Jewish community, embracing the Chabad faction associated with oligarch Levi Levayev and its politically pliant Moscow head rabbi, Berel Lazar. Rabbi Lazar was named Chief Rabbi of Russia, notwithstanding the fact that Rabbi Adolf Shayevich already held that position. The Federation of Jewish Organizations of Russia (known as FEOR, its Russian acronym), clearly controlled by Chabad, became the favored Kremlin Jewish organization and is amply vested with both political and financial privilege. Nonetheless, shortly before the writer arrived in Moscow in late 2004, a government-inspired change of leadership occurred within the struggling post-Gusinsky Russian Jewish Congress, perhaps heralding new opportunity for the development of both civil and non-hasidic Judaism in Russia.
The writer asked more than a dozen individuals to name the most highly respected Jews in Moscow. The question itself generated surprise and, initially, elicited only negative responses, most commonly, “not the oligarchs.” Several individuals subsequently mentioned Vitaly Ginzburg, one of three 2003 Nobel laureates in physics. Professor Ginzburg, who is publicly pro-Israel and equally publicly an atheist, is now 88 years old and is moderately active in the Russian Jewish Congress. No other individual was mentioned by name by any of the respondents.
Nobel laureate physicist Vitaly Ginzburg is seen at right.
Photo: www.Nobelprize.org/physics/laureate/2003/ginzburg-autobio.html
Jewish Education
Day Schools
1. As noted above, Jewish education was the focus of the first three days of the writer’s visit to Moscow. Five Jewish day schools and several other Jewish educational institutions were visited during this period, and discussions also were held with professional personnel in supplemental, informal, and higher Jewish education. After two accompanying specialists from the Jewish Agency for Israel Department for Jewish Zionist education returned to Israel, the writer visited several additional programs and spoke with several other professionals in the field.
Each of the five day schools described below receives some subsidy from the Jewish Agency for Israel through the Hephzibah program, which previously was controlled by the Israeli government through Nativ11 and the Israeli Ministry of Education.12 Several Jewish day schools not supported by Heftzibah also exist in the Russian capital, including yeshiva-type schools under the auspices of Chabad, an early education center operated by Chamah,13 and a new private school enrolling a small number of Israeli children whose families now reside in Moscow.
2. Achey Tmimin and Beit Rivka are the boys’ and girls’ schools respectively of the Chabad movement in Moscow, operating under the Chabad Ohr Avner program. The two schools conduct separate classes in the same building (School #1871), enrolling 280 youngsters (compared to 300 during the writer’s last visit in 1999) in grades one through eleven. Achey Tmimim and Beit Rivka are often referred to collectively by the name of the boys’ school or as “the Kuravsky school”, the latter in reference to its principal Zev Kuravsky.
 Zev Kuravsky, at left, is principal of a Chabad school in Moscow. The Chabad movement also operates several other educational institutions in the Russian capital, including yeshiva-type schools for boys and girls, a traditional yeshiva for young men, and colleges for both men and women.
Mr. Kuravsky said that ten to 20 pupils were members of families that had returned to Russia from Israel recently; several such youngsters had attended the school before their families made aliyah, but others were born in Israel. As has been the experience in other Jewish day schools in Russia and Ukraine, Mr. Kuravsky said that the Hebrew-language skill of the Israeli pupils raises the level of Hebrew studies in the school. However, the Russian-language skills of some of the same pupils were far below those of veteran pupils. About 30 School #1871 youngsters, said Mr. Kuravsky, are brought to the school every day from a Chabad home for at-risk and orphaned children.
About one-quarter of the curriculum is devoted to Jewish studies, including three lessons weekly in Hebrew and three in Jewish tradition; from fifth grade onward, one hour of Jewish history also is included. Two Hephzibah-supported teachers from Israel teach most of the Hebrew-language classes, and locally educated instructors teach classes in Jewish tradition. Mr. Kuravsky expressed his appreciation to JAFI for funding the Hebrew teachers; he said that the Israelis are better trained than those who are prepared locally, but that some of them understand neither the “Russian mentality” nor the Russian language.
In response to a question, Mr. Kuravsky said that many of the female graduates attend the Chaya Mushka machon, a Chabad women’s college, and some of the male graduates are now enrolled in the International Institute of the 21st Century, a new Chabad college for men. Other graduates continue their education at conventional Russian institutes and universities.
In answering another question, Mr. Kuravsky said that the school faces four problems. The first is the issue of demography. The school accepts only those children who are Jewish according to halakha, i.e., children whose mothers are Jewish; the incidence of intermarriage in Moscow is so high that relatively few children in the city are halakhically Jewish. Further, he continued, School #1871 is located close to the Etz Chaim school, another Orthodox school that also accepts only halakhically Jewish youngsters. When asked if competition exists between his school and Etz Chaim, Mr. Kuravsky responded, ”Безусловно (Absolutely).”
Second, he stated that standards in the Jewish portion of the curriculum are lower than standards in the general studies curriculum. The school offers each grade five class periods every week in English-language instruction, but only three in Hebrew. Further, Jewish studies textbooks, curricula, and methodology are mediocre. He later noted that one of the Israeli Hebrew teachers at the school, a young woman from Kfar Chabad, ordered textbooks from the United States because these approach the Hebrew language as a second language and thus are suited for diaspora education; JAFI continues to use the Nativ textbooks that are intended for use in Israeli schools where Hebrew is the native language.14 Hephzibah under JAFI auspices, said Mr. Kuravsky, should help the school improve the level of Jewish education in the school; however, he is not sure how this can be done.15 He believes that only a yeshiva provides the general sense of direction and atmosphere in which high standards of Jewish studies can be maintained.
The third issue, said Mr. Kuravsky, is related to the second. Parents want their children to study in prestigious or elite schools. However, it may be impossible to combine a high level of Jewish studies with an elite level of general studies. In later comments, he seemed to back down, acknowledging that perhaps an elite science curriculum, for example, could coexist with a high level of Jewish studies.
Fourth, continued Mr. Kuravsky, many pupils must commute a great distance to reach the school. Transportation requires an excessively long period of time and generates substantial fatigue among youngsters.
In conclusion, Mr. Kuravsky declared that, as Jews, we are obligated to think first of all about the Jewish people, not about mathematics or other secular subjects. Jewish continuity is more important than general subjects and should drive the entire curriculum. Therefore, it may be “impossible” for a Jewish school to be an elite school in terms of secular studies. We must learn how to prepare youngsters for further education within this context.16 The ideal of Jewish education is to teach people how to perceive themselves as Jews, whether they are tailors or professors.
The young Hebrew teacher from Kfar Chabad proudly showed our delegation a project completed by older girls at the school. Using illustrations cut from magazines and text that they had written in Hebrew and English, the girls had prepared notebooks showing examples of appropriately modest attire for Jewish women.
3. Etz Chaim (School #1621) is a modern/centrist Orthodox day school associated with Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, Chief Rabbi of Moscow. His wife, Dara Goldschmidt, a graduate of Stern College in New York, has been very active in the administration of the school but was on sabbatical leave at the time of the JAFI delegation visit.
Etz Chaim currently enrolls 170 youngsters in grades 1-11 and 60 in a separate preschool program, a radical reduction from 293 in grades 1-11 and 75 in preschool classes in 1999. About 10 percent of all pupils are from Georgian families that moved to Moscow during the perestroika period (1987 to 1991) or after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Among the pupils are 22 youngsters from a home for at-risk children operated by Rabbi Goldschmidt.
Etz Chaim offers an extra-curricular program that includes girls’ and boys’ choirs, chess, and several other activities. Some of these groups meet on Sundays at the school. The girls’ choir, some of whose members are shown at right, has cut several CD’s.
The preschool is coeducational as are early elementary grades; boys and girls are in separate classes in grades 5-11. Of the 60 children in the preschool (Gan Am Yisroel), half are local youngsters and half are Israelis. The Israeli children are taught in Hebrew.
Twenty-four students graduated from 11th grade in 2004, six of whom enrolled in different Israeli programs with the intention of building their future lives in Israel. Most of the rest enrolled in Moscow post-secondary institutions, including the prestigious Moscow State University and Moscow Bauman State Technical University.
The Jewish studies program at Etz Chaim includes four class periods weekly of Hebrew language instruction and four hours of a combination of Chumash, Jewish tradition, and Jewish history. Additionally, the school offers non-compulsory prayer, bar/bat mitzvah preparation, shabbatonim, and holiday observances. Etz Chaim maintains several supervised apartments near the Choral Synagogue where up to 15 pupils can stay for Shabbat and holidays. Eleventh graders spend two weeks in Israel in a program subsidized by JAFI.
In response to a question, school administrators said that Hebrew textbooks provided by the Nativ Hephzibah program are inadequate. Etz Chaim uses Hebrew language texts published for use by Jewish day school students in the United States.
4. Beit Yehudit (School #1330) was started in 1990 by Rivka Weiss, a woman of Belgian and Israeli background, who sought a Jewish day school education for her own daughter. Mrs. Weiss came to Moscow with her husband, Rabbi David Weiss, who is employed by another Jewish organization in the Russian capital.
The school currently enrolls 70 girls and 60 boys in grades 1-11, a sharp contrast to the situation in 1999, the time of the writer’s last visit. In 1999, 150 girls in grades 1-11 and 10 boys in grades in grades 1-3 were enrolled. All of the girls now board at the school, including 20 from Moscow who go home on weekends. The girls live on the upper floors of a building that was undergoing renovation in 1999. The lower floors of this building contain the classrooms for boys; the ten to 12 boys who board at the school live in apartments maintained by the school. Girls and boys study in separate classrooms in different buildings.
Among the boarding students are many from distant points in Siberia and Central Asia. Mrs. Weiss said that about five percent are returning Israelis, most of whom are of Georgian background. A large number of youngsters come from troubled family situations; some, said Mrs. Weiss, are unable to adjust to conditions at the Orthodox school and are sent home.
Rivka Weiss directs the Beit Yehudit school in Moscow, a dormitory institution that educates many youngsters from at-risk situations in remote locales. Her husband teaches at the school on a part-time basis and her son and daughter-in-law also are employed at Beit Yehudit.
The school day begins at 8:30 a.m. and ends at 4:15 p.m. on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. Wednesday and Friday are short days, with classes ending substantially earlier. Pupils are enrolled in a conventional general studies curriculum and 5 to 7 hour class periods weekly of Jewish studies. The latter consist of 3 to 4 hours of Hebrew and 2 to 3 hours of Jewish tradition.17 Through informal education programs after school, on Shabbat, and on Sundays, said Mrs. Weiss, boarding pupils receive many additional hours of Jewish education.
After graduation, many pupils continue their education at seminaries and yeshivot in Israel. Beit Yehudit maintains ties with a number of such institutions to facilitate the enrollment of graduates in appropriate programs. Most of these students remain in Israel.
Beit Yehudit also has created a local seminary program for young women who have graduated from the regular school, but do not go to Israel immediately after finishing 11th grade.18 This program includes study components as well as work opportunities in the school.
5. Avi Ganon, National Director of ORT Russia, and Vladimir Leshiner, Principal, spoke with the writer and two Jewish Agency associates at ORT Secondary School (School #326) in Moscow. The school enrolls 325 pupils in grades five though 11, compared with 350 at the time of the writer’s most recent previous visit in 1998. Mr. Leshiner said that the capacity of the school is 400. The decrease in enrollment over the last six years, continued Mr. Leshiner, is due to a declining number of Jews in Moscow and, in particular, a falling Jewish birth rate. Jewish youngsters, both halakhic and non-halakhic, account for about 80 percent of school enrollment; the remaining 20 percent are non-Jewish children from the district whose families value the computer technology program in the school.19
The Kyiv school is one of six ORT schools in Russia and Ukraine.20 Additionally, ORT maintains technology centers in several other day schools operated by different organizations, including Chabad. It also sponsors a technology college in Moscow, and maintains computer centers in seven Israel cultural centers (attached to Israeli consulates), two Jewish Agency centers, and two JDC-sponsored Jewish community centers. Additionally, it funds vocational training centers in several cities and has produced a limited amount of Russian-language software on Jewish themes.
ORT school programs had been supported in part by the Israeli Ministry of Education through Nativ, the Liaison Bureau operating from the office of the Prime Minister of Israel. When the Ministry transferred its education responsibilities to JAFI in 2003, ORT found that its subsidy had been reduced. Technically, JAFI subsidies equal those of the Ministry; however, because Nativ is a government organization, it did not pay taxes in Russia. Jewish Agency programs, though, are assessed taxes and ORT, in common with other JAFI-subsidized schools, finds that JAFI salaries paid to Hebrew teachers are taxed at the Russian rate of 40 percent. Thus, JAFI assumption of Nativ education responsibilities has resulted in a financial loss for ORT.
Mr. Ganon estimated that the average Moscow salary is about $1,000 monthly. Private schools pay their teachers an equivalent amount, but public (state) school teachers earn much less, perhaps about $200. ORT adds another $100 to the state salaries that are paid to most teachers. Good teachers of foreign languages, including both English and Hebrew, are difficult to find and draw salaries of at least $500, said Mr. Ganon.
Pupils at the Moscow ORT school are seen in the photo at left doing class work in Hebrew.
Reflecting faculty compensation and other economic difficulties, the entire ORT system is operating at a deficit of about $300,000 annually, continued Mr. Ganon. Certain schools have more problems than others, he said; for example, some must pay extraordinary amounts for pupil transportation if the local public transportation system is inadequate. If ORT cannot provide the necessary funding, school enrollment falls and the school becomes excessively expensive to operate for the small number of pupils in attendance. Mr. Ganon cited the ORT school in Samara as particularly problematic in this regard.
Additional financial support also is required to assist pupils with medical and social disabilities. Mr. Leshiner commented that Jewish parents perceive Jewish schools as more supportive and sympathetic than other schools and look to Jewish schools for assistance with the problems of their children.
All pupils in the ORT school, including those who are not Jewish, are enrolled in six to 10 class hours weekly of Jewish studies. Youngsters study both the Hebrew language and a combination of Jewish tradition and Jewish history. The technology program occupies a special role in an ORT school, said Mr. Ganon, but, whereas the ORT school offered the most extensive computer technology program of any school in Moscow in the mid-1990’s, this is no longer the case. Probably 10 schools in the Russian capital now have computer technology programs equivalent to or better than that available at ORT, he said.
In response to a question, Mr. Ganon said that graduates of the ORT school matriculate at a variety of colleges and universities in Moscow. These include the ORT Technology College, specialized electronics and mathematics institutes, and several different Jewish studies programs.
In addition to formal studies, ORT offers pupils several different informal programs that are subsidized by the Avi Chai Foundation. Among these are a song and dance ensemble and a desktop publishing program. Additionally, three shabbatonim are offered to pupils and their parents; as would be expected, the shabbatonim offer an intensive Jewish experience, a real benefit to school parents who, said Mr. Ganon, are the “lost generation” of Moscow Jews.
6. School #1311, also known as the Lipman School, is considered by many to be the showplace Moscow Jewish day school. The latter name refers to Grigory Lipman, the well-known and highly respected principal of the school. The Lipman school is not associated with a particular Jewish denomination, but is described by Mr. Lipman as being “traditional;” boys are encouraged to wear kipot, but many girls wear pants instead of the skirts that are required in most Orthodox schools.
Grigory Lipman, seen in the photo at right, has been principal of School #1311since its inception 13 years ago. Among the events celebrating its Bar Mitzvah was an alumni reunion and gathering in Jerusalem in November 2004. Along with school officials, 24 current students traveled to Israel for the festivities that involved many alumni now living in Israel.
The school enrolls 365 pupils, compared with 300 enrolled at the time of the writer’s last visit in 1998. Mr. Lipman said that five to 10 youngsters at every grade level are youngsters who have returned to Russia from Israel with their families. Additionally, the school accepts some transfer students from other, more Orthodox, day schools who prefer a more liberal Jewish setting.
The Jewish studies curriculum includes four class hours of Hebrew each week, two to three hours of Jewish tradition, and one hour of Jewish history. Additionally, the school has developed an innovative Jewish history museum that acquaints pupils (and many visitors) with a sophisticated depiction of major currents in the Jewish experience.
School #1311 also boasts a strong computer technology program that is funded in part by ORT. Two large classrooms and several smaller workshops are filled with a variety of equipment.
A recent addition to the school is an early childhood center that operates according to Montessori principles. The teaching staff at the center works closely with parents, engaging them in the educational and play activities of their youngsters.
At left is the model Jewish home at the Lipman school early childhood center. A violin shares prominence with a menorah, Shabbat candles and wine goblet, and Torah. Unlike early childhood centers in many other post-Soviet Jewish settings that are filled with large garish plastic equipment and toys, the #1311 center is furnished with simple wooden equipment similar to the stove at lower right and with many simple wooden toys.
A less attractive reminder of the times is mounted on a corridor bulletin board at School #1311. A mass-produced poster clearly designed for schools bears the title, “How to Conduct Yourself During an Act of Terror.”
Sunday Schools
7. According to Efraim Kholmiansky, the chief education emissary for the Jewish Agency in Moscow, between 110 and 120 Sunday schools existed in Russia in late 2004, of which 20 to 30 were in Moscow. JAFI hopes to increase the number in Russia to 130 during the first half of 2005, recognizing that most Jewish youngsters have no exposure to Judaism other than that provided in a Sunday school or in an obviously severely time-restricted summer camp.
Most Sunday schools are very small, continued Mr. Kholmiansky. Typically, they enroll about 20 youngsters between ages five or six and about 13, who are divided for instructional purposes into two- or three-year age cohorts. The founding directors of such programs usually are very enthusiastic and eagerly search out information and teaching materials. The Pincus Fund of the Jewish Agency and the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany provide support to some of these endeavors, the latter for teaching about the Holocaust. Nonetheless, said Mr. Kholmiansky, many of the teachers in these schools are poorly trained, and some of the directors emigrate to Israel after a few years or eventually lose energy. Further, teaching materials are in short supply.
Several Jewish organizations, stated Mr. Kholmiansky, sponsor Sunday clubs for children; these may offer sports, Jewish music and dance, and information about Jewish holidays but are not serious schools. Mr. Kholmiansky added that some Sunday school endeavors in smaller towns are more successful than those in large cities because fewer options (and thus fewer distractions) exist in such locales; enthusiastic teachers prepare lessons and materials for children who have few alternative attractions on Sundays.
The writer observed or heard about a number of Jewish Sunday programs in Moscow. She saw 21 children divided into two groups at the large Chabad Jewish community center on Vysheslavtsev street. Although the program was promoted as a Sunday school, few teaching materials were apparent. According to Chabad, eight similar Chabad Sunday schools operate in other parts of Moscow. The Jewish Agency operates a much larger Sunday program at its Vadkhovsky street center, enrolling 130 children who participate in a full day of classes in Jewish tradition, Hebrew, English, dance, music, arts and crafts, and computer technology. The Jewish tradition course includes holiday observance, Jewish civilization and history, and a Bar/Bat Mitzvah program (funded separately by UJA-Federation of New York). The dance, music, and arts and crafts classes include significant Jewish components.
The Conservative/Masorti movement in Moscow is seeking financial support for a full-day Sunday school that would offer classes in Jewish tradition, Israel studies, Hebrew, Jewish music and dance, and various sports activities. A group currently meets on occasion for limited Jewish activity in a fitness facility owned by a Moscow Jew, but has been unable to secure funding for a continuing comprehensive program under the supervision of qualified educators.
Academic Jewish Studies21
8. The field of Jewish studies in higher education began to develop in the post-Soviet states in the early 1990’s. Courses in Jewish history, philosophy, literature, linguistics, Bible, art, music, sociology, and other fields were created at several existing universities and institutes; additionally, Jewish studies programs were integrated into new academic institutions created during the perestroika years or early post-Soviet period.
Academic courses in Jewish studies were initiated by faculty members trained in traditional academic areas, such as east European history or literature, who may have had a long-standing personal curiosity about the Jewish aspects of their fields but were constrained from pursuing such interests during the Soviet period. Although they moved quickly, and often capably, in establishing related Jewish courses, they nonetheless lack the systematic training and experience common among established Jewish studies academics in the West. Additionally, some lack certain professional skills, particularly fluency in the English language, that facilitate career development. As a new specialty in Russian academia, the field of Jewish studies lacks the stature that attracts state funding and permits the establishment of necessary infrastructure.22
Some foreign funding has come from the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, the Louis A. Pincus Fund of the Jewish Agency for Israel, several private Jewish foundations, and UJA-Federation of New York. Locally, the Russian Jewish Congress and several Jewish businessmen have supported university Jewish studies. However, these funds are insufficient to subsidize academic Jewish studies across the vastness of Russia; further, some Jewish donors may be hesitant to support an endeavor that has attracted a large proportion of non-Jewish students.23
Reflecting a lack of infrastructure and the precarious financial condition of many universities and other post-Soviet institutions of higher education, early graduates of Russian studies programs have encountered severe difficulties in securing professional employment.24 At the same time, current faculty members are unable to support themselves and their families on one academic salary (even when combined with the salary of a spouse), and many teach in more than one program in order to meet expenses.25
Of the four main academic programs in Moscow, two participate in collaborative arrangements with foreign institutions that serve to mitigate some of the issues described above. The Center of Jewish Studies and Jewish Civilization at Moscow State University (MGU), perhaps the most prestigious university in Russia, was established in 1998 in cooperation with Hebrew University in Jerusalem.26 CJSJC offers MGU BA, MA, and Ph.D. degrees with majors in Jewish languages and literature, Jewish history, and society, politics, and economics of Israel. Hebrew University faculty members teach courses in those area in which local professors lack appropriate experience. The Moscow director of CJSJC is Professor Arkady Kovelman.
Project Judaica was established at an institutional forerunner to the Russian State University for the Humanities (RGGU) in 1991 jointly with two New York institutions, the Jewish Theological Seminary and YIVO.27 Initially, the program focused on preparation of specialists for work in Russian archives, but it now includes courses in Hebrew, Yiddish, Bible, rabbinic literature and modern Jewish literature, Jewish history, and Jewish philosophy. The course of studies at Project Judaica is five years in length and confers a certificate upon its graduates, the approximate equivalent of a master’s degree. Some students may spend a portion of their academic experience at JTS; many enroll at MGU or foreign institutions for graduate study. The role of visiting American professors in the program is significant, and the overall program is perceived by some in the active Moscow Jewish community as a foreign implant. The Moscow executive director of Project Judaica is Mark Kupovetsky.
The Jewish University of Moscow was established in 1991 as a private humanities and social sciences institution offering a specialist diploma (between a BA and MA) in Russian and east European Jewish history, modern Hebrew, Israel studies, Judaism and Jewish tradition, Bible and classical Jewish studies, Semitic and Near Eastern studies, sociology, and education. In 2003, the name of JUM was changed to Shimon Dubnov Advanced School for the Humanities because, said President Alexander Militarev, the word Jewish in its title summoned up images of a yeshiva and alienated the Jewish intelligentsia. Further, government authorities were reluctant to confer the status of university upon a private institution. Dubnov,28 as JUM is now known, is recognized as particularly strong in Jewish history, Bible, and sociology. The Dubnov school is located physically within Moscow State University and works collaboratively with CJSJC; it also is affiliated with Moscow State Pedagogical University, which enables its students to become certified teachers. Some Dubnov graduates continue their studies at CJSJC or at Hebrew University, others teach in various institutions in the Moscow area. Among its funders are the Russian Jewish Congress, several Moscow Jewish businessmen, the Pincus Fund of the Jewish Agency, the Joint Distribution Committee, and several private foundations.
Alexander Militarev, President of Shimon Dubnov Advanced School for the Humanities, is seen at left in a photo provided by the Dubnov school.
The Maimonides State Classical Academy (GKA) is a state institution with departments in law, medicine, psychology, computer technology, music, and philology. The main emphasis of the philology department is modern Hebrew and the teaching of Hebrew. A MA-level diploma is conferred upon its 15 Hebrew graduates annually, approximately half of whom now teach in Jewish Agency ulpans, several universities and colleges, and both the Lipman and ORT schools.29 Mikhail Chlenov is Dean of the philology department.
9. SEFER, the Moscow Center for University Teaching of Jewish Civilization30 , promotes Jewish studies at the university level and represents faculty, students, and institutions engaged in Jewish studies. Its current membership includes several hundred scholars and approximately 100 institutions throughout Russia and the other successor states.
Sefer organizes an annual national Jewish studies conference as well as regional and student conferences, seminars, workshops, and tutorial sessions. It sponsors and coordinates visits of foreign scholars, and arranges for lecturers to speak in peripheral communities. It has published directories of Judaica programs in the post-Soviet states, research bibliographies, anthologies of academic writings, and curricula for use in teaching various Judaica courses. It is building a Judaica library at the Sefer center in Moscow. Sefer is dependent upon JDC for funding.
Other Post-Secondary Jewish Studies Programs
10. Other post-secondary institutions include a Moscow division of Touro College, whose Jewish studies department was weakened severely when its director emigrated to Israel, and two institutions operated by the Chabad Federation of Jewish Communities, Machon Chamesh – Chaya Mushka (for women) and the International Institute of the 21st Century (for men). The former offers degree programs in Jewish studies, education, and business; the latter, currently in only its second year of operation, is preparing students for careers in a variety of fields, including computer technology, accounting, law, Jewish studies, and education. Their Jewish studies programs are considered “marginal” by academics in more conventional university settings and, as one such professor noted, the Jewish education graduates of Machon Chamesh are “invisible” in the larger Moscow Jewish education community. The overwhelming majority of students in both Chabad institutions are from smaller Jewish population centers some distance from Moscow; they are referred to Moscow by Chabad rabbis in these locales and live in dormitories attached to the respective institutions.
Several formal orthodox yeshivas operate in Moscow. Additionally, the Institute for Jewish Studies, which is associated with Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz, offers a series of Jewish studies seminars. The Torah MiTzion organization, which is associated with the Orthodox Zionist movement and hesder yeshivas in Israel, operates a kollel based in the Moscow Choral Synagogue. In addition to a Beit Midrash, the kollel offers an ulpan, women’s social club, Shabbatonim, holiday celebrations, various programs in smaller Jewish population centers outside Moscow, and several activities for children. Participants in the synagogue-based Beit Midrash (observed by the writer in a brief visit) did not appear to be serious about their studies, and the overall direction of the kollel program is unclear.31 The Torah MiTzion venture receives a substantial subsidy from the Jewish Agency for Israel.
The Progressive (Reform) movement operates a two-year machon (institute) in Moscow for the preparation of social and community workers. Approximately 30 students from throughout the post-Soviet states are enrolled in the program and are expected to work as para-professionals in Progressive communities after completing their studies in the Russian capital. The first year of the machon course includes Jewish text study, sociology, and principles of community work. The second year includes a community work practicum, life cycle events, and a diploma thesis. Most participants earned university degrees prior to entering the machon, but some have more limited post-secondary school experience. According to Rabbi Grigory Kotlyar, one of two Progressive rabbis supervising the machon program, the best machon students may be invited to study for the rabbinate at Abraham Geiger College in Germany.
Student Groups
11. Several organizations operate groups for Jewish students, each attempting to engage Jewish young people between the ages of 17 and 25 or 26.32 The most prominent are Hillel and Jewish Agency student clubs. The Reform movement and Chabad also attempt to engage this age group in Jewish activity.33
Hillel operates 15 centers in Russia, seven in Ukraine, and one each in Azerbaizhan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, and Uzbekistan. According to Hillel, approximately 150,000 Jews attend post-secondary educational institutions in the post-Soviet states, 10,000 of whom are engaged with Hillel. Hillel offers a multi-faceted program including holiday celebrations, Jewish education, Israel and Hebrew studies, social action, arts and culture, career development, and global connections.34 Unlike the United States where most Hillel programs are campus-based, Hillel in the post-Soviet states operates city-wide programs. Moscow Hillel has ground floor premises in a good neighborhood; these quarters can accommodate day-to-day programs, but auditoriums or other space is rented for special events.
Anna Purinson, formerly the Hillel director in St. Petersburg, now is based in Moscow and is Hillel Country Director for all of Russia. Dr. Purinson estimated that 100,000 Jewish students are enrolled annually in Moscow institutions of higher education. Seventy-five percent to 80 percent of such students are local and live at home while commuting to their universities or institutes. Dr. Purinson added that a small number of Moscow students from wealthy families are now renting apartments during their student years. Only about 15 percent of all Moscow Jewish students are active in Jewish life, Dr. Purinson continued. Moscow hosts about 100 universities or other post-secondary educational institutions, of which perhaps six to 10 have high concentrations of Jewish students.35 These include the prestigious Moscow State University (especially the mathematics and physics faculties) as well as Russian State University for the Humanities, a large pedagogical university, and a specialized institute training professionals for the burgeoning Russian oil and gas industry.
In an attempt to engage a greater number of Jewish students, Hillel is expanding and diversifying its program content, which, until recently, focused heavily on Jewish tradition. It is now including more activity in arts and culture, intellectual pursuits, and sports and recreation. It also is providing more opportunities for student involvement in social and community projects, including Tzedek Hillel, social activities, and business and career preparation. Dr. Purinson said that many students are now seeking part-time jobs or internships related to their career hopes. Both financial gain and useful experience motivate student desires for such employment, she stated. The close Hillel relationship with the Joint Distribution Committee facilitates the association of interested students with JDC’s many welfare programs.
Groups of students are encouraged to apply for student initiative grants in support of specific activities. Through such grants, Hillel has been able to offer training in emergency care to some medical students, along with discussions about the Jewish outlook on medicine. For this and similar endeavors, Hillel turns to the Sefer organization of Jewish studies programs for teaching resources.
Wherever possible, Dr. Purinson stated, Hillel works collaboratively with other organizations. Hillel is working with the Jewish Agency and the Israeli government in follow-up programs for students returning from Taglit (birthright Israel) trips to Israel. In some smaller Jewish centers, Hillel and Chabad sponsor a unified student program, notwithstanding the Chabad requirement that participants in its Arevim student groups be halakhically Jewish.
Publicity about Hillel programs must be geared to specific communities. In some smaller Jewish population centers, such as Penza (an industrial city southeast of Moscow in central Russia), it is not advisable to announce Hillel activities through posters in public places. In Moscow, some university administrators willingly accept Hillel publicity in university publications. Many Jewish day school graduates approach Hillel based on advice from day school advisors.
In response to a question, Dr. Purinson said that the greatest Hillel priorities are professional training for Hillel staff members and development of sociological studies that show student interests. Regarding professional training, many current staff lack management skills and some even lack the skills necessary to implement specific Hillel programs.
In an effort to maintain her medical skills, Dr. Purinson works one day each week as a gynecologist in the Rambam medical clinic, a program associated with the Chabad hesed known as Hesed Ezra. Dr. Purinson said that she considers her work in the Chabad program to be a good example for students, showing tolerance of Chabad and cooperation with it. Many people “ignore” Chabad, she said; they are jealous of Chabad’s financial resources and resentful of Chabad emphasis on Jewish law (halakha) in managing its activities.
Jewish Community Centers
12. The development of Jewish community centers in the post-Soviet states began several years after the opening of synagogues in the early 1990’s. In part, the launching of JCC’s may be seen as a logical step in the building of Jewish communities. However, the eagerness of international Jewish organizations to introduce community centers also reflects a measure of desperation on the part of these organizations to attract post-Soviet Jews to some level of Jewish activity in the face of failure by existing Jewish institutions, i.e., Orthodox synagogues, to appeal to more than a very small minority of Jews in the successor states.
The largest Jewish community center in Moscow is the seven-story Chabad facility at Marina Roscha in the north central part of the city. Completed in 2001, the building includes a large prayer hall convertible to other uses, meat and dairy restaurants, a theater, sports hall and weight room, library and computer center, multiple class and activity rooms, offices, and a book and gift shop.
An artist’s rendering of the Chabad JCC at Marina Roscha is seen at right. Although the facility is large, significant potential activity space is consumed by a sizeable central atrium.
Visitors entering the Marina Roscha center are immediately subjected to a security check similar to that in American airports. Personal belongings pass through an x-ray machine and uniformed security guards may pass an electronic wand over the visitor’s body.36 Members of the JCC have electronic membership cards that permit a central desk attendant to record their attendance and use of specific facilities. Membership is free, although fees are charged for some special programs. One need not be halakhically Jewish to join.
The lobby is spacious and corporate in appearance. Toward the back of the lobby is a large prayer hall that can be converted into use for community gatherings. Meat and dairy restaurants also are located on the ground floor. A large staircase dominates the center of the lobby, extending upward several floors. Two elevators are available for those who do not care to use the stairs, and the lobby also contains two attended coatrooms and rest-rooms. The facility is well-maintained; a maintenance worker with a mop worked diligently, clearing the floor of snow tracked in by visitors.
The photo at left, taken from the women’s balcony, shows the large Marina Roscha prayer hall. The pews and bima are on casters and can be moved to accommodate other types of gatherings.
A program book37 lists an extensive schedule of activities. The Jewish tradition program includes a kollel for men over 40, a Beit Talmud (different levels of instruction, an evening yeshiva, seminars, programs for women), and a Sunday school for children. Foreign-language instruction is offered in English, Hebrew, Yiddish, German, French, and Spanish. Computer studies include a basic course, graphics, and web design; computers also are available for Internet use. A variety of special interest clubs and art classes (such as drawing, ceramics, photography, and drama) are shown in the program book. Sports and fitness classes are available. Activities for children include English and Hebrew classes, art, music, computers (for youngsters age 12-15), drama, and a modest sports program. Preparatory classes for university entrance exams also are offered.38 Psychological consultations are available for both children and adults. In addition to the activities in the standard schedule, the Marina Roscha center also sponsors special lectures and performances of various types.
|
The top photo shows the Marina Roscha library. Computer facilities for instructional and Internet use are located on each side of the circulation desk.
The young women in the center photo are students at Machon Chamesh. They came into the JCC on Sunday morning to prepare birthday cards for mailing to those Moscow Jews whose birthdays are known to Chabad. Recipients are invited to celebrate their birthdays with family and friends at one of the JCC restaurants; they receive a discount on restaurant prices equivalent to their age, i.e., a 50-year old celebrant would receive a 50 percent discount. One centenarian received free meals for his entire party. Tables must be reserved in advance.
The sports hall and weight room were occupied on Sunday morning by men (most of whom are middle-aged and older) playing table tennis and using fitness apparatus. The gym has folding bleachers along one wall.
According to Chabad, 1,000 people use the building on Sundays and 12,000 during the course of a month. Seven different seders are accommodated in the building simultaneously.39
|
|
The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee operates a center known in JDC’s own documents as both a Jewish cultural center and a Jewish community center.40 The building is commonly referred to as Nikitskaya, reflecting its location on Great Nikitskaya Street in one of Moscow’s better neighborhoods. The Nikitskaya facility is small (1400 square meters), multistoried, and well-maintained. With no elevators, it is effectively inaccessible to handicapped and frail elderly individuals; nonetheless, it enjoys a good reputation among the Moscow Jewish intelligentsia.
Activities are offered seven days each week, with Monday as a light day. The program is dominated by a wide variety of children’s and adult classes and studio groups in art, music, dance, drama, and photography. Computer animation, chess, and table tennis also are offered, as are psychological and legal consultations. These activities are held in a number of small rooms and a 150-seat theater. Nikitskaya also sponsors ten to 15 concerts, lectures, drama presentations, and similar events each month.
Nikitskaya’s Jewish activities include family celebrations of most Jewish holidays, Hebrew classes, and a Dvar Torah seminar on Thursday evenings in which prominent Jewish cultural figures present their interpretations of the weekly Torah portion. An adult drama group under professional leadership develops contemporary renditions of traditional Bible stories, and the Progressive Judaism Netzer youth group meets in the facility three evenings each week. Additionally, younger specialists in Jewish academic studies participate in seminars throughout the day on Sundays. The Center operates a full schedule of activities on Friday evenings and Saturdays.
According to Sam Amiel, Deputy Director of the JDC Moscow office, the target population of Nikitskaya is the Jewish intelligentsia and their families. A fee-for-service system is being implemented without major problems. Most participants can pay for the activities in which they participate, stated Mr. Amiel.
In general, the program at Nikitskaya is far more sophisticated than that at the Chabad Marina Roscha JCC. Mr. Amiel said that the studio groups alone attract 1,000 people each week.41 Strangely, the facility appeared seriously underused and quiet during the writer’s visit in mid-afternoon on a Sunday.
Nikitskaya is closed during the summer months, reopening after the Tishrei holidays. JDC also subsidizes two additional, smaller JCC’s in Moscow.
A three-room kosher restaurant called Restoran Chagal is operated privately on the ground floor of the building. The décor attempts to evoke the atmosphere of romanticized shtetl life, and paintings in the style of Marc Chagall hang on its walls.
The Jewish Agency for Israel leases space in a public cultural center on Vadkhovsky Street, where it operates a variety of programs attracting adults, young adults, adolescents, and children. As might be expected from an agency that encourages aliyah to Israel, one of the key elements of the JAFI JCC is a Hebrew-language ulpan in which 200 adults are enrolled and taught in seven different classes according to proficiency level. Some groups meet once weekly on Sundays for an extended period and others meet twice weekly for shorter evening classes.42 Some of the older adults in these classes, the ulpan director said, have children or even grandchildren in Israel whom they hope to join.
Class size of individual JAFI ulpan groups, such as the one shown at right, appear to range between 15 and 25 individuals.
Ulpan courses include class instruction in Jewish tradition and celebration of Jewish holidays. Advanced students participate in shabbatonim, accompanied by their family members.
A children’s ulpan enrolls 10 pupils between the ages of nine and 12. This class includes youngsters with a broad range of Hebrew proficiency, ranging from native/near-native fluency of those who lived in Israel and whose families have returned to Moscow to youngsters with no prior experience in the language. Two young women from Israel who were doing alternative national service in Moscow were struggling with the class; they later told the writer that they hoped to divide the group into smaller sections based on ability level.
In addition to those enrolled in the children’s ulpan, another 130 youngsters attend a day-long Sunday program at the Vadkhovsky center. Their curriculum includes elements of a Sunday school as well as JCC activities. Divided by age groups, children attend classes in Hebrew, English, Jewish tradition, Jewish music, arts and crafts (some on Jewish themes), Jewish dance, and computer technology. Some participants are children of students in the adult ulpan, others are dropped off and picked up by their parents at the beginning and end of the day.
Youngsters in the top photo are members of a well-rehearsed choir that is based at the JAFI center on Vadkhovsky Street. The group, which specializes in Jewish and Israeli songs, meets on both Sun-days and Wednesdays for rehearsals.
Younger children in the lower photo learn Jewish and Israel songs as one of their regular Sunday activities.
The Vadkhovsky center also hosts a youth group of 30 teenagers, student and young adult groups, and various interest groups studying Jewish history and other topics. A music center focusing on Jewish and Israeli music attracts as many as 100 participants, including professional musicians and conservatory students, who form ensembles and produce concerts and other musical events.
Several observers with whom the writer spoke said that the Vadkhovsky center is managed well and is “friendly.” Its level of “sophistication” is considered to be somewhat lower than that of Nikitskaya, yet higher than that of the Chabad center at Marina Roscha.
A vacant lot on Arkhipova Street across from the centrally-located Choral Synagogue of Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt awaits the construction of a large Jewish community/activity center. The project was conceived some years ago with the Russian Jewish Congress as one of the major sponsors. Rabbi Goldschmidt, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, a private foundation, and several other groups were to unite with the RJC as partners in this endeavor. The Jewish Agency later expressed interest in joining this group.43 However, upheaval within the Russian Jewish Congress following Vladimir Gusinsky’s departure from Moscow and escalating costs have delayed implementation of the project. The Joint Distribution Committee recently decided to withdraw from the Arkhipova undertaking. Nonetheless, the remaining partners are hopeful that new leadership within the Russian Jewish Congress will spur resumption of planning and fundraising for a large JCC in the heart of the Russian capital.
Preliminary plans for such a JCC include a coffee house/kosher restaurant and Internet café, library, large auditorium, sports and recreation facilities, and multiple activity and club rooms for a broad range of Jewish, general cultural, educational, recreational, and community programs. Jewish Agency involvement suggests a strong Israel component.44
Jewish Agency for Israel Moscow-Based Professional Education Staff
13. The Jewish Agency for Israel is the recipient of funds from Jewish federations in North America and various community organizations in many other countries for the purpose of promoting and implementing Jewish Zionist educational programs in diaspora Jewish population centers. Development of the glasnost policy of President Mikhail Gorbachev in the Soviet Union in 1987 and the subsequent collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 opened a vast new area of the world to Jewish Agency efforts. Since then, JAFI has attempted to develop a continuum of Jewish education programs encompassing both formal and informal Jewish education activities for a broad range of Jewish population groups.
Efraim Kholmiansky is the chief JAFI education emissary in Russia. Mr. Kholmiansky noted that the JAFI education program includes a variety of activities in informal and formal Jewish education for major cities and peripheral areas and for all ages. A current goal of the JAFI Department of Jewish Zionist Education, he said, is to expand the number and quality of Sunday schools because this form of Jewish education is the only form available to many families. JAFI inherited the Hephzibah Jewish day school program from Nativ and is attempting to develop its own approach to day school education in Russia. JAFI would like to implement parallel adult education programs, such as ulpans and Shabbatonim, for parents of children in Jewish day schools so that Jewish education becomes a family undertaking. However, continued Mr. Kholmiansky, it is clear that many Jewish parents do not perceive day school education as suitable for their children; thus, JAFI needs to develop quality educational programs outside Jewish day schools as well.
The Jewish Agency now is working with parents of youngsters in the Na’aleh (high school in Israel) program so as to connect them with Israel and with the specific experiences of their children. In general, JAFI should work with entire families, offering programs appropriate to both children and parents.
All JAFI programs, said Mr. Kholmiansky, should be of high quality. The old incentives of free meals and even computer studies programs are no longer sufficient to attract families. Further, any [entry-level] Jewish studies curriculum should focus on Jewish civilization rather than on Jewish tradition; eight decades of Soviet atheism have generated substantial alienation from religion.
The preparation of qualified teachers for Jewish education remains a major challenge, Mr. Kholmiansky continued.45 The Jewish Agency simply cannot afford to bring people from outlying areas to Moscow for training. Perhaps some training can be done by Internet, but Internet access remains difficult and expensive in many parts of Russia.
Most JAFI Jewish education programs have been curtailed by budgetary pressures in recent years, said Mr. Kholmiansky. For example, until the 2004-2005 academic year, some 1,500 children and adults participated annually in JAFI Jewish education activities in the area outside Moscow known as the Golden Ring;46 however, budget cuts have reduced that number to 800 during the current year. Summer camps and other programs also have been curtailed. At the same time, he continued, JAFI education programs have received valuable assistance from several independent foundations or other groups, including the Louis A. Pincus Fund of the Jewish Agency, the International Commission on Holocaust Era Insurance Claims (ICHEIC), and individual Jewish federations, and is eager to establish partnerships with other agencies and organizations.
Velvel Chernin, who directs JAFI Jewish identity programs, declared that the Jewish Agency must encourage the development of “modern Jewish practice” in Russia. Many generally well-educated Moscow Jews, he said, have read extensively about modern Judaism and “are ready” to become practicing Jews in the Conservative or modern Orthodox tradition, but no “framework” exists for such practice. Mr. Chernin continued that current Jewish identification reality in Russia is “anomalous” because most organized Jewish activity occurs under Orthodox auspices and custom, particularly the Chabad form of Orthodoxy, whereas only a very small minority of Russian Jews is Orthodox. Jewish identification in Russia is ethnic in substance, he said, not religious, and any Jewish organization attempting to develop Jewish identity should build on that reality.47
Dimitry Shimmelfarb is the JAFI student emissary in Moscow. Mr. Shimmelfarb reviewed the academic Judaica programs noted earlier in this report, noting that many Jewish students were enrolled at the Russian State University for the Humanities and that the Chabad institutions were small, single-gender, and not welcoming to JAFI. JAFI works with Jewish students at the other institutions, encouraging some of them to become activists in their respective colleges/universities. Some of these students, he said, are trained by JAFI to work as madrichim (youth leaders) and then are employed by JAFI on a part-time basis to work with high school pupils. JAFI works with other organizations (Sefer, JDC, Avi Chai) to bring some Judaica students to Israel for summer courses and to organize fall and spring seminars for Jewish studies students from throughout Russia.
JAFI also sponsors a student club open to all Jewish students at universities and other post-high school institutions in Moscow. Some club activities are social in emphasis, and others focus on various aspects of Israel and Judaism. JAFI also operates student camps and seminars.
Jewish Welfare Services
14. The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (usually referred to as Dzhoint in the post-Soviet states and JDC in the United States) is the recipient of funds from North American Jewish federations and several Holocaust-related foundations for the provision of various welfare services48 to needy Jews in post-Soviet countries. Reflecting the disproportionately large number of elderly people within the post-Soviet Jewish population and inadequate state pensions, the focus of JDC welfare efforts has been assistance to older Jews.
Such assistance is offered through heseds, comprehensive welfare centers providing a variety of different services. Although JDC itself established the majority of heseds in most post-Soviet cities, several independent Jewish groups founded Jewish welfare organizations in Moscow in the 1990’s. JDC is now working collaboratively with five such organizations in the Russian capital to raise the quality of services offered, standardize services, train personnel, and coordinate their work. It also allocates substantial operating subsidies to each. Additionally, JDC works with three smaller heseds in outlying areas. In all, said Sam Amiel, Deputy Director of the Moscow JDC office, JDC serves 30,000 elderly Jews in and around Moscow.
Mr. Amiel identified Chamah and Yad Ezra as the two largest heseds in Moscow. Chamah is operated by the organization of that name and is described below, and Yad Ezra is independent in theory, but controlled by JDC itself. The other three in the city are: Hesed Ezrat Avraham, also described below, operated by the Chabad group associated with Rabbi Berel Lazar; Hesed Menachem, operated by another Chabad group; and Etel, which focuses mainly on a dining room.
In 2003, JDC established the Moscow Jewish Welfare Committee, a coordinating council with representatives of each hesed on its governing body. The Committee maintains a united data base, coordinates services, determines objective needs, sets standards, and provides oversight for funding from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims against Germany. (The Claims Conference, as it is widely known, offers subsidies for the care of Holocaust survivors.) Mr. Amiel said that the Welfare Committee soon will launch a local fundraising drive on behalf of all of the heseds. The Welfare Committee also will discuss permitting one or more of the heseds to offer certain specialized services, e.g., post-operative rehabilitation, that will benefit the entire hesed system.
In addition to its well-established programs for seniors, JDC recently has launched new efforts to assist Jewish children at risk. The SOS Fund serves more than 100 children referred mainly by Jewish day schools or heseds; it provides medical care and obtains hearing aids and other items necessary for particular children. It also arranges and pays for surgery and various therapies. Local volunteer physicians and medical students contribute their expertise and time to this program.
JDC also works with the Big Family Center, a home for children operating under the auspices of Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt. Mr. Amiel said that JDC has provided funds for capital renovations of the facility and new equipment used in its operation. It also has supported training courses for staff of this program.
JDC has recently launched a non-sectarian section, said Mr. Amiel, designed to raise the JDC profile in Russia, build bridges with others, and widen professional links. The JDC medical equipment production center in St. Petersburg has expanded so that it can provide equipment, such as walkers, to other programs, and JDC is assisting non-sectarian preschools in working with special needs children. JDC also is working with five other non-government organizations to improve conditions in Russian government boarding homes for at-risk children.
Mr. Amiel observed that a number of local individuals and firms now have accumulated sufficient experience to provide various consulting services to the Jewish community. Using a grant from an American Jewish family foundation, JDC has engaged local trainers to organize a course of six months duration for JDC professional staff in such areas as public relations and resource development.
In response to a question about possible JDC discussions with Russian government officials regarding taxes levied on philanthropic organizations, Mr. Amiel said that JDC works with other such organizations in attempting to “project a sensible voice” to government authorities on this and other issues. However, said Mr. Amiel, third sector activity in Russia is decreasing; he cited the arrest of Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his subsequent withdrawal from most of his philanthropic activity, the decision of George Soros to end his non-profit operations in Russia, and the decision of the United States government to end its civil society initiatives (but increase its health assistance) as evidence of this trend.
Services to Older Adults
15. Chamah was established by Rabbi Moshe Nissilevitch as an underground Jewish organization in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, in 1953. Notwithstanding the difficulties of such a venture during the Soviet period, Rabbi Nissilevitch arranged Jewish observance, classes in Judaism for children, and a Jewish welfare fund. In 1991, Chamah opened an educational center for children in Moscow, followed by the Chamah “humanitarian center” in 1992. Today, Gan Chamah enrolls more than 100 children, many of them underprivileged, in preschool and early elementary classes and operates a large hesed, Hesed Chamah, both in northern Moscow.49 The leader of contemporary Chamah operations in Moscow is Rabbi Dovid Karpov, a native Russian-speaker. Rabbi Karpov is an adherent of Chabad philosophy but is not associated with the dominant Chabad group in Russia that is linked to Rabbi Berel Lazar and oligarch Levi Levayev.
Hesed Chamah opened the new building at left in northern Moscow two years ago. In warmer weather, clients enjoy a spacious yard on one side of the structure; a large gazebo has been constructed in the yard.
Dr. Greta Elinson, a member of a family of distinguished Moscow physicians and scientists, directs Hesed Chama. In response to questions from the writer, Dr. Elinson said that several different organizations - including Chamah itself, the Joint Distribution Committee, and the Weinberg Foundation - and several individual donors contributed funds for the development of the new Chamah building. The largest single funder of current Hesed Chamah operations probably is JDC, Dr. Elinson continued; Chamah itself and the Russian Jewish Congress also support Chamah activities. Until a few years ago, Chamah received no assistance from any other sources for its children’s center; now, said Dr. Elinson, a New York family provides $20,000 to $25,000 annually.
In all, stated Dr. Elinson, Hesed Chamah reaches 10,700 clients in its different programs. Its food services include a kosher dining room, a meals-on-wheels delivery system serving 400 clients, and a supermarket plan in which 1,150 clients are enrolled and another 300 people are on the waiting list. Approximately half of the 1,150 clients in the supermarket plan, said Dr. Elinson, receive coupons to use at approved supermarkets and the other half receive supermarket deliveries of food “baskets” at home. Chamah also provides food parcels geared to the needs of diabetics.
Hesed Chamah clients eat a hearty lunch, which is the main meal for many in Russian society. The man in the foreground is placing food containers in a bag to take home. Jars and other containers of food on different tables would be taken home by other clients.
Hesed Chama medical care and home assistance programs include medical consultations, financial aid for medicines and hygiene supplies, a medical equipment (e.g., walkers, wheelchairs) loan service, and financial assistance for surgery and other medical procedures. Hesed Chama also has a hairdressing salon and provides pedicures. It sponsors a club for people who are blind or have other vision problems
Another Hesed Chamah program is a free legal consulting service. The woman facing the camera is a lawyer; the woman with her back to the camera is receiving legal advice. The two are seated at one end of a social hall in the hesed building.
Russia cares for (обеспечает) its elderly in a very inadequate manner, said Dr. Elinson. The average pension, she continued, is only $70 monthly; inflation, especially for utilities, is severe. In response to a question, Dr. Elinson said that the hesed serves some clients who were highly respected scientists and physicians in their professional careers; many such individuals remember her or her distinguished family members from earlier years and are embarrassed (им стыдно) that she, their former student or younger colleague, sees them dependent on charity for the necessities of life.
Dr. Elinson said that access to Hesed Chamah is easy for most pensioners in the area because a Metro station is only a “one-minute” walk from the facility and trams also run nearby. For clients who live in the periphery, access is much more difficult; Dr. Elinson would like to acquire a vehicle with refrigerator capacity so that Chamah can transport food to 3,000 elderly Jews who reside in 35 towns outside Moscow. Such a vehicle would cost about $25,000, she said. Dr. Elinson also would like to open a rehabilitation center but lacks funding for this venture as well.
While walking downstairs with Dr. Elinson, a woman in her 20’s or 30’s passed us, running upstairs, speaking loudly to no one in particular and gesturing in an eccentric manner. “These people also must eat, and someone must look after them,” said Dr. Elinson of the obviously troubled woman who was well known to her.
In addition to health and welfare programs, Chamah also sponsors a number of social and cultural activities. Elderly Jews using the hesed can participate in various clubs and classes, and the organization offers some Judaica classes to the community at large.
16. The Chabad group associated with the Federation of Jewish Communities maintains its own welfare center in Moscow. Hesed Ezrat Avraham and the Rambam Medical Center are located in several small and old buildings close to the FJC Jewish community center.50 According to Rabbi Avraham Berkowitz, Executive Director of the FJC, these buildings are to be replaced by a $3 million new purpose-built structure in the near future.
Hesed Ezrat Avraham serves 20,000 clients annually, said Rabbi Berkowitz.51 Its nutrition programs includes a dining room that serves 600 people daily, a meals-on-wheels service to 500 people daily, food parcels, and discount coupons for selected grocery stores. In addition, the hesed offers hair dressing services and a variety of clubs to its elderly clientele.
The Rambam Medical Center is an outpatient clinic offering free medical care to some 2,000 clients annually, most of them older adults. An optometrist operates a vision clinic, and the new building will include a dental clinic. About 500 people receive free or highly subsidized medicines through the Rambam Center.
Noting that municipal ambulances often require an extraordinary amount of time to respond to emergency needs, the Rambam Medical Center recently initiated its own ambulance service. It currently possesses only one such vehicle, but plans to expand this service with additional ambulances and trained crews in the near future.
Services to Children
17. The writer visited the Big Family Center, a home for at-risk Jewish children that operates under the sponsorship of Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, Chief Rabbi of Moscow.52 The residence currently accommodates 36 youngsters between the ages of four and 19, most of whom are orphans. Some have living grandparents, but the grandparents are unable to care for them. About 50 percent of the children are from Siberia, said Svetlana Chachiashvili, who directs the Center with her husband, Rafael Chachiashvili; through connections that Rabbi Goldschmidt and his staff have established with Jewish communities throughout the country, Rabbi Goldschmidt is notified when a child requires assistance. A member of the Big Family Center staff will travel to distant locales to pick up children and bring them to Moscow.
In response to a question, Mrs. Chachiashvili said that the Big Family Center does not seek adoptions for orphaned children. She believes that most of the children are “too old” for placement and, in any case, adoption might be too traumatic for them after losing their original homes, residing in temporary quarters, and then settling in the Big Family Center. However, she continued, a foster home arrangement for some of the older children might be a good compromise as long as contact was maintained with the Big Family Center.
The Big Family Center has rented its current temporary quarters from the state for two years, said Mrs. Chachiashvili. A former nursery school on the ground floor of an apartment building, the residence is crowded but clean and neat. Children attend either the Etz Chaim day school or its associated preschool.
Two boys relax with a handheld electronic game at the Big Family Center. Six boys live in the room in the photo at right.
Mrs. Chachiashvili said that the Big Family Center is currently seeking a new building or land on which to build a new residence. They would like to develop a dedicated facility so that children can play, sing, and do other normal childhood activities without disturbing neighbors. She believes that 50-55 youngsters constitute a desirable census for such a residence; as children grow older and enter university, they can remain in the home and help younger children, as is now the case. A local sponsor has committed some funding for the purchase or construction of a new building.
Three children now living in the Big Family Center have serious psychological or emotional difficulties stemming from earlier trauma in their lives, said Mrs. Chachiashvili, and several additional youngsters have milder issues. A psychologist visits regularly and works with these individuals.
The Joint Distribution Committee offered some assistance to the Big Family Center in 2003 and 2004. Although it does not provide an operating subsidy, it has purchased some new furniture and two new minibuses for the Center.
18. The Chabad Federation of Jewish Communities also operates a Moscow residential program for at risk-children. In common with the Big Family Center, youngsters are now housed in a temporary facility. A scheduled visit by the writer to the temporary building was cancelled when heavy Moscow traffic precluded her arrival before the children’s bedtime.
19. The need for a Jewish community organization providing assistance to children and adolescents with various disabilities was discussed with Sam Amiel, Deputy Director of the Moscow JDC office, and with several other individuals working with Jewish children in the Russian capital. Various schools, centers, and other programs encounter Jewish youth with deficits in social, behavioral, cognitive, language, or motor skills; however, no existing entity has the capacity to provide appropriate therapies. Some children at-risk withdraw from programs, others struggle to remain engaged, and still others never participate in any type of social or educational activity. It is believed that some Jewish children and adolescents languish at home or in poorly-supported city or state institutions, far removed from opportunities for social interaction or basic education.
Jewish Religious Life
20. The Russian section of the World Union for Progressive Judaism, known in Russian as OROSIR (an acronym of its Russian name),53 maintains a head office and small activity center in central Moscow. The writer met there with Rabbi Grigory Kotlyar, one of two Progressive rabbis in the Russian capital.54 Rabbi Kotlyar said that 35 active Progressive Jewish congregations exist across Russia all the way to Khabarovsk in the Russian Far East, along with 35 additional Progressive Jewish groups that are less well organized. However, he added, the movement suffers from a severe shortage of Progressive rabbis. He and Rabbi Nelly Shulman, along with two rabbinic colleagues in St. Petersburg, are the only ordained Progressive rabbis in all of Russia.55
Rabbi Grigory Kotlyar, seen at right, was born in Ukraine and ordained at Hebrew Union College in Jerusalem. Prior to entering the Progressive seminary, he had studied at several Orthodox yeshivas in Israel, but found that the Orthodox institutions focused “too much” on halakha and lacked “Jewish spirit.”
The photo appeared in Родник (Spring, as in wellspring), an Orosir “Jewish journal for those who think in Russian.”
Orosir premises in Moscow are small, consisting of a multi-purpose room accommodating a maximum of 70 people, one classroom, and several offices. As noted earlier, the Orosir youth group, Netzer, uses the JDC Nikitskaya Street Jewish community center for its activities three evenings each week.56
The Moscow facility hosts the Orosir machon, a two-year program that trains para-rabbis to work with Progressive groups throughout the post-Soviet states. Rabbi Kotlyar supervises the first-year course, which includes study of Jewish texts, sociology, and principles of community organization. The second-year curriculum, which is supervised by Rabbi Shulman, includes a practicum, intensive study of Jewish life cycle events, and a diploma thesis. Rabbi Kotlyar said that 13 to 15 individuals, both men and women from various points in the successor states, are enrolled in each class; however, he continued, two or three drop out of each group because they find that the program requires more study than they had anticipated. Most students are graduates of universities or other post-secondary school institutions, said Rabbi Kotlyar, but a few have not completed degree programs. The cost of the machon program is absorbed by the World Union for Progressive Judaism and several foundation grants. The best machon students, commented Rabbi Kotlyar, are invited to study for the Progressive rabbinate at the new Abraham Geiger College that is associated with the School of Jewish Studies at the University of Potsdam. Rabbi Kotlyar would prefer that Russian-speaking candidates for the Progressive rabbinate study at Hebrew Union College in Jerusalem, but the fact that the German government pays the costs of educating rabbis at Potsdam obviously is a critical factor in encouraging enrollment in Germany.
Russian-speaking students at the HUC rabbinic program, most of whom are from immigrant families in Israel, come to the post-Soviet states to assist in small communities for various holiday observances. In addition to providing the students with useful experience, their holiday placements provide small communities with leadership and knowledge otherwise unavailable to them.
Notwithstanding the machon and rabbinic training programs, Rabbi Kotlyar believes that additional Jewish education programs should be developed for the large non-Orthodox Jewish population in Moscow. He suggests that the Progressive and Masorti (Conservative) movements work together in establishing a program in cooperation with Mark Kupovetsky and Project Judaica.57
In response to a question, Rabbi Kotlyar said that the Progressive movement publishes a machzor, siddur, and hagada in Russian, but that Orosir never has enough copies of any of these works. The movement is trying to raise sufficient funds to translate Rabbi Gunther Plaut’s Torah Commentary into Russian. Orosir publishes the quarterly popular journal Родник and a Jewish wall calendar.58
In addition to serving as an educational center, the Orosir premises in Moscow also serve as a synagogue and small community center. A women’s club and several children’s groups meet there.
Netzer, the Orosir Zionist youth group, is the only Jewish youth movement in the post-Soviet states that is active throughout the entire year, said Rabbi Kotlyar. The group is based in Progressive congregations, he continued, and its leadership convenes annually in seminars that are held in six different regions and are supported by the Pincus Fund. Rabbi Kotlyar commented that some of the appeal of Netzer to Jewish youth is that Netzer activities are coeducational and are open to both halakhic and non-halakhic Jewish teens; Orthodox groups, he noted, encounter great difficulty in attracting Jewish adolescents.59
In addition to Netzer, the Progressive movement sponsors a number of Sunday schools and operates summer camps. All of these programs are open to both boys and girls.
Rabbi Kotlyar said that relations between the Progressive movement and Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, the Orthodox Chief Rabbi of Moscow, are good, and that Orosir is a “full partner” in KEROOR, the pluralist Congress of Jewish Religious Organizations and Societies in Russia.60 The Chabad movement, however, does not regard Progressive Judaism as a valid representation of religious Judaism, but only as a cultural or education program. Rabbi Kotlyar also noted that Velvel Chernin, the director of Jewish Agency Jewish identification programs in Russia, is open to Progressive Judaism, notwithstanding his own association with Orthodoxy.
Progressive Judaism, stated Rabbi Kotlyar, can “compete” with Chabad, even though it lacks Chabad’s physical infrastructure. Progressive Judaism, he observed, is accessible in the Russian language, modern, participatory, and activist.61 Orosir sponsors a Torah studies program, continued Rabbi Kotlyar, that attracts 30 to 50 intellectuals on an ongoing basis to its Saturday evening classes.
21. The Masorti/Conservative movement has no centrally-funded community infrastructure in Russia. The lack of an international Masorti umbrella organization with financial resources to support a functional Russian community program provides a partial explanation for such a void; other factors are the decisions of specific Masorti institutions to focus their more limited institutional visions on Ukraine (because operating costs are lower in Ukraine) or on support of a more focused academic endeavor.
The writer met with Alexei Kolganov, a Moscow resident with some understanding of Masorti/Conservative Judaism, who is attempting to develop a Masorti infrastructure in the Russian capital. He is in frequent contact with Gila Katz, who directs the Russian-language outreach program of the Schechter Institute62 in Jerusalem, said Mr. Kolganov. Ms Katz has provided encouragement and some printed materials, he continued, but the Schechter Institute has not been forthcoming with financial support. The situation of the Conservative movement in Russian is “difficult” (тяжело), he said.
Nonetheless, Mr. Kolganov has opened a day-long Sunday school enrolling 40 youngsters between the ages of nine and 16. The group meets in a fitness center owned by a friend, where classes include Jewish tradition and sports, especially self-defense. Mr. Kolganov has requested aid from the Maccabi World Union, an international Jewish sports organization, for the sports program, and Maccabi has promised some financial support for 2005.
Most current budgetary assistance, said Mr. Kolganov, comes from Keroor and Sochnut. Mr. Kolganov and several other businessmen also contribute funds. A request to JDC for support was rebuffed.
Mr. Kolganov believes that Conservative Judaism offers an appealing alternative to Orthodox Judaism, especially the Chabad form of Orthodox Judaism that dominates institutional Judaism in Moscow. Conservative Judaism, he continued, is “serious” Judaism and is attractive to Jewish youth and Jews in young and middle-age adulthood.
A rabbi affiliated with the Institute for Jewish Studies63 provides guidance on Jewish religious programs, said Mr. Kolganov, and the Masorti group enjoyed a Pesach seder in the Israeli Cultural Center.64 Masorti also has good relations with the Jewish Agency for Israel, said Mr. Kolganov.
In addition to financial support, Mr. Kolganov said that his fledgling program requires assistance with teaching methodology. He also would like to offer intensive seminars, perhaps in the form of Shabbatonim, to youth and families.
Mr. Kolganov has submitted a proposal to Masorti Olami, the international Masorti/Conservative umbrella organization, for a day-long Sunday school enrolling 100 pupils between the ages of nine and 16; the curriculum would include classes in Hebrew, English, Jewish history and tradition, geography and history of Israel, Jewish and Israeli music and dance, computer studies, and sports. He is aware of qualified teachers eager to work in such a school. The proposal also includes provisions for teaching materials, kosher food, holiday celebrations, and family camp sessions. Mr. Kolganov believes that such a program would cost $45,000 annually; if Masorti Olami or another organization would provide 50 percent of this sum, he thinks that he could raise the remaining 50 percent locally.65
22. Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, Chief Rabbi of Moscow, is a modern/centrist Orthodox rabbi who presides over the large choral synagogue on Arkhipova Street in central Moscow. Born in Switzerland, Rabbi Goldschmidt has strong American connections with undergraduate study at Yeshiva University in New York and a graduate degree in computer science from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. He has worked in Moscow since 1987.
The construction of a choral synagogue in the center of Moscow became possible in the latter half of the 19th century as an outgrowth of the liberal attitude of Tsar Alexander II (1818-1881, reigned 1855-1881) who permitted specific categories of Jews (merchants, university graduates, artisans) to live outside the Pale of Settlement and move to Moscow. The Jewish community purchased the synagogue site in 1876 and began construction in 1887 with the help of a generous gift from banker Lazar Polyakov. However, several government decrees forced changes in its design, including the removal of a large silver dome that Russian Orthodox Christians were said to find offensive. Additional changes for comparable reasons were ordered throughout most of the remainder of the tsarist period; the synagogue was in a state of constant partial demolition and reconstruction until the first Russian revolution in 1905-1907. Following the 1917 Revolution, use of the synagogue was sharply restricted as part of Soviet anti-religious policy. Sections of the building were converted into space for use by factories and other concerns. Although the synagogue prayer hall remained open under rabbinic auspices in a legal sense throughout the Soviet period, its use for religious and communal purposes was sharply restricted. Nonetheless, the synagogue attracted extraordinary crowds when Golda Meir, then Israeli Ambassador to the USSR, visited it in 1948, and during the 1970’s and 1980’s when thousands of Jews would gather in front of it to express their identity and solidarity on Simchat Torah. A $9 million renovation program was begun in 2001 and now is partially completed; in addition to external repairs, the plumbing system is being replaced and three new floors of office and program space are being added to the structure.
The original silver dome of the Moscow Choral Synagogue was removed in 1887 under pressure from Russian Orthodox Christians who found its prominence offensive. The cupola subsequently was destroyed. In 2001, a new dome was built in the style of the original cupola and installed on the roof. A six-pointed star not visible in all versions of the above photo is at the top of the dome.
The photo at left shows the great prayer hall of the choral synagogue after restoration.
Both photos are from the bilingual booklet entitled (in English) Moscow Choral Synagogue: Reconstruction, published by The Foundation for the Reconstruction of the Moscow Choral Synagogue.
Among the additions to the remodeled synagogue will be a kosher restaurant, replacing the interim kosher restaurant now operating in a temporary building on the synagogue grounds. The current restaurant is open for lunch and dinner; although meals are priced inexpensively, the restaurant is profitable, said Rabbi Goldschmidt.
Velvel Chernin of the Jewish Agency, left, and Zinovy Kogan, executive director of KEROOR, are among those who dine frequently in the interim kosher restaurant on the grounds of the Moscow choral synagogue. The paintings on the walls are by Dara Goldschmidt, Rabbi Goldschmidt’s wife.
Rabbi Goldschmidt said that the Jewish population of Moscow includes about 200,000 individuals who can be defined as core Jews; the total Moscow Jewish population may be as high as one million, if all members of Jewish households are included. Similarly, the Jewish population of Russia ranges between 350,000 and 1.5 million, depending upon the definition of Jewish attachment. In common with many others in the Russian capital, Rabbi Goldschmidt noted the post-Soviet trend of Jewish young people to reject traditional Jewish careers in intellectual fields in favor of commerce.
The Russian Jewish Congress, with which Rabbi Goldschmidt has a long association, is currently in flux, said the rabbi. The implications of the forced change of leadership are not yet clear, he continued. In general, Rabbi Goldschmidt thinks that a strengthened Russian Jewish Congress will be good for the Russian Jewish population because the current domination by the Chabad Federation of Jewish Communities leaves Jews with very limited options.
In response to a question about desired priorities in organized Jewish life in both Moscow and Russia, Rabbi Goldschmidt said that the first priority should be construction of the planned comprehensive Moscow Jewish community center on the vacant lot across from the choral synagogue. The partners in development of this facility were to have been the Jewish Agency, JDC, the Russian Jewish Congress, the Moscow Jewish community (under Rabbi Goldschmidt’s leadership), and a private family. However, JDC recently indicated that it would not participate in the project, and the involvement of the Russian Jewish Congress is uncertain, given the turmoil in that organization. Rabbi Goldschmidt remains hopeful that JDC will reconsider its decision and re-join the project.
The second priority in organized Jewish life, said Rabbi Goldschmidt, is the strengthening of the non-Chabad [Orthodox] rabbinate throughout the country, thus providing Jews with options that they do not now enjoy. Chabad quickly fills any position that becomes open, effectively driving away those who find their philosophy and modus operandi objectionable.
23. The Chabad movement enjoys the greatest visibility of any Jewish organization in Russia. Although several different Chabad groups in the successor states support synagogues and other Jewish religious institutions, the largest Chabad representation is associated with Tashkent-born oligarch Levi Levayev and New York investor George Rohr.66 Operating under the Chabad umbrella organization Federation of Jewish Communities of the C.I.S. (Commonwealth of Independent States), the Levayev-Rohr Chabad group shas stationed rabbis in approximately 40 cities across Russia, from St. Petersburg on the Gulf of Finland to Vladivostok on the Sea of Japan. It is clearly the favored Jewish group of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who arranged the appointment of Chabad Rabbi Berel Lazar as Chief Rabbi of Russia, notwithstanding the previous election of Rabbi Adolph Shayevich as Chief Rabbi.67
In addition to generous financial support from Mr. Levayev and Mr. Rohr, FJC also has attracted significant contributions from wealthy Russian Jews and in-kind assistance from local politicians who understand that the Chabad Federation is the Jewish group favored by the Russian government. Chabad has succeeded in taking possession of most pre-revolutionary synagogues returned to the Jewish community after Soviet confiscation and use for other purposes. The Rohr family has made substantial contributions to the restoration and renovation of these synagogues in approximately 30 post-Soviet cities.
Chabad operates a vast array of educational and welfare programs across Russia. Its religious programs include synagogues, Ohr Avner day schools with modest religious curricula, yeshiva-type schools with more extensive Jewish learning in some cities, yeshivas, and several colleges. It operates several synagogues in Moscow and, according to Rabbi Avraham Berkowitz, Executive Director of the Chabad Federation, the Federation intends to open 40 more synagogues throughout the Russian capital, most of which will be led by native Russian-speaking rabbis. Notwithstanding such ambitious plans, existing Chabad synagogues and other religious institutions attract only a small percentage of Moscow Jews, most of whom are elderly or are outside the mainstream of Russian society.
The writer spoke with Chabad Chief Rabbi Berel Lazar, whom she had met on several previous occasions, in his office on an upper floor of the Chabad community center. After exchanging greetings, Rabbi Lazar declared to the writer that United States government policy in the post-Soviet states was fundamentally flawed, that it was “too loud” in Ukraine, as it had been in Georgia as well. The United States, he said, should be less “emphatic” and “more tactful” in its relations with other countries.68
Rabbi Berel Lazar, depicted in a Chabad-provided photo at right, was appointed Chief Rabbi of Russia with the active encouragement of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Born into a Chabad family working as emissaries in Italy in 1964, Rabbi Lazar’s entire formal education has been within Chabad institutions, a factor that has limited his ability to gain the respect of the Moscow intelligentsia and emerging middle class. Most Chabad rabbis in the successor states have similar backgrounds.
Turning from foreign policy to the writer’s role as a member of the Board of Governors of the Jewish Agency for Israel, Rabbi Lazar asked what the Jewish Agency was doing in Russia. Continuing that the question referred to JAFI activities in general, Rabbi Lazar observed that aliyah (emigration to Israel) from Russia had declined and suggested that, in response, the Jewish Agency should curb its aliyah-related programs and “forget about” aliyah; he quickly added “for now” as a qualifying condition. The main task of Jewish organizations should be to “bring Jews out of the closet.” Jewish outreach was essential, especially in Moscow; such work could be accomplished in Russia at much less cost than in the United States, he continued.
The Jewish Agency should do more to expand Jewish day schools and other Jewish educational programs, said Rabbi Lazar. Such a venture would be very costly, he acknowledged, but it is worthwhile because youth who participate in these programs then educate their families. Jewish day schools, he conceded, cannot compete with the new private schools that have opened in major Russian cities. The Jewish world needs a new approach to Jewish education, we must change with the times, he said.69 The Jewish world also should develop new forms of Jewish higher education; Jewish education cannot stop at the end of eleventh grade.
In response to a question, Rabbi Lazar said approximately 500,000 Jews live in Moscow; however, he added, he realizes that 250,000 is the “popular” number. Answering another query, he estimated that 150,000 Moscow Jews are involved in some Jewish activity at least once a year.70
24. KEROOR is the Russian acronym of Конгресс еврейских религиозных организаций и объединений в России or Congress of Jewish Religious Organizations and Societies in Russia, a pluralist umbrella resource institution for religious Jewish organizations in Russia. Established in 1997, Keroor is based in the choral synagogue led by Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt.
Keroor offers services to all branches of Judaism. However, Chabad has declined to participate in the organization, citing the inclusion of Progressive Judaism as a deterrent. Chabad leadership in Moscow has denied the legitimacy of Progressive Judaism as a valid Jewish religious expression, labeling it as a political or cultural entity.
The writer met with Anatoly Pinsky and Rabbi Zinovy Kogan,71 chairman and executive director respectively of Keroor. The two men outlined current Keroor programs, many of which are designed to support small religious communities, both those with rabbis and those without rabbis. (In all, Keroor supports 27 rabbis in Russia, most of whom are modern/centrist Orthodox in background.) Keroor sponsors seminars of lay leaders, subsidizes Sunday schools and holiday observances, and publishes and distributes Jewish calendars. In cooperation with the Jewish Agency and the Pincus Fund, it supports 12 Sunday schools, including two in Moscow and others elsewhere in central Russia, along the Volga River, and in the Ural Mountains area. Five of these schools enroll 30 to 40 children each, and the remaining seven have smaller enrollments. All have family clubs. With JAFI as a co-sponsor and some support from local communities, Keroor also supports Sunday schools in an additional eight cities, all in central Russia.
In response to a question about their greatest needs, Mr. Pinsky and Rabbi Kogan said that all of their Sunday schools and other programs require greater basic financial support. Additionally, these institutions require various books and pamphlets, including Sunday school texts and information for adults on Jewish tradition, holidays, and rituals. The Chabad movement, they noted, has publications about “everything,” and distributes its materials very aggressively. For the average Russian Jew who knows little or nothing about Judaism, continued Mr. Pinsky and Rabbi Kogan, the Chabad interpretation of Judaism is very confusing and sometimes offensive or insulting. Keroor also would like to operate weekend or summertime week-long family seminars on Judaism, but lacks the resources to do so. (In an earlier discussion with Rabbi Goldschmidt, he had defined the appointment of additional [non-Chabad] rabbis as one of post-Soviet Jewry’s greatest needs.)
Keroor also would like to establish a sofer center, i.e., a center in which trained Hebrew scribes would restore some 50 damaged Torah scrolls now in Keroor possession, along with mezuzah parchments and megilot.72 Two professional sofers currently are working in Moscow, but they cannot possibly complete all of the work that remains to be done so that these ritual texts can be used by congregations and other groups that need them.
Mr. Pinsky and Rabbi Kogan believe that only a tolerant Judaism can preserve (сохранит) Jewish tradition in Russia. Most Russian Jews, they said, are assimilated and do not respond positively to the Chabad focus on rules and laws of Jewish practice.
Jewish Organizations
25. As noted earlier, approximately 500 Jewish organizations are thought to exist in Moscow, most of which are very small and ineffective. Few have a broad-based membership; many consist entirely of a small group of self-designated officers.
26. The largest Jewish organization is the Chabad-controlled Federation of Jewish Communities, known to most in Russia as FEOR, an acronym of its Russian name (Федерация еврейских общин России73 FEOR is an umbrella organization, covering almost all of Chabad’s varied activities in Russia. Similar organizations have been created in the other post-Soviet states, and a ‘multinational’ Federation of Jewish Communities of the Commonwealth of Independent States represents Chabad throughout the post-Soviet countries. The imprecision of the organization’s title, that is, the non-inclusion of any word denoting Chabad sponsorship and control, causes confusion within the broader Jewish population and among foreign sources interested in the post-Soviet Jewish population. Discussions between the writer and several Chabad officials suggest that the grandness of the title is deliberate; many within the Chabad movement believe that Chabad is capable of representing the entire Jewish population and that reference to the FEOR Chabad orientation is unnecessarily limiting.74
According to Rabbi Avraham Berkowitz, Executive Director of the Federation of Jewish Communities of the Commonwealth of Independent States, the organization operates programs in 25 buildings in the Russian capital alone and currently is further developing its major property in north central Moscow. This property now hosts the Chabad JCC, hesed and clinic, and a boarding school for boys. A museum of Jewish history is under development on the site, along with an expanded hesed and clinic, a new school, and other structures. FEOR operates comparable arrays of programs in other cities, although their variety and size reflect the smaller Jewish populations outside Moscow.
The FEOR annual budget is estimated at $60 to $70 million, the largest portions of which are provided by Tashkent-born oligarch Levi Levayev and New York investor George Rohr. Mr. Levayev focuses his contributions on Jewish education, particularly the day schools and other educational institutions operating under the auspices of Ohr Avner, the fund named in memory of Mr. Levayev’s father. As an individual familiar with Soviet/post-Soviet custom, Mr. Levayev also is a key figure in building and maintaining Chabad political influence in the post-Soviet states. Mr. Rohr supports the construction of post-Soviet Chabad synagogues and community centers, pays salaries and living expenses of 200 Chabad rabbis, funds the translation and printing of numerous Russian-language Jewish publications (prayer books, hagadahs, chumashim, etc.), supports the Chabad Russian-language website, and subsidizes Chabad summer camps, children’s homes, and holiday celebrations in the post-Soviet states.75
FEOR has been able to raise money and secure political support locally from local/regional wealthy Jews and government officials who understand that Chabad is the Kremlin-favored form of Judaism. Conflicts between Chabad and other Jewish religious groups, such as those sponsored by the Progressive movement or by Keroor, have emerged when Chabad has been able to use its political and/or financial clout to supplant these groups in old synagogue buildings returned to the Jewish “community” or in comparable situations requiring financial or political influence. In some instances, the Chabad-Putin relationship has encouraged local officials to favor Chabad; in other instances, a Jewish oligarch hoping to gain favor with the Kremlin is able to persuade authorities to support Chabad in conflicts with other Jewish groups. Recent episodes in the Siberian cities of Omsk and Irkutsk reflect this “competition;” Chabad was victorious in both instances.
27. The Russian Jewish Congress (Российский Еврейский Конгресс, known as REK) was established in January 1996 as a national organization committed to developing an inclusive, pluralist Russian Jewish community. REK established branch offices in major Jewish population centers and has raised over $70 million dollars from domestic donors for a variety of Jewish religious, social welfare, cultural, and education programs. The organization hoped to represent Russian Jewry in discussions with the Russian government and within international Jewish forums.
However, its ambitious aspirations suffered a major blow in 2000 when Vladimir Gusinsky, an oligarch and REK President, was forced into foreign exile under Kremlin pressure. Following Mr. Gusinsky’s departure from Russia, REK limped along under uncertain leadership and reduced revenues. With the exception of support for academic Jewish studies, the organization lost its focus and each of its regional branches closed. Concurrently, Chabad was accruing power, gaining endorsement from the Kremlin and a stable funding base provided by Levi Levayev, George Rohr, and others.
The writer arrived in Moscow shortly after a little known Moscow banker and member of the Federation Council (the upper house of the Russian parliament),76 Vladimir Slutsker, unexpectedly was elected president of REK in an October 18 meeting of REK major donors.77 Reports circulated that Mr. Slutsker’s election had been brokered by Vladimir Resin, the partly-Jewish deputy mayor of Moscow, certainly with the knowledge and, at the very least, tacit approval of the Kremlin. Mr. Resin was best known in the Jewish community for a fruitless earlier attempt to encourage the merger of major Russian Jewish organizations.78
Little was known about Mr. Slutsker, other than his own assertions that he had some attachment to traditional Judaism and considered himself a qualified leader of Kabbalah, a mystical expression of Judaism.79 He is 48 years old and has a variety of business experiences, including oil trading, advertising, and real estate.
Shortly after assuming office in October 2004, Vladimir Slutsker embarked upon an intensive program of self-education about Russian Jewry, REK, and world Jewry. His initial international travels took him to the United States and to England; in both countries, he spent considerable time in discussions with local Jewish communal leadership.
Photo: The Jewish Chronicle (London), #7084 (January 28, 2005), p. 16.
Mr. Slutsker was in the United States during the writer’s visit to Moscow. Moscow Jews with whom the writer spoke expressed both caution and hope about his appointment. Any Jewish leader, it was said, had “limited options,” given the return to authoritarianism under the Putin government. It was possible, they stated, that RJC simply would be a secular version of FEOR, “de-Zionized” and reluctant to take strong positions on any issues that lacked congruence with articulated Kremlin positions. However, notwithstanding Mr. Slutsker’s announced allegiance to traditional Judaism and kabalah, many Moscow observers considered him to be more modern and better attuned to the needs and desires of Russian Jewry than the Chabad leadership of FEOR, a group to which very few feel any positive attachment.
In Mr. Slutsker’s absence from Moscow, the writer spoke with the displaced former president of REK, Yevgeny Satanovsky, at REK offices.80 In response to a question, Dr. Satanovsky said that several hundred individuals contributed to REK in Moscow alone, and approximately 1,000 were donors throughout Russia. Fifteen people contributed $250,000 or more in 2004. The total REK annual cash budget had ranged from $8 million to $10.5 million in recent years. Additionally, some donors also give in-kind support, such as construction materials. In answer to another question, Dr. Satanovsky said that some individuals contributed to both REK and the Chabad FEOR.
Referring to the Jewish population, Dr. Satanovsky said that 232,000 Jewish households in Moscow include at least one person with some Jewish background. Although many Jews are assimilated and some have acquired non-Jewish surnames, they still are perceived as Jews by people around them. He believes that some would like to impose a “wall” between halakhic and non-halakhic Jews, a policy that is “not good.”
Dr. Satanovsky stated that the principal goal of REK should be support of Jewish education, particularly the concept of Judaism as a civilization. A “big market” for such efforts exists in Russian universities and research centers. He referred to existing Russian Jewish religious, i.e., Orthodox, day schools as “garbage.” However, he continued, a Jewish day school with a high level of academic studies in a range of classical subjects, such as biology and mathematics, might be successful. Such a school, he stated, should not demand that pupils be halakhically Jewish because such a restriction reduces the school to a “ghetto;” further, the Jewish studies component should not be Orthodox in orientation because an Orthodox outlook will only lead to a “war” between pupils and their parents, very few of whom accept Orthodox Judaism. FEOR Chabad, said Dr. Satanovsky, actually “pushes Jews away from Judaism.”
However, Dr. Satanovsky praised Velvel Chernin, Ze’ev Khanin, Dovid Karpov and Vlad Dashevsky as Russian-speaking Orthodox Jews who understand the Russian Jewish mentality.81 All of them, he said, can be effective in developing policy for Jewish education in Russia, whereas the FEOR stream of Chabad is unable to relate to contemporary Russian Jews.
28. The World Congress of Russian-Speaking Jewry (Всемирный конгресс русскоязычного еврейства) was established in Moscow in 2002 in an effort to unite Russian-speaking Jews on behalf of Israel, represent the interests of Russian-speaking Jews throughout the world, assist the integration of Russian-speaking Jews into the [non-Russian] Jewish communities in which they live, resolve problems of Russian-speaking Jews regarding international movement, and promote commemoration of the 1967 Six-Day War. Valery Engel, WCRSJ Executive Director, and Matvei Chlenov, Director, discussed these aims with the author in a Moscow meeting.82
Dr. Valery Engel, seen at left in a photo provided by the WCRSJ, is executive director of both WCRSJ and the Chabad Federation of Jewish Communities (FEOR).
According to WCRSJ, approximately three million Russian-speaking Jews reside in 27 different countries, ranging from 400 in Armenia to 900,000 in Israel. The organization maintains offices in Moscow, Jerusalem, New York, and Berlin. An undated WCRSJ report states that their 2004 budget was $4,100,000; Mr. Engel said that 25 percent of this amount is provided by the Chabad FEOR organization, 10 percent by Mikhail Shneerson, a Russian-speaking Jew living in New York who also is Chairman of the WCRSJ Board, and 65 percent is raised from Russian Jews in different countries around the world.
Both the independence and the mission of WCRSJ are repeatedly challenged. The appointment of Dr. Valery Engel, already the executive director of the Chabad FEOR organization, as executive director of WCRSJ as well has limited its credibility since its inception. WCRSJ is viewed by prominent Russian Jews and international observers as “a branch of FEOR” or “the secular foreign policy arm of Chabad,” dependent on Chabad and Chabad ties to the Russian government for its support. The success of its local fundraising efforts is said to reflect Kremlin pressure on Russian Jews; major support from Russian Jews abroad is attributed to the desire of some émigré Russian Jews for prominence.83
Its stated mission is equally controversial. The Russian-speaking Jewish population is diverse and cannot be represented by any single organization. Given the complexity of Russian government policy in the Middle East, it is doubtful that the Russian government will welcome a pro-Israel Jewish lobbying group; a lobbying group with multinational participation would be especially objectionable. In common with other immigrant populations, it is likely that Russian-speaking Jews will integrate into Israel and other countries over time, a process that Mr. Chlenov acknowledged is now under way; it is unlikely that a Moscow-directed organization can facilitate this development outside Russia. Similarly, it is unlikely that the Russian government will transfer pensions to Russian Jews living abroad at the behest of a Jewish organization; such matters as pension payments and the issuance of visas usually are resolved by government treaties, not by lobbying groups. Commemoration of the 1967 Six-Day War seems to be a peculiar project for a group closely tied to the Kremlin, given the strong Soviet opposition to Israel in this conflict.
29. The Euro-Asian Jewish Congress was established in 1991 as a “continental branch” of the World Jewish Congress. It was restructured in 2002 and currently has sections in 20 countries, ranging from most of the post-Soviet states (excluding Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania) to Australia, New Zealand, and Japan. According to the EAJC, about two million Jews reside in these countries.
The goals and objectives of the EAJC include solidarity with Israel, protection of diaspora Jews against antisemitism, improvement of relations between governments and their Jewish populations, and participation in interethnic and interreligious dialogues. The organization also promotes the preservation of Jewish property and the restitution of confiscated Jewish property to Jewish communities. It monitors Jewish life, commemorates the Holocaust, and maintains an active publications program
Alexander Mashkevich, seen at right in a EAJC photo, is President of EAJC. He is an oligarch based in Kazakhstan, where he has promoted dialogue with local Moslems.
In addition to Alexander Mashkevich as President, the EAJC is led by Mikhail Chlenov, the longtime Moscow activist and academic, who is the organization’s secretary-general. Dr. Chlenov said EAJC has both community-organization and political objectives. The current priority, continued Dr. Chlenov, is the political sphere. Although Dr. Chlenov did not elaborate, the EAJC is widely seen as one of several endeavors by non-Chabad Jews to establish a broadly based post-Soviet Jewish representative body outside the Chabad realm of influence. The Chairman of the EAJC Council of Rabbis is Rabbi Yeshaya Cohen, a renegade Chabad rabbi formerly aligned with FEOR; the presence of Rabbi Cohen in EAJC leadership is a major irritant to Chabad. Other leaders include several non-Chabad Orthodox rabbis, Jewish businessmen, and other prominent Jews.84
EAJC publishes a periodic journal, Jews of Euro-Asia, available in both Russian and English versions, as well as the Euro-Asian Jewish Year Book. The latter is an acknowledged attempt to replicate the American Jewish Year Book, published by the American Jewish Committee in the United States.
The Russian and English language versions of the Euro-Asian Jewish Year Book appear at left. The latter is somewhat abridged and the quality of the English translation is inconsistent. Nonetheless, the reader will find much of interest in each volume, including a directory of Jewish organizations throughout the member states.
Whereas the publications produced by the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress already provide some value, the effectiveness of the organization in promoting the remainder of its agenda and in providing a post-Soviet partner for western Jewish organizations has yet to be proved. Its ties to the World Jewish Congress may guarantee some level of representation in that body, but the WJC is itself somewhat unsteady and its influence is disputed.
30. The Russian Va’ad was founded in 1989 with the goal of representing all of Soviet Jewry. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 2001, the Va’ad devolved into separate organizations in several of the successor states. Dr. Mikhail Chlenov, an early champion of the Va’ad, readily acknowledged its diminished stature, stating that it had become an informational center serving the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress and FENKA (see below). The Va’ad also sponsors a professional association of Hebrew teachers and operates several other small educational programs. After a series of tumultuous congresses and meetings in its early days, the organization now appears to be a spent force.
31. In 1996, the Russian government approved the formation of national autonomies, organizations of ethnic groups that enjoy competence in three specific expressions of ethnicity: education, language, and culture. Fifteen such autonomies exist on a federal level, 25 on a regional level, and 30 on a local level. Each represents a specific ethnic group, such as Jews, Germans, Koreans, or Armenians. Additionally, the federal provision embraces two museums, the World War II and Holocaust memorial museum (built by the Russian Jewish Congress) at Poklonnaya Gora in Moscow and an ethnography museum in St. Petersburg. In theory, each of these structures is to be supported by regular allocations from the Russian federal government; in practice, financial support has been both irregular and inadequate.
Dr. Mikhail Chlenov is a leader in the Jewish autonomy, serving as President of the Федеральная еврейская национально-культурная автономия (Federal Jewish National and Cultural Autonomy), known by its Russian acronym, FENKA. Notwithstanding the lack of government support, Dr. Chlenov described FENKA as a growing organization, gradually becoming the new regional structure of the Russian Jewish Congress.
Evgeniya Mikhaileva,85 who works with Dr. Chlenov in FENKA, described a more complex situation. According to Ms. Mikhaileva, the Chabad Federation of Jewish Communities (FEOR) also is organizing autonomies, frequently in direct competition with FENKA. Both groups approach government entities for funding, each claiming authority for the education, language, and cultural needs of Jews in the same region.86 Government officials, continued Ms. Mikhaileva, are confused and angry. In theory, Ms. Mikhaileva believes that the two groups can work together on such issues as Hebrew or Yiddish language instruction or in many aspects of Jewish culture; however, such collaborative efforts seem elusive. FENKA hopes that Alexander Mashkevich of the Euroasian Jewish Congress will increase his own support of FENKA, thus allowing the organization to move forward in developing a pluralist Jewish national cultural community structure in major Jewish population centers.
International Jewish Organizations
32. The Jewish Agency for Israel, known as JAFI to many English speakers and as Sochnut (the first word of its Hebrew title) to many in Russia, operates numerous programs in the post-Soviet states designed to strengthen the Jewish identification of post-Soviet Jews and to encourage their immigration (aliyah) to Israel. The writer was unable to speak with Boris Maftzir, the head of the JAFI Moscow delegation, as he had fallen ill several days before her arrival.87
Nona Orman, the director of aliyah activity in Moscow and 26 Jewish population centers in cities around Moscow, estimated that approximately 200,000 halakhic Jews live in Moscow and that perhaps 400,000 to 600,000 individuals in the Russian capital are eligible for aliyah according to the Israeli Law of Return. Ms. Orman noted that the halakhically Jewish population of the Russian capital was about 700,000 in 1990; two-thirds of the Moscow Jewish population already has left the city, either by emigration or by assimilation, since then. When asked to estimate how many Jews would remain in the city in 2014, Ms. Orman declined to respond. She observed that only 600 children were born to Jewish mothers in all of Russia in 2003 and that the Russian Jewish death-to-birth ratio is believed to be 11:1, that is, eleven Jews die in Russia for every Jewish child born in the country.
The Russian economy, which appears particularly strong in Moscow, clearly is encouraging more young Jews to remain in the Russian capital and build their adult lives in the land of their birth. Few of them are thinking about aliyah, in part because local opportunities seem favorable and in part because they know that the klitah (absorption) process in Israel is difficult. The role of the Jewish Agency in this situation, said Ms. Orman, is to work with young people to build their Jewish identities and encourage identification with Israel. Given decades of assimilation, this would be a difficult task under any circumstances, but it is especially challenging because the Jewish Agency lacks appropriate premises in which young Jews can meet.
Ms. Orman said that existing JAFI aliyah-related programs should be nurtured and strengthened. For example, the Na’aleh (high school in Israel) and Sela (post-secondary school education in Israel) programs had have proved their value over time, but JAFI should work more closely with families of Na’aleh and Sela to encourage them to join their children in Israel. One of the newer programs is Perspective, an Israel-oriented club for adults between the ages of 24 and 32; the activities of this group include weekend Jewish-identity seminars. The Young Family program attracts adults up to 40 years of age and is more active in the region around Moscow than in Moscow itself; a group of participants in this endeavor is preparing to make aliyah to Beersheva.
The writer met two young Israeli women who were working in Moscow under the auspices of the Shnat Sherut program, a pilot venture designed to provide an alternative to army service in the Israeli Defense Forces. The women were serving as assistants in a variety of different JAFI programs and in day schools supported by the JAFI Hephzibah fund. Although the program was new and the participants had been in Moscow for only a few months at the time of the writer’s visit, the program was believed to show great promise as a vehicle for alleviating staff shortages and for bringing young and enthusiastic Israelis into post-Soviet JAFI activity.88
Because the writer is already familiar with JAFI summer camps and a number of other JAFI programs, she spent little time considering these ventures. JAFI education programs are considered elsewhere in this report.
33. Many American Jews perceive the operations of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee in the post-Soviet states as focusing on the provision of various welfare services to vulnerable Jewish population groups, particularly Jewish elderly. JDC has attempted in recent years to expand its welfare efforts to embrace vulnerable Jewish children as well, an endeavor limited in some cities by inadequate appropriate program space.
Another focus of JDC attention is Jewish renewal, which concentrates on Jewish community centers, Jewish culture, family camps and other family programs, and Hillel student programs.89 JDC support for Jewish activities of this type provides additional Jewish options for those whose primary Jewish focus is not religious.
In a discussion with Sam Amiel, Deputy Director of the JDC office in Moscow, Mr. Amiel said that professional preparation of JDC post-Soviet staff remains an issue. Whereas JDC maintains a training institute in St. Petersburg and regional institutes elsewhere for the training of welfare personnel, the education of staff for positions in other program areas and in management remains difficult. Several schools of social work have opened in Moscow, he continued, but the field is not deemed prestigious. JDC is developing its own one-year course, which will be open to current middle managers and mature individuals wanting to change careers. The program will be based at the Nikitskaya JCC and will cover a curriculum similar to that of a MBA in non-profit management but will not grant a degree. Mr. Amiel also spoke of the need to develop capable lay boards whose members are able to raise funds for local programs.90
34. Rabbi David Rozenson, a native of Russia, directs Avi Chai Foundation programs in the post-Soviet states. A current focus of Avi Chai is the development of Jewish-content programs that are attractive to middle class and elite segments of local Jewish populations. For example, Avi Chai is working with Jewish day schools to enhance both the Jewish studies and general studies aspects of their curricula, thus hoping to enhance the quality and the appeal of these schools. Avi Chai also is developing a series of high-quality, well-illustrated children’s books on Jewish topics.
Rabbi Rozenson would like to establish Jewish cultural programs in several Moscow cafés that are owned by Jews and frequented by significant segments of the Jewish intelligentsia. Several of these cafés, said Rabbi Rozenson, offer general poetry readings and other cultural attractions, but none yet sponsors any Jewish programs.
Commentary
35. Jewish demographic trends in Russia are bleak and irreversible. Although the number of Jews in Moscow itself may have increased modestly in recent years - due to Jewish migration to the Russian capital from outlying areas and the presence of perhaps as many as 30,000 Israelis (returning olim and some entrepreneurs) - the outlook for Moscow as a thriving Jewish center is dim.
The Jewish population is disproportionately elderly and is growing yet older. Few active Jews have any connection to Judaism or to Jewish community life. Jewish cultural attachments are weak and little is being done to develop such ties in a manner attractive to the generally well-educated Moscow Jewish population. Perhaps 80 to 90 percent of the Jewish population is intermarried. Few resident Israelis appear to interact frequently with indigenous Jews in community endeavors; in general, the Israelis are viewed as transient and little contribution to local Jewish life is anticipated from them.
If contemporary Moscow Jews take pride in their general intellectual accomplishments and their extraordinarily large presence in Moscow cultural life, even that point of Jewish identity is likely to fade in coming decades as younger Jews (and younger Russians in general) abandon classical arts and sciences in favor of more lucrative positions in business. Finally, although aliyah from Moscow has declined in recent years, the generally sophisticated Moscow Jewish population is acutely sensitive to trends of growing authoritarianism and antisemitism in Russian life and is likely to respond by considering emigration.
36. The impact of Russian authoritarianism - manifest in general Russian society in government control of the media, tolerance of large-scale mismanagement and corruption, politically motivated arrests of businessmen, abandonment of popular elections of regional governors, resurgence of security forces in nominally civilian government, and political interference in former Soviet republics - is visible in the Jewish community and bodes ill for its well-being. Kremlin partiality toward one particular stream of Judaism effectively grants that stream extraordinary privilege and limits the capacity of other streams and institutions to operate under equal conditions. Further, it injects an element of intimidation into Jewish life, creating pressure for donors of funds or privilege and for ordinary Jews seeking a Jewish association.
37. That the FEOR Chabad stream of Judaism is the most powerful political expression of Jewish life in the post-Soviet states does not mean that it is an effective instrument of Judaism or Jewish life. Indeed, it provides little appeal for well-educated Jews, the majority of whom are inclined toward rationalism and are impatient with designated leaders whose own worldly education is severely limited. Contemporary Russian Jews are more likely to respond to a Jewish perspective that defines Judaism as a civilization and addresses its history, wisdom, and culture in a sophisticated manner utilizing the full richness of the Russian language. Few Chabad rabbis or teachers have proved able to provide this perspective, and others who are better equipped, through education and outlook, to do so are strangely absent.
38. However strongly observers, both Jewish and non-Jewish, bemoan the privileged position of the FEOR stream of Chabad Judaism in Russian Jewish life, other streams of Judaism and other Jewish organizations have been hesitant to create Jewish-content programs of consequence in Russia (or in other post-Soviet states). The Progressive (Reform) movement has established centers in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kyiv, and Minsk, but these are seriously underfunded and not always well managed. The Masorti (Conservative) movement has almost no presence at all in Russia and only a skeletal program in Ukraine. Modern Orthodoxy in Israel and the West has failed to support those groups and individuals at work in the post-Soviet states who might advance a modern Orthodox agenda compatible with advanced secular education. Both the Jewish Agency for Israel and the Joint Distribution Committee are constrained in religious programming by the civic character of their organizations, a concomitant need to avoid the type of political entanglements that Chabad seems eager to embrace, and a lack of resources to support the types of Jewish programs that both accommodate their mandates and appeal to post-Soviet Jews.
39. The discomfort of many post-Soviet Jews with Chabad and other streams of “ultra-Orthodox” Judaism is reflected in the inability of most post-Soviet religious Jewish day schools to attract large numbers of pupils from middle class Jewish families. Perhaps two factors are critical to the failure of these schools to attract community support: (a) a lack of high-quality general studies programs, although some rabbis understand the need for such curricula, and (b) a religious education orientation that many families find irrelevant. The Jewish Agency for Israel, which holds the education portfolio in the post-Soviet states on behalf of the United Israel Appeal, Keren Hayesod, and World Zionist Organization countries and institutions, needs to find new approaches to assisting the more sophisticated Jewish day schools in strengthening their appeal to middle-class families. The involvement of independent foundations, such as Avi Chai, and support organizations for major Jewish streams also is essential.
40. Programs in informal Jewish education require expansion if post-Soviet Jews are to find a Jewish expression consistent with their education and outlook. Again, quality and sophistication are essential attributes of any programs intended to attract the generally well-educated urban Jewish population. Experience has shown that high-quality summer camps for children and adolescents, family camps and seminars, youth groups, student programs, and adult interest groups appeal to many Jews whose families have little other contact with Judaism or Jewish culture.
Although the current JDC Nikitskaya Jewish cultural center is a respected institution, the large Moscow Jewish population remains in need of a major full-service Jewish community center that includes ample music and other cultural space, sports facilities, and all of the other program areas common to the best North American Jewish community centers. Given the extraordinary cost of real estate and program operations in Moscow, the major western Jewish funding organizations, especially the Jewish Agency for Israel and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, should work collaboratively in planning, raising funds, and developing programs for such a facility in cooperation with representative Russian Jewish individuals and organizations.
41. Seven decades of Soviet rule continue to affect post-Soviet management skills, generating local leadership ill-equipped to administer modern Jewish institutions. Although some western organizations speak hopefully of ‘indigenizing’ the management of major Russian Jewish organizations, the more complex such institutions will require significant foreign assistance for the foreseeable future.
Both the Jewish Agency for Israel and the Joint Distribution Committee have relied on Russian-speaking Israelis to manage many of their programs in Russia and the other successor states. Some observers contend that the quality of such professionals has declined in recent years, reflecting several factors, including the diminished appeal of work in increasingly authoritarian Russia, frustrations stemming from responsibility for programs eroded by declining budgets, and strictly limited terms of employment abroad for Israelis employed by JAFI.
42. Russian antisemitism appeared to erupt in new intensity in early 2005 (after the writer departed from Russia). Unlike the Soviet period in which antisemitism was orchestrated by the government, the current strain appears to emanate from the street and from both right-wing and left-wing political forces long associated with Russian nationalism.
43. Some with whom the writer spoke believe that antisemitism and the authoritarian atmosphere in Russia will sorely test indigenous Russian Jewish leadership, especially the new leadership of the Russian Jewish Congress. This organization and others may be inhibited from effective advocacy, promotion of Jewish pluralism and civil Judaism, or independent association with Israel; instead, these observers suggest, the Congress may become a secular version of the Chabad Federation of Jewish Communities, i.e., a tool of the Russian government.
A veteran member of the Moscow Jewish intelligentsia told the writer of a recent conversation with one of the more liberal non-Jewish senior associates of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The associate, an educated individual sympathetic to Jews and other ethnic minorities, indicated his agreement with the narrator’s sense of discomfort with current organized Moscow Jewish life; he then commented that the last “serious” Jewish organization in Russia was that headed by Solomon Mikhoels, the noted Yiddish actor. A long silence followed. (Mikhoels was the chairman of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, a group of distinguished Soviet Jews enlisted by the Soviet Union to rally support abroad for the USSR war effort against Nazi Germany. When Mikhoels attempted to advocate for Soviet Jews after World War II, he was murdered in an automobile accident staged by Soviet authorities. His assassination in 1948 launched a five-year process of liquidation of prominent Soviet Jews and Jewish institutions that ended only with Stalin’s death in 1953.) Whereas neither the Putin associate nor the writer’s acquaintance anticipated a reprise of Stalinist violence against Jews, neither was hopeful that Russia would provide hospitable territory for effective independent Jewish life in the near future.
Unless otherwise attributed, all translations and photographs in this report are by the author.
Betsy Gidwitz
Chicago, Illinois
February 15, 2005
Dr. Betsy Gidwitz is a member of the board of overseers, an independent consultant in Chicago, was formerly a Soviet-area specialist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She travels extensively in the Soviet Union successor states and the JCPA has published a number of her insightful reports on events there.
* * *
Notes
1. The writer’s most recent previous visit to Moscow was in 1999. For a report of the 1999 experience, as well as reports of other visits to the post-Soviet states, see the website www.betsygidwitzreports.com.
2. The writer is chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel Subcommittee on Education in the FSU.
3. It is estimated by some that as much as 80 percent of Russian economic activity is centered in the Russian capital.
4. The writer arrived in Moscow on the day following the first 2004 Ukrainian presidential election. Russia was perceived by many as improperly intervening in the Ukrainian election campaign, actively supporting Viktor Yanukovych. Mr. Yanukovych was declared the winner of a fraudulent contest, which was later invalidated by the Supreme Court of Ukraine. Subsequently, Mr. Yanukovych was forced to submit to a re-run, which he lost to Viktor Yushchenko.
5. The leading nationalist political parties are the Motherland (Rodina) party and the misnamed Liberal Democratic Party of Russia; the latter is headed by Vladimir Zhirinovsky, whose father was Jewish. Activists in the United Russia and Communist parties also are associated with frequent antisemitic declarations.
On December 20, 2004, Chabad Chief Rabbi of Russia Berel Lazar issued a statement urging authorities to establish a program protecting religious cemeteries. Rabbi Lazar stated that cemetery desecrations have become a “nationwide issue.” Considered a close ally of the Kremlin, Rabbi Lazar often denied the existence of antisemitism in Russia in the past.
6. The question was asked of nine individuals, including diplomats, officials of the Jewish Agency for Israel and the Joint Distribution Committee, rabbis, and local academics. The term “core Jew” refers to those individuals who self-identify as Jews.
7. Sergio DellaPergola, “World Jewish Population, 2003,” American Jewish Year Book, Volume 103, (New York: American Jewish Committee, 2004), p. 611.
8. DellaPergola, pp. 603-694. The term “extended Jew” refers in this case to non-halakhic Jews and non-Jewish family members eligible to immigrate to Israel under the Israeli Law of Return. The only other large Jewish population center in Russia is in St Petersburg, where approximately 100,000 Jews reside. It is unlikely that more than 20,000 Jews live in any other Russian city.
9. Izvestia, October 21, 2003. Others assert that the death-to-birth ratio is 11:1.
The general Russian population also is in steep decline, although the proportion of decline is much less severe than that of the Russian Jewish population. (The death-to-birth ratio is 1.5:1.) On January 1, 1992, i.e., one week after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the population of Russia was estimated at 148.7 million. In October 2004, the Russian population was estimated at 144 million people. According to Russian Health and Social Development Minister Mikhail Zurabov, the decline would have been even greater had not six million people migrated into Russia from other republics after the collapse of the USSR (RIA Novosti, October 18, 2004). Mr. Zurabov stated that the main reasons for the Russian demographic crisis are a low birth rate and a high death rate of able-bodied people (due to declining health care, widespread infectious disease, high rates of alcohol and drug abuse, and health consequences of environmental degradation). The average life expectancy in 2004 in Russia is 58.8 years for men and 72 years for women. Although no supporting statistics are available, many individuals with substantial experience in the Russian Jewish population believe that Russian Jews are in somewhat better health than their non-Jewish counterparts.
10. The writer recalls hearing such reports about changing career patterns as early as 1996. Most youth in Russia graduate from secondary school at age 17.
11. Originally known as Lishkat Hakesher (Liaison Bureau) or Lishka, this entity was created in 1952 to coordinate and manage Israel government operations in the then-Soviet Union. It is attached to the Office of the Prime Minister, bypassing the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Its budget has decreased substantially in recent years. Some in Israel and other countries believe that it should be dissolved following the demise of the Soviet Union itself.
12. The government of Israel established secular Jewish/Zionist day schools in Jewish population centers in the post-Soviet states during the early 1990’s, intending that such institutions build Jewish identity and encourage aliyah of children and their families to Israel. After an initial period of confrontation with day schools opened by the growing number of Orthodox (principally hasidic) rabbis in many of the same cities, the Israeli government Tsofia system embraced many of the rabbinic-sponsored schools as well. The program was operated jointly by Nativ and the Israeli Ministry of Education. By the late 1990’s, it provided assistance to 44 Jewish day schools and 180 Jewish Sunday schools, enrolling approximately 11,000 and 10,000 pupils respectively. The major form of assistance was compensation for more than 90 Israeli Hebrew-language and Jewish studies teachers and provision of some teaching materials for the day schools. Some aid also was provided to Sunday schools, whose teachers are local residents. Budgetary pressures limited expansion of the program, rendering it unable to extend assistance to newer day schools after the mid-1990’s; by 2003, 56 new Jewish day schools had opened their doors in the post-Soviet states that is, a larger number than the established schools receiving Israeli assistance. In 2003, the Ministry of Education announced that it was unable to continue full funding for its existing post-Soviet program, now called Hephzibah, and asked the Jewish Agency Department of Jewish Zionist Education to join in its management and support. The Jewish Agency agreed, eager to expand its existing post-Soviet education portfolio, which had then included informal education and some work with preschools and post-secondary institutions. The Jewish Agency has absorbed management responsibilities, including selection and training of teachers and other educators, curriculum development, development of educational materials, programs and operations, and other tasks.
13. The writer last visited the Chama educational center in 1999. See her report available at www.betsygidwitzreports.com.
14. Financial aid from Nativ was contingent upon use of the Israeli textbooks, which have been criticized since their compulsory introduction into the schools in the mid-1990’s. JAFI lacks the funds to purchase or produce more appropriate texts; however, some schools have managed to acquire new Hebrew textbooks on their own.
15. In response to a question from JAFI staff accompanying the writer, Mr. Kuravsky said that he would like to participate in a special course for post-Soviet Jewish day school principals to be held at Hebrew University in Jerusalem if such a seminar is held during the summer. Neither he nor the JAFI staff mentioned that Ohr Avner, the education organization of the Levayev Chabad movement has prevented teachers and other staff from Ohr Avner schools from participating in some professional programs that Chabad itself does not control.
16. Several observers consider School #1871 to be the weakest of the five JAFI-aided schools in Moscow, “marginal” in both Jewish and general studies. The director of a Moscow program supporting the improvement of Hebrew-language skills told the writer that an attempt by his organization to help School #1871 upgrade its Hebrew instruction was rebuffed; a highly-qualified teacher sent to the school was ignored for several months and subsequently left the school in disgust. Staff at the school stated to the teacher that improving the quality of Hebrew instruction was not among their goals.
17. The Judaic studies program was much more intensive in 1999, encompassing 15 class hours (five periods of Hebrew and ten of Chumash, tradition, and Jewish history). Time constraints prevented the writer from asking about the reduction in time devoted to Jewish studies.
18. Although Mrs. Weis offered no explanation for the failure of graduates in the Israel-oriented program to go to Israel upon graduation from the Moscow school, it is likely that some girls may have encountered parental objection to their departure. Further, both parents must approve international travel of people under 18 years of age; because high school graduation in Russia normally occurs at age 17, an entire year may elapse before young people with absentee parents are able to leave the country,
19. ORT generally enrolls a minority of non-Jewish children in its post-Soviet day schools, a policy designed to advance the community relations agenda of the organization.
20. The others are in St. Petersburg, Kazan, Samara, Kyiv, and Odesa.
21. An unforeseen schedule conflict and heavy traffic prevented the author from meeting with two key individuals among the six in the field with whom she had hoped to confer.
22. A number of universities across Russia have contacted Sefer, an umbrella organization for Jewish studies (see below), requesting assistance in establishing Jewish studies in their programs. Such assistance, it is made clear by the petitioners, includes financial support for salaries, curriculum development, and other expenditures. Sefer is unable to provide the funding that is requested.
23. Some individuals in the field claim that approximately 50 percent of all students majoring in Jewish studies are non-Jewish. A significant attraction of the field to some Jewish donors is that immersion in secular Jewish studies builds Jewish identity among (presumably Jewish) young adults who may be uncomfortable in Jewish religious settings.
24. Alexander Militarev, President of the Shimon Dubnov Advanced School for the Humanities (see below), and others in academic Jewish studies would like to develop an independent academic research center of Jewish studies that would compensate local scholars for both degree and non-degree oriented research in ancient Israel and Bible studies, Hebrew and semitic studies, rabbinic literature and related fields, medieval and modern Jewish history, east European Jewry, Russian and Soviet Jewry, Jewish education, and other specialized subjects. Such a center would require significant annual funding for stipends, supervisory staff salaries, publications, and other expenses.
25. A positive consequence of multiple academics teaching in the same multiple institutions is that relations between the various institutions are generally constructive, much more so than might be the case if each stood alone with little inter-institutional communication.
26. CJSJC is housed in MGU’s Institute of Asian and African Studies.
27. The Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS) is the leading academic, theological, and spiritual center of Conservative Judaism outside Israel, and YIVO Institute for Jewish Research focuses on the Yiddish language and east European Jewish history.
28. Shimon Dubnov, also referred to as Simon Dubnow, was born in 1860 in Mstislavl, Belarus. A historian and political activist, Dubnov believed that Jews should be at home in the entire world, including the diaspora. He wrote a number of highly readable, yet scholarly histories of the Jewish people, including the three-volume History of the Jews in Russia and Poland (1914 in Russian and later translated into several other languages) and ten-volume The World History of the Jewish People (1925 in German and later also translated into different languages). In a commentary on the weekly Torah portion, Chancellor Ismar Schorsch of the Jewish Theological Seminary (New York) wrote that Dubnov’s works on east European and Russian Jewry “transformed many East European Jews into amateur historians.” Rabbi Schorsch described Dubnov’s death as follows: “He died at the hands of the Nazis in Riga in December 1941 at the age of 81. Because he was too frail and infirm to deport, they shot him in the ghetto. Those who witnessed the murder reported that Dubnov's last words were, "Jews, write it down." And they did, in Kovno, Warsaw, Lodz and elsewhere.“ See Chancellor Ismar Schorsch, Parshat Hashavua, Mattot/Masay 5759, Numbers 30:2-36:13, Jewish Theological Seminary (July 8, 1999).
29. Other languages taught in the philology department are English, Russian, and Yiddish, although degrees are conferred only in the Russian and Hebrew languages.
30. SEFER is the Hebrew word for book. The full title in Russian of SEFER is Центр научных работников и преподавателей иудаики в ВУЗах "Сэфэр", which translates most accurately as Center for Scientific Workers and Instructors of Judaica in Institutions of Higher Education [associated with] Sefer. Sefer was established in 1994 by the International Center for the University Teaching of Jewish Civilization (Jerusalem), with the support of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. A scheduling problem prevented the writer from meeting with Sefer officials during this visit to Moscow. See her 1998 and 1999 for records of her past meetings with Sefer.
31. A conventional kollel is an institution for married men who are advanced Talmud students. Participants receive a modest monthly stipend permitting them to support their families while studying. The Moscow institution does not provide a high level of education; it is, however, very positive about Israel, in marked contrast to Moscow Federation of Jewish Communities Chabad programs, which are distinctly non-Zionist in sympathy.
32. The majority of young people in the post-Soviet states enter post-secondary school education programs at the age of 17, i.e., one year earlier than is the case in the United States and many other countries. (The Soviet/post-Soviet model is changing in several post-Soviet states to systems that will lead to high school graduation at age 18, but the first 18-year old graduates are likely to appear only in about 2010.) Many Russian and Ukrainian post-secondary degree programs require five years for completion, thus leading to BA-equivalent degrees at age 22. International Jewish student organizations in the post-Soviet states often retain members beyond graduation because graduates are comfortable in these programs and few alternatives for Jewish involvement are available for individuals in this age group.
33. Arevim, the Chabad group, requires that its members be Jewish according to halakha. The other groups are more liberal in selecting those eligible for participation.
34. The current annual Hillel budget for the post Soviet states is $1.66 million. Principal funders are the Joint Distribution Committee, the Schusterman Foundation (Tulsa), and international Hillel.
35. The writer found no consensus among individuals in education-related positions on the existence of antisemitic admission policies in Moscow universities and other post-secondary institutions of higher education. Whereas all agreed that state-imposed quotas on the admission of Jews during the Soviet period have been terminated, some insisted that several institutions impose their own quotas and others said that none did. A few responded that although formal quotas might not exist, Jewish students were not welcome in certain institutions (or in specific faculties of some institutions) and that many Moscow Jews are able to identify these institutions and encourage their own children to apply elsewhere.
36. The security guards are attired in dark business suits, in contrast to security personnel in many other Moscow buildings who wear police- or military-style uniforms.
37. The book is entitled What? Where? When? (Что? Где? Когда?), a series of questions evoking a popular Russian intellectual competition.
38. It is likely that most North American Jewish Community Centers offer many more sports activities and more programs targeting adolescents.
39. Usage figures should be considered with some care. It is likely that many of the visitors are counted more than once. Individuals who use the facility’s kosher restaurants report that the building is almost empty during the week, notwithstanding scheduled activities (according to the program book) during or close to meal times when the restaurant clients are present.
40. The program for December 2004 uses Jewish cultural center (Еврейский культурный центр) as its Russian-language title and the English Jewish community center as an English-language title.
41. An individual whose child regularly participates in one of the studio groups at Nikitskaya told the writer that a strong majority of the other youngsters in his child’s group are not Jewish. The writer does not know what proportion of the Center’s visitors is Jewish.
42. Teaching staff at the ulpan said that the average weekly attendance is 175.
43. The Jewish Agency would like to develop “Beit Agnon” Jewish cultural centers in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Kyiv.
44. Information about all of these groups can be found elsewhere in this report.
Two political assumptions are implicit in the development of a JCC on Arkhipova street: (1) many Moscow Jews shun the Chabad JCC in Marina Roscha because of discomfort about Chabad, and (2) the proposed partners in a Arkhipova JCC will shed institutional rivalries and work together in a collaborative manner.
45. The writer asked seven teachers, all of them local residents, at the Jewish Agency Vadkhovsky ulpan where they learned Hebrew. Several responded that their first lessons were in underground classes in the 1980’s when Hebrew instruction was severely restricted by Soviet authorities. “We are people of the basement (подвал),” commented one individual. One had studied Hebrew at Moscow State University Center of Jewish Studies and Jewish Civilization, several learned the language in JAFI ulpans in the 1990’s, and several had studied in private groups. All subsequently attended JAFI seminars for Hebrew teachers.
46. The Golden Ring (Золотое кольцо) is an area northeast of Moscow including a number of ancient Russian cities and towns rich in history and Russian architecture of the 12th to 17th centuries. The towns are situated in a circle, hence the word “ring” used to define them generically. The specific cities and towns include Vladimir, Suzdal, Ivanovo, Kostroma, Yaroslavl, Rostov Veliky, Pereslavl-Zalessky, and Sergiev Posad.
47. Mr. Chernin, a native of the Soviet Union, is an observant Jew in the tradition of modern Orthodoxy.
48. JDC also works in other areas, particularly community-building. See the section on the Nikitsky Jewish community/cultural center.
49. An Israeli program in Kiryat Malachi, which focuses on Russian immigrants, includes a community center, medical and social services, a synagogue and holiday celebrations, and Russian-language Judaica publications. Chamah also has a base in Brighton Beach, New York, that offers Jewish education and other services to that area’s large Russian-speaking immigrant population.
50. Rambam is the acronym formed from the first letters in the words of the name Rabbi Moses Ben Maimon (1135-1204), the great rabbinic authority, philosopher, and royal physician.
51. The total number seems high and may include individual clients who are counted separately for each of several services.
52. The Big Family Center previously was known as the Passin-Waxman Center.
53. Объединение религиозных организаций современного иудаизма в России (Union of Religious Organizations of Contemporary Judaism in Russia). The comparable movement in the United States is Reform Judaism.
54. Rabbi Nelly Shulman is the other Moscow-based Progressive rabbi. Previously posted in Belarus, Rabbi Shulman was working with the Progressive community in Omsk in a leadership seminar, funded in part by the Louis A. Pincus Fund of JAFI, during the writer’s visit to Moscow.
55. Additionally, one Progressive rabbi is in Minsk, Belarus, and another is in Kyiv, Ukraine.
56. Rabbi Kotlyar’s office is small and was so crowded with books and cartons of supplies that it was difficult for him to reach his desk. The writer was seated across from him, her notebook resting on a carton of used Judaica items, e.g., menorahs, shipped to Orosir from a supporter in California. In response to a question, Rabbi Kotlyar said that the Russian customs service allowed such items to be imported without any problems, perhaps because they were second-hand; he continued that the items would be distributed to various Progressive groups in Russia that need them.
JDC offers the meeting space to Orosir without charging rent.
57. Rabbi Kotlyar believes that both Rabbi Ismar Schorsch, Chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary (Conservative) in New York, and
Rabbi David Ellenson, President of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (Reform), would be amenable to such a collaborative effort.
58. Publication of the journal is subsidized by the Joint Distribution Committee. A Jewish calendar “war” is waged every year in the post-Soviet states, with different religious and communal organizations publishing large, lavish wall calendars with elaborate photos of Russian Jewish artifacts, current and/or former synagogue structures, or similar items. The Orosir 2004-2005 Jewish wall calendar, by contrast, is more modest in size and features high-quality color photos of Israeli scenes. The photographer is a Russian Jewish immigrant to Israel.
59. The extensive Chabad summer camp system usually makes no attempt to enroll Jewish children/youth older than age 13 or 14.
60. KEROOR is the acronym of Конгресс еврейских религиозных организаций и объединений в России. The head office of Keroor is located in Rabbi Goldschmidt’s Choral Synagogue.
61. Rabbi Kotlyar’s reference to Russian-language accessibility may have been an allusion to the inability of some Orthodox rabbis from Israel and the United States to speak comprehensible and sophisticated Russian.
62. The Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem includes a graduate school of Jewish studies and a teacher education program, a rabbinical seminary, a Jewish education program for Israeli public schools, and Midreshet Yerushalayim. Midreshet Yerushalayim is an outreach program to Russian-speaking Jews in Ukraine and Israel.
63. The Institute for Jewish Studies is a seminar program associated with Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz.
64. The Israeli Cultural Center is operated by Nativ, a program of the office of the Prime Minister of the State of Israel.
65. Mr. Kolganov has prepared a modified proposal excluding the family camp session and several other components, that would cost $13,600. Another proposal focuses on a Jewish self-defense club for Jewish young people between the ages of 16 and 35; the primary form of self-defense to be pursued in the club is krav-maga, an Israeli method.
66. The other prominent Chabad group in Moscow is Chamah. Chamah is but a fraction of the size of Levayev-Rohr Chabad and is active principally as a religious, educational, and welfare organization, spurning the political agenda of Levayev-Rohr Chabad.
The Chabad presence in Ukraine is even greater, relative to the size of the Ukrainian Jewish population. Chabad also enjoys a significant presence in Belarus and posts rabbis in the Baltic States, the Caucasus, and Central Asia.
67. Rabbi Shayevich is a native of Russia and allied with Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt. Rabbi Lazar was born in Italy, arrived in Russia as a young Chabad rabbi, and remains uncomfortable in the Russian language.
68. The writer’s discussion with Rabbi Lazar occurred on November 29, shortly after the Ukrainian presidential election in which the Russian-government backed candidate, Viktor Yanukovych, appeared to have defeated Viktor Yushchenko. However, widespread allegations of electoral fraud led to invalidation of the November results and a subsequent re-run of the election in December (which was won by Mr. Yushchenko). The Kremlin also has lost influence in Georgia, and cites United States influence as a major reason for its setbacks in both countries. Rabbi Lazar was echoing Russian government views in his statements to the writer.
69. Rabbi Lazar made no suggestions regarding the substance of a “new approach.”
70. Most estimates are substantially lower, well below 10 percent of the assumed total of 250,000.
71. Rabbi Kogan is active in Progressive Judaism and often refers to himself as a rabbi in the Progressive movement; however, his status as a rabbi refers to the fact that he was appointed to the “position of Rabbi of the Congress of Religious Jewish Communities in Russia (Keroor)” by Chief Rabbi of Russia, Adolph Shayevich, in 1993. Rabbi Kogan has not received smicha (ordination) from any Progressive institution authorized to ordain rabbis and is not known to have been ordained by any other rabbinic organization. He leads a small Progressive congregation that meets in a synagogue center built by the Russian Jewish Congress as part of a World War II and Holocaust memorial structure at Poklonnaya gora, the point on the outskirts of Moscow at which German troops were halted in their advance to the capital in 1941-1942.
72. Megila, or Book of Esther, read at Purim.
73. Some English-speakers refer to the organization by its English initials, FJC, or simply as “the Federation.”
74. The writer usually identifies FEOR as Chabad-sponsored, a practice that some Chabad officials find irritating, as they have informed the writer.
75. Mr. Rohr is a general partner in New Century Holdings, said to be the largest foreign investor in the post-Soviet states.
76. The Federation Council accommodates a number of wealthy businessmen. Membership is not an elected position.
77. Mr. Slutsker had joined the REK Board only in October, then making the $250,000 contribution required for Board membership.
The decision of the REK Board to replace Yevgeny Satanovsky, the previous president, is said to reflect discomfort with Mr. Satanovsky’s leadership style, his focus on funding academic Judaica programs and concomitant neglect of other areas (including community-based and religious programs), and his unauthorized initiatives in interacting with both Moscow-based and international personalities and organizations.
78. Mr. Resin also is a good friend of Mr. Slutsker’s father.
79. In January 2005, Mr. Slutsker said that he had identified three major “problems” with which REK must deal: improvement of relations between REK and the Russian government, broadening of the REK donor base, and development of a REK religious connection. See The Jewish Chronicle (London), #7084 (January 28, 2005), p. 16.
80. Dr. Satanovsky cheerfully amended his REK business card, writing “ex-” before the title of President, without being reminded of his changed status.
81. Mr. Chernin directs Jewish identity programs for JAFI in Russia. Dr. Khanin is associated with Bar-Ilan University and is a consultant to the JAFI Department of Jewish Zionist Education. Rabbi Dovid Karpov is a follower of Chabad who founded Chamah. Vlad (Zev) Dashevsky is associated with Machanaim, a Russian-language Jewish education organization based in Jerusalem. Mr. Chernin, Dr. Khanin, and Mr. Dashevsky are all regarded as modern Orthodox, Rabbi Karpov as non-FEOR Chabad.
82. These goals also are articulated in WCRSJ literature. Matvei Chlenov is the son of Mikhail Chlenov, a well-known Moscow Jewish activist.
83. Both Dr. Engel and Mr. Chlenov became very uneasy when the writer attempted to discuss these issues with them. Neither denied the charges in an explicit manner.
84. Yehven Chervonenko, a vice-president of EAJC and a wealthy Kyiv businessman with interests in the transport and food industries, has been named Minister of Transport in the new Yushchenko government in Ukraine.
85. Ms. Mikhaileva is the former director of Hillel in Moscow.
86. Government funding for national autonomies cannot be used for religious purposes, a condition that would seem to limit Chabad insistence on the application of halakha (Jewish religious law) in its activities.
87. Mr. Maftzir was a well-known refusenik during the Soviet period, repeatedly denied permission to leave the USSR and resettle in Israel.
88. The two young women, both of whom were recent high school graduates, were not native Russian-speakers. They were being tutored in the Russian language by JAFI.
89. The JDC Nikitskaya JCC is described on pp. 26-27, Hillel on pp. 21-23. Hillel programs are operated by Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life, but some funding is channeled through JDC, and JDC provides some supervision in certain areas.
90. JDC has recruited nominal local boards of directors for many of its heseds and other programs, but these are regarded even by board members as pro forma structures subject to instruction from JDC on major management issues. Some would question whether JDC should even attempt to develop independent local boards when foreign sources continue to provide large proportions of funding for its post-Soviet institutions.
The opinions expressed herein do not necessarily reflect
those of the Board of Fellows of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.
|
