By Jessica Davis, JTNews Correspondent
As part of an annual program to promote tolerance in Central and Eastern Europe, the Seattle chapter of the American Jewish Committee (AJC) hosted a weekend visit by three delegates from the former Soviet Union, Romania and Hungary, last month.
About 12 to 15 delegates with a range of professional backgrounds, from Eastern and Central Europe and the former Soviet Union, participate in the program every year and split up into different groups to visit five U.S. cities in 11 days. This year the delegates stopped in Seattle before going to San Diego and ending the tour in Los Angeles on Dec. 14.
The program started nine years ago between the AJC and representatives from Central and Eastern Europe, to introduce participants to an American approach to solving problems and tolerance building. To date, there are more than 100 alumni of the program. The hope is that the delegates will get a sense of the American experience, both positive and negative, that can be useful back home, said Eric Fusfield, assistant director of European Affairs for the AJC. “We don’t have all the solutions, but we don’t have all the problems,” he said.
“Most Americans realize we need to struggle with these issues; we can’t pretend they don’t exist,” said Richard Harkavy, executive director of the AJC in Seattle.
Anca Mireanu, a delegate from Romania, said she was surprised to find positive expressions of patriotism among Americans after the Sept. 11 attack. “You have a great, optimistic way to think,” she said.
The group of delegates started out in Washington, D.C., continuing on to New York and then into Seattle. In New York, the group took a three-hour walking tour of Manhattan, to see how people of different races lived and reacted around each other.
New York is a melting pot in schools and social institutes, said Jeno Racskay, the delegate from Hungary. Racskay is a former parliamentary adviser of foreign affairs in Hungary and a current member of the Hungary Liberal party-a small party that fights anti-Semitism in Hungary. He said he would like to see different cultures and ethnic identities preserved in Hungary, as they have been in New York. With 100,000-plus Jews in Europe, Hungary is one of the largest countries on the continent to advocate for Jewish rights, said Fusfield.
Several Eastern European countries find it difficult to have an open mind and to accept people of other cultural backgrounds, said Racskay. Hungary has border immigration issues similar to that of the U.S. and Mexico. Immigration issues are very vital now in Europe.
While in Seattle, the delegates attended a forum given by Congresswoman Maxine Waters on issues of race and diversity. Seattle gave the three delegates a chance to interact with people in a less formal way as well. With 33 AJC chapter offices around the United States, it had been at least four or five years since the program last participated in Seattle.
The group of delegates had a chance to experience Shabbat at Herzl-Ner Tamid in Seattle to see how the Jewish community preserves its culture, how its members worship and how they fight for their beliefs, said Fusfield. The program encourages democratic forces, respect for Jewish cultures in the participating countries and a more tolerant and pluralistic society.
Mireanu experienced Shabbat for the first time in Seattle. “I don’t know anything about Jewish tradition,” she said.
She said she was grateful for the opportunity to experience another culture and religion that she hadn’t been a part of before. The more someone knows, the more tolerant they can be, she said. The most important thing she said that she learned on her trip to the United States was tolerance, to always respect other minorities and solve problems in a civilized way.
Grigory Shvedov, a delegate from the former Soviet Union, said the United States appeared to have a great range of diversity. In Russia, discussions of tolerance, hate and other race issues are not getting as much attention as they should, he said. About a year ago in Russia, the dialog with residents of different countries and former members of the Soviet bloc’s connections were not as good as they could have been because of Soviet pressure, said Shvedov.
Shvedov is a member of a human rights organization in the former Soviet Union that offers humanitarian help to 69 branches in Russia and 49 in the former Czech Republic. The group focuses on finding solutions problems such as the growing discrimination against Jewish societies in Russia, where synagogues are destroyed and there have been mass murders of Jewish communities and the Jewish religion. Shvedov said he planned to share the knowledge he gained of the U.S. in a published bulletin.
In Los Angeles on Dec. 14, the delegates reported their experiences and met with colleagues from other countries.