By Emily K. Alhadeff, Assistant Editor, JTNews
This is the final story in the series following Emily K. Alhadeff’s joint Hillel at the University of Washington/American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee mission to the former Soviet Union in July.
KHABAROVSK, RUSSIA — It’s a sultry late July day, and a group of young professionals, fresh off the plane from America, tries to stay awake through presentations about Jewish community revival in this the far eastern Russian city.
The slideshow progresses from one party scene to another. I am reminded of the last time I was immersed in a Jewish community of the former Soviet Union. It was Kharkov, Ukraine in 2003, and after Shabbat dinner on our first day our young hosts turned down the lights, lit up a disco ball, and presented their American guests with a fashion show set to Ricky Martin music. Entertaining, yes. But where was the Jewish content?
When the slideshow ended, members of this summer’s American group — consisting of Seattle and East Coast young adults on an American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) service trip — wondered the same thing.
Most of the elderly Jews of Khabarovsk served by the JDC moved from the western end of the Soviet Union during or after World War II. The young Jews active in the Khabarovsk Hillel generally had vague knowledge of their Jewish roots and were brought into the fold by Khabarovsk’s community leader, Vadim Katsman.
From JDC Siberia’s perspective, Jewish identity is determined by claims to Jewish lineage according to the Nuremberg laws. Hesed food aid recipients are not allowed to buy pork. Beyond that, no provable Jewish life is required. Siberian Jewish leaders only want to provide assistance and an entry point for Jews to reconnect with their heritage.
Without the Jewish identity anchors American Jews are used to, certain situations met the group with challenge. For example, some recipients of JDC’s Hesed services wore crosses around their necks. Hardly a handful of locals showed up for Shabbat services. The youth at the heart of Khabarovsk’s Jewish revival seemed to center their Jewish identities around partying.
Boston resident Jason Pressberg was troubled by a sense that the Jews the JDC helps don’t identify with Judaism.
“I very much wanted that to be there,” he said of Jewish practice after visiting the homes of aid recipients.
Pressberg, 27, is a program associate at the Northeastern University Hillel who describes his job as being dedicated to help Jews find meaningful connections with any aspect of Jewish life.
“It didn’t so much matter to me if that connection was cultural or religious, as long as it was meaningful,” he said of Khabarovsk’s Jewish population, young and old. “I felt they were post-Jewish.”
To Pressberg, the effects of the Soviet Union on Jewish culture still resound. Now the Jews identify as Russian, but not as Jewish.
“I think that those that want to be connected will move and that community will die out,” he said.
These conversations about what constitutes a Jewish identity — particularly among a community far removed from the American Jewish paradigm — left many participants frustrated, yet also introspective.
“When you aren’t making your basic needs,” said Joanne Rossignol, 28, of Seattle, “thinking about things like building community and being involved in the community and being active in a religious organization — it’s not on people’s priority list.”
As for the crosses, the JDC Siberia staff explained that they are worn decoratively and are devoid of religious significance.
In spite of this dreary preface, Marina Kopytkovskiy, 24, a Seattle-based participant who spent her childhood in Belarus, came away with an uplifting report.
“This was an example of a small community trying to genuinely awaken a Jewish subconscious in its community and doing so successfully,” she wrote in an email interview. “The fact that it is predicated upon the work of youth is even more striking.
“Although ostensibly,” she continued, “it may seem that the Hillel leaders are simply interested in organizing gatherings, their dedication is deeper and conviction stronger than what we saw.”
No one exemplifies dedication and conviction more than Kiril Sahmanov. Sahmanov, 18, the son of a Jewish mother and a Muslim father, became involved with the Jewish community at age 14. Once Vadim Katsman encouraged Sahmanov to participate in the community, Sahmanov ran with it, participating in the Siberian Bar/Bat Mitzvah program and wearing a kippah. He is the face of Hillel Khabarovsk.
Sahmanov’s thoughtfulness about his Judaism surpasses most boys of 18.
“He really admires the Jewish concept of the self and why we are here,” Kopytkovskiy said during the trip, paraphrasing Sahmanov as he spoke. “Jewish culture and beliefs should carry forth…he wants to perpetuate these ideas, because they’re Jewish but they’re also universal.”
The young Hillel participants “are far more traditionally Jewish than our group may have realized,” Kopytkovskiy explained in her email. “Yet they do not draw in the community on that premise. In trying to revive a Jewish life, they are starting culturally.”
That tactic isn’t far from engagement methods used by many American Jewish organizations. Like young Americans stepping back from the assimilation pattern and negotiating a Jewish lifestyle, the Russian youth connect to the same feelings of familial bonds between Jews.
“I feel something special, like we are relatives,” said Lyudmila Milrud, 19. While she finds it hard to keep up with Jewish observance while living in her parents’ home, she wants to take on Jewish practices to be an example to other Jews.
But Milrud represents the potential Jewish drain Khabarovsk faces. She wants to go to Israel and join the army.
“If I like Israel I’ll stay there because I have relatives there,” she said. Regarding the army, “I’m crazy, but I want to! I think it will help me in my life.
“I can’t compare Khabarovsk to Israel,” she said.
Understandably, Hillel participants and staff are on edge about their young constituency leaving Khabarovsk for greener Jewish pastures. Some were on their way to college this summer. And Sahmanov was on his way to Israel, where he’ll spend this year learning at Aish HaTorah. Unlike Milrud, Sahmanov says he plans to come back to Khabarovsk and work at the Hillel.
“If not him, then who?” said Kopytkovskiy.
On the last day, the group bussed three hours to Birobidjan, the capital of Russia’s Jewish autonomous region, created in 1934 by Stalin. After the crowd was herded off to the museum, Sahmanov stayed behind in the sanctuary of the Birobidjan synagogue. Backlit by dozens of electric candles, he wrapped tefillin and recited the sh’ma.
Later I asked him if he wanted to share anything else with me about his Jewish identity.
“Let’s be friends,” he said.