Asked
about collaborative efforts with World Jewish Relief, a British
organization, Ms. Katz responded that WJR supports various activities related
to children’s welfare, including the Mothers for a Better Future program.
Mothers for a Better Future targets young single mothers, offering them
childcare skills, vocational assistance (to make them more competitive in the
marketplace), legal advice, and psychological services. WJR also supports
programs for special needs groups and humanitarian aid for families in economic
distress.
27. One of the
groups that uses the Israel Culture Center premises for some of its meetings is
Project Kesher, a local Jewish women’s group associated with the larger
umbrella organization of the same name. The Dnipropetrovsk Project Kesher
representation is one of more than 150 similar Jewish women’s groups throughout
the post-Soviet states. As is true in most Project Kesher groups, said Ella
Sidorenko, a Project Kesher leader in Dnipropetrovsk, the local Project
Kesher association is divided into several separate interest sub-groups.
Ella Sidorenko, right, is a long-time activist in Jewish women’s
activities in Dnipropetrovsk and is a leader in Project Kesher in that city.
Photo: the writer.
According to Ms. Sidorenko, the Dnipropetrovsk Project Kesher group
includes a total of about 50 activists as well as additional women who
participate in activities on an occasional basis. The largest cohort, perhaps
20 to 25 women, is the Beit Binah group, which focuses on Jewish education.
Another group of about 15 women meets at the Special Needs Resource Center at
Beit Chana; all of these women are mothers of children enrolled in the Center.
Many are young single parents, said Ms. Sidorenko, and they are dependent on
each other and Project Kesher for psychological support in raising their special
needs children and addressing their own needs. The third Project Kesher group,
continued Ms. Sidorenko, consists of 12 to 15 older female Hillel members.
Project Kesher also enjoys a relationship with a women’s business club
sponsored by the Israel Cultural Center; among other activities, this group has
held seminars on Israel business opportunities and also studies time management
issues related to managing careers and families.
In addition to focusing on its own specific agenda, said Ms. Sidorenko,
most Project Kesher groups also address various women’s health issues.
In a society that remains squeamish about discussing certain health issues in
public, many local women are ill-informed on matters concerning their own
physical and mental well-being; fortunately, she continued, the larger Project
Kesher organization has prepared excellent programs on this subject.
Project Kesher also works in intergroup relations, encouraging
tolerance among the different ethnicities in Dnipropetrovsk. On Holocaust Memorial
Day, it brought together women of Latvian, Lithuanian, Belarusan, Georgian,
Jewish, Russian, and Ukrainian backgrounds for roundtable discussions in the
multipurpose room at the Israel Culture Center.
In general, said Ms. Sidorenko, the entire local Project Kesher
group convenes only on Jewish holidays. Many members, she said, will
gather at the ICC for a Pesach seder that will focus on the role of Jewish
women from the Exodus until now. Most sub-groups, such as Beit Binah or the
group at the Special Needs Resource Center, meet monthly.
Project Kesher encourages its members from different cities to meet and
exchange ideas, said Ms. Sidorenko. For example, some local Project Kesher
women met with Dniprodzerzhinsk counterparts during Chanukah, and another local
cohort met with Project Kesher women from Krivoi Rog at Tu b’Shvat. Ms.
Sidorenko and other Project Kesher leaders attend national seminars focusing on
acquisition of leadership skills and on program concepts.
28. The
sister-city relationship between the Boston and Dnipropetrovsk Jewish
communities, various details of which are noted elsewhere in this section,
was initiated in 1992
and today is the most comprehensive of any “kehilla” project connecting North
American and post-Soviet Jewish population centers. It involves both Jewish
and non-sectarian entities in each city, although most of the latter appear to
have been promoted by Boston-area Jews. Almost all projects involve assistance
from Boston to Dnipropetrovsk. The relationship also includes some projects
involving Haifa, Boston’s Partnership 2000 city in Israel.
Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston (the
Boston Jewish federation) provides essential subsidies to Beit Baruch, the
Dnipropetrovsk Jewish day school, and certain other programs. Education
components of the relationship include consultations in special education to
the special needs program housed at Beit Chana and methodology for teaching
English as a second language at School #144. Exchanges of teachers take place
annually, and Boston-area Jewish teens travel to Dnipropetrovsk for a winter
camp with local Jewish adolescents. Occasionally, the teen exchange also
involves youngsters from Haifa as well. A medical care program provides
critical expertise in geriatric care, as well as advice, training, and advanced
technology in pediatrics and obstetrics/gynecology to Dnipropetrovsk clinics
and hospitals. Boston Action for Post-Soviet Jewry, although an independent
entity, initiated its Adopt-a-Bubbe program in association with the sister-city
effort.
Although some refer to the relationship as a
“partnership,” almost all initiatives and funding originate in Boston. Unlike
other relationships between North American Jewish federations and post-Soviet
Jewish population centers, the Boston-Dnipropetrovsk relationship does not
include collaborative projects with the Joint Distribution Committee, the
Jewish Agency for Israel, or the Hillel student organization.
Kharkiv
Founded
in 1653 at the confluence of the Udy, Lopan, and Kharkiv rivers, Kharkiv today
is a city of 1.4 million people, the second largest municipality in Ukraine.
Capital of Ukraine from 1921 to 1934, it remains a center of industry, culture,
and higher edu-cation. Its industrial core is based on armaments and complex
machinery, some of which has been sold in controversial arms deals to rogue
states. Notwithstanding the relative sophistication of a portion of its
economic base, however, the larger economy of Kharkiv and the surrounding area
is floundering, a result of general Ukrainian economic conditions, poor
governance and a failure of local officials to embrace private business
initiatives.
Kharkiv
is a major university center in Ukraine, hosting more than 25
institutions of higher education, including 13 national universities. The
total number of students in the city is about 150,000, of whom approximately
9,000 are from other countries.
Young adults are University of Radioelectrnics
very visible throughout the city as they attend
classes in universities and other institutions of higher education. Perhaps as
many as 26,000 scientists are employed in Kharkiv’s universities and three
national research institutes.
The city is highly Russified, a product of its
location near the Russian border and the key role of its industrial and
educational institutions in the former Soviet Union.

At
left is the main building of the Kharkiv National University of
Radioelectronics, one of many highly regarded institutions of higher education
in the city. It currently enrolls about 12,000 students in 34 specialties.
Photo and other information:
http://www.kture.kharkov.ua/opencms/ opencms/KNURE/index.html?__locale=en.
Retrieved July 11, 2011.
29. The Jewish population of Kharkiv probably
is between 15,000 and 30,000 according to the Israeli Law of Return, although
the writer has heard both higher and lower estimates. Jews are prominent in
almost every sphere of Kharkiv life, including government, business and
industry, education, and culture; most openly identify as Jews and are friendly
to Jewish organizations. However, as is the case in most post-Soviet large
cities, only a small proportion of local Jews participate in any form of Jewish
life.
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