Based
on their experience in planning and implementing programs for the Jewish Agency,
Ms. Pushkova and Ms. Lysak would like to plan and direct ”fun and smart Jewish weekends"
that help participants build Jewish identity through interesting activities. Developing such a program for an entire weekend
would be challenging, they said, but they would like to try it.
Some investment capital would be needed, they noted.
Ms. Pushkova would like to expand
her own design and illustration business, using Russian, English, or Hebrew
in her work. Some of her holiday cards are
already sold through friends and through modest efforts on the Internet.
Another potential activity would be creation of films depicting various aspects
of Jewish culture.
At left is a Chanukah
card designed by Masha Pushkova. The actual
card is the size of a conventional postcard.
Rabbinic Presence
85.
Rabbi Yaakov Dov Bleich,
a native of Brooklyn and a Karlin-Stolin hasid, is the Chief Rabbi of Kyiv
and Ukraine. He arrived in the country in
1989 and presides over the Great Choral Synagogue
in the Podil district of Kyiv, an area of significant Jewish population prior to
World War II. In the more than 20 years that
he has served in Kyiv, Rabbi Bleich has developed a number of Jewish community institutions,
including the Orach Chaim day school, homes for Jewish children from unstable families,
a Jewish summer camp, an assisted living residential center for elderly Jews, a
matza factory, the Jewish Confederation of Ukraine, the Union of Jewish Religious
Organizations of Ukraine, and the Kyiv Jewish Religious Community.
However, as described elsewhere in this report, a number of these programs
are now jeopardized due to economic stress, Jewish demographic decline, and a lack
of receptivity among local Jews to hasidic Judaism.
Rabbi
Bleich's native American English and familiarity with American culture have facilitated
easy access to American representations in the Ukrainian capital.
He also represents Ukrainian Jewry in several international Jewish organizations. He remains respected aming Ukrainian officials. Yet he is increasingly an outsider, absent
from the country for weeks at a time while attending to family matters, fundraising,
and participating in international Jewish events.
Further, he is a Karlin-Stolin hasid in a country in which Jewish
religious life is dominated by Chabad.
In general, Rabbi Bleich
said, times are very tough. The overall
international recession is magnified in Ukraine, stated Rabbi Bleich, because the
Ukrainian economy is dependent upon the export of steel and steel products, which
are difficult to sell when the rate of new construction is in worldwide decline. The world price of steel, he continued, is
now lower than production costs. Many wealthy
Ukrainians have lost a great deal of money and are now attempting to sell their
private aircraft, mansions, and other accoutrements of affluence.
On a recent trip abroad, Rabbi Bleich confided, one of his fellow passengers
in the economy section of the aircraft was a former oligarch who had been forced
to sell his private airplane. The man recognized
Rabbi Bleich and, embarrassed, asked Rabbi Bleich not to tell anyone else that he
was flying coach class.
Rabbi Yaakov Dov Bleich, Chief Rabbi of Kyiv and Ukraine, no longer resides in the
country on a fulltime basis.
Photo: the writer (in 2011).
Rabbi Bleich said
that he has lost all of his local major donors.
He is reducing the number of his foreign employees wherever possible
so that he can avoid paying housing, international transportation and insurance,
and other expenses associated with foreign workers.
As noted elsewhere in this report, he is closing the residential programs
for at-risk children that he has operated for many years.
He has consolidated his school operations, using fewer buildings
than previously. He also has reduced the
length of summer camp sessions for girls and boys at the site that he owns
and is now sharing camp expenses with Rabbi Shlomo Baksht of Odesa, who will send
youngsters from Odesa to the same camp. Rabbi
Bleich also has severely decreased allocations to several of the Jewish umbrella
organizations that he sponsors, forcing them to curtail their programs.
86.
A native of St. Petersburg (then Leningrad), Chabad Rabbi Moshe Reuven
Asman studied Judaism in an underground quasi-yeshiva as an adolescent and
subsequently moved to Israel where he entered a Chabad yeshiva.
Rabbi Asman also studied in a Toronto yeshiva, but some Chabad adherents
claim that he never completed rabbinic studies according to Chabad standards and
never received Chabad smicha (ordination).
Nonetheless, he settled in Kyiv and became rabbi of the famed Brodsky Synagogue
(the Main Choral Synagogue) even as it remained under the control of a puppet
theater.
Though some doubt
his rabbinic credentials, Rabbi Moshe Reuven Asman (left) is rabbi of the centrally-located
and prestigious Brodsky Synagogue (Main Choral Synagogue), constructed in 1897-1898
with funds from Lazar Brodsky, a wealthy sugar merchant.
Photo:
the writer.

Rabbi Asman presided
over removal of a puppet theater and subsequent renova-tion of the synagogue. The synagogue building now contains an elegant
prayer hall, a kosher café, the upscale King David restaurant, a dining hall and
café on the lower level, and offices for an independent welfare service.
The syna-gogue also supports a burial service and its own cemetery.
Photo:
Jewish Agency.
Rabbi Asman portrayed
the financial well-being of his operations in a manner that differed sharply
from that of his counterparts in every city and Jewish organization visited by the
writer. He has, he said, no financial problems
because "G-d takes care of everything."
He has been able to attract many new financial sponsors, he continued, and
has expanded his assistance programs accordingly.
He is supporting the writing of a Sefer Torah for an Israeli organization
and is providing financial assistance to Chabad emissaries in several smaller Ukrainian
cities and towns who have difficulty finding sponsors on their own.
He has aided the Jewish community of Bila Tserkva (south of Kyiv, better
known as Belaya Tserkov) for some years; this year, he said, he was able to find
a British sponsor who recruited and paid for a native English-speaker to teach in
the Chabad day school there (and a second teacher for Rabbi Asman's own day school
in Kyiv).
His synagogue dining hall, he stated,
feeds about 200 impoverished elderly Jews every day, aided by a subsidy from JDC. About 150 people are offered Shabbat meals
every week, and others enjoy weekday tea and cakes at a free café in space adjacent
to the dining hall. On the holiday of Lag
b'Omer, he continued, he chartered two river boats, each accommodating 200
people for free cruises on the Dnipr River; one boat was for Jewish elderly, and
the other was for Jewish children. Additionally,
Rabbi Asman said, the Brodsky synagogue welfare service offers free medical care
to elderly and disabled Jews.
Impoverished local Jews enjoy afternoon tea and cake at a free café in the Brodksy
synagogue basement. A curtain separates them
from paying customers, who are served the same food.
The Joint Distribution Committee subsidizes a hot lunch program in an adjacent
hall, but the synagogue bears the cost of the free café.
Photo: the writer
The day school that
he sponsors, known as the Mitzvah school, is thriving, averred Rabbi Asman
As is the case in the school in Bila Tserkva, a native English
speaker supported by a British sponsor, instructs pupils in the English language. However, he said, the school building requires
major repairs.
He continues to
sponsor residential homes for at-risk children, Rabbi Asman stated.
These programs currently accommodate about 25 youngsters, he said.
In response to a question about a summer camp, Rabbi Asman said that
he sold his summer camp, which was small and inadequate, several years ago when
a sponsor promised to purchase another, more spacious property for him.
However, Rabbi Asman recounted, the would-be benefactor reneged on his pledge
and left Rabbi Asman without a camp.
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