International Jewish
Organizations
83. The Jewish
Agency for Israel (JAFI, Sochnut) is a Jerusalem-based
organization that works to build Jewish identity and enhance ties between
diaspora Jews and Israel. JAFI offers a number of programs designed to
encourage aliyah (immigration to Israel) of local Jews and their family
members. The writer met with Ilana Shpak, who directs JAFI operations
in Ukraine,
and Ellina Zadavitsky, who is in charge of JAFI education projects in
the Kyiv region, which includes Kyiv itself, western and central Ukraine, and
Moldova. Both women were born in the Soviet Union and emigrated to Israel some
years ago.
Ms.
Zadavitsky stated that JAFI follows four strategies in building Jewish
identity and encouraging aliyah: Jewish camping, Israel experiences, grassroots
activity and leadership development, and aliyah encouragement and absorption in
Israel. Informal Jewish education is a key component in all of these programs
and formal education is pursued in the teaching of Hebrew.
JAFI-sponsored Jewish
residential camps enrolled
220 youngsters in the region in 2013, said Ms. Zadavitsky. Recognizing that
intensive Jewish experiences are critical in building Jewish identity, summer
camps are a keystone of JAFI programming. However, the Jewish Agency is aware
that residential camps have little appeal to some families and has searched for
alternative programs that would provide Jewish youngsters with an alternative
intensive Jewish experience. Accordingly, the Agency unveiled a pilot day
camp program in 2014, accommodating 135 youngsters in four-day camps during
school spring vacation periods in Kyiv and Cherkasy; co-sponsors in the two
cities were the Progressive movement and Chabad respectively. Before the end
of 2014, additional day camps will be held in Kyiv and Vinnytsia, again with
partner organizations. All participating children attend either public schools
in their respective cities or the ORT school in Kyiv. For the youngsters from
public schools, Ms. Zadavitsky observed, the day camp provided their first
exposure to Jewish culture.

Another form of partnership is
matza-baking in the JAFI courtyard. In this photo, representatives of Chabad
bake matza and distribute it to JDC hesed clients who have been brought to JAFI
for the occasion.
Photo: the writer.
Israel experience programs include both
Taglit (birthright Israel, a 10-day trip with peers) and MASA (a more intensive
Israel experience that includes study, internships, and/or volunteer
opportunities over a period of five to 12 months; participants stay in
apartments and purchase/provide most of their own food). Eighty-four young
adults from the Kyiv region went on JAFI Taglit trips in 2013, said Ms.
Zadavitsky, and 110 are expected in 2014.
Increasingly popular, she said, are Taglit trips specializing in a particular
professional field, thus enabling participants to explore employment
opportunities prior to making a decision about aliyah. MASA programs attracted
89 young adults in 2013, and 100 are expected in 2014. Some MASA participants
remain in Israel as new immigrants after completing their program. (See
interviews below.)
Grassroots and
leadership development programs focus on young adults who are veterans of
other JAFI programs, such as summer camps, Taglit, and MASA. Campers are
trained to be madrichim (camp counselors, youth leaders) and 35 Taglit
veterans meet twice monthly for continuing informal education and additional
Jewish activities. Some young adults have pursued JAFI-supported incubator
projects and others are engaged in the PresenTense program described earlier
(pages 99-100).
Outlining JAFI
programs for children, Ms. Zadavitsky drew attention to Tsror, which
enrolls 36 youngsters between the ages of eight and eleven, and a Bar/Bat
Mitzvah program that enrolls 34 pre-teens in a two-year Bar/Bat
Mitzvah preparatory program. Each of these programs has a formal enrollment
cap of 30, but JAFI felt compelled to admit additional youngsters whose
families had applied for entrance. Both Tsror and Bar-Bat Mitzvah meet on 30
Sundays during the school year and then feed into special JAFI summer camp
sessions. Each program offers parallel courses for parents. (See interviews
below.)
Attempting to fill a
gap for teenagers, the Jewish Agency initiated a new program in 2014 called Kyiv
Interaction. Kyiv Interaction enrolls 30 Jewish teens between the ages of
13 and 17 in a program that features visits to Jewish heritage sites and, so
far, participant creation of an interactive website about Kyiv Jewish history.
In Cherkasy and Vinnytsia, JAFI sponsors local Jewish youth clubs
that enroll 115-120 young people in total. In both cities, said Ms. Zadavitsky,
JAFI employs very gifted local madrichim who have been trained in JAFI summer
camps and leadership development programs.
The Jewish Agency
currently operates 31 Hebrew-language ulpans in the region and
anticipates opening additional classes as interest in emigration to Israel
grows. Participants must pay a monthly fee of $25; courses last five months
and include Jewish identity-building components. Ten of these ulpans are
self-financing, i.e., participant fees cover all costs. JAFI also operates eight
Sunday schools - in Kyiv (in partnership with the Progressive movement),
Bila Tserkva (Belaya Tserkov), Cherkasy, Chernihiv, Khmel'nytski, and several
additional locales. Most of these schools are day-long programs for children
up to 13 years of age; some include parallel curricula for parents.
Aliyah brought 405
Ukrainians to Israel in 2013, said Ms. Shpak, and 153 more will have gone by
the end of April 2014. She is sure that aliyah will continue to grow
because many more people are seeking information about the aliyah process and
resettlement in Israel. Also, she noted, the number of applicants for the Na'aleh
high school in Israel program and the Selah college preparatory
course has risen substantially. In addition to the students themselves,
parents frequently join their children in Israel at a later time.
Following are reports
of group interviews that JAFI arranged for the writer:
The writer met with a
group of about 20 youngsters in the Bar/Bat Mitzvah program and their
parents. At the time (early April), the B/BM candidates said that they were
learning about the forthcoming holiday of Pesach; they had made matza with
Chabad and soon would hold a mock seder. In May, they and their parents would
participate in a B/BM Shabbaton outside Kyiv and also would participate in
Israel Independence Day programs. Parents of the kids said: the youngsters
like the program, the madrichim treat the children with respect, both the
youngsters and their parents learn about Jewish tradition and Jewish history,
and both the youngsters and their parents make new friends in the program and
expand their social circles. All of the children were enrolled in public
schools, although one had attended a Jewish day school for a few years and
dropped out because the day school day was too long. The kids like the B/BM
program because they have friends there and they are able to use the JAFI computer
lab.
Six of the eight youngsters said that they would like to join the Na'aleh high
school program in Israel when they reach the age of 15. Many participating
families have relatives in Israel.
A somewhat boisterous group of
Bar/Bat Mitzvah candidates and their parents and other relatives met with the
writer in a very crowded room in the JAFI building. More than half of the
youngsters appear to speak excellent English.
Photo: the writer.
The writer also met
with two madrichim of youth groups. One works part-time for the Jewish
Agency in Vinnytsia. A graduate student of Kyiv Jewish history and a teaching
assistant in a Vinnytsia university, he leads Jewish adolescents on Jewish
history tours and assigns real research projects in local history to Jewish
teens. Members of his youth group also volunteer in the maintenance of old
Jewish community buildings and have created a brochure and interactive website
about Kyiv Jewish history. The second madrich trains Jewish young people to be
tour guides of Jewish history in Kyiv, Vinnytsia, and Cherkassy.
Twelve recent veterans
of Taglit (birthright Israel) and/or MASA spoke with the writer
in another conference. (Most appeared to be students or recent graduates.) Only
one had attended a Jewish day school (in Lviv, her hometown). Of the Taglit
veterans who had not yet participated in MASA, some are considering the various
MASA options; several programs look attractive to them and it is likely that
they will go. Most said that they were thinking more seriously about aliyah
since their Israel experiences. Maidan and the subsequent uncertainty were not
major factors in their decision-making; nearly all of them said that they had
been thinking about aliyah for a long time. Asked about their parents' views
of aliyah, some said that their parents think that life in Israel is too
dangerous. Others responded that they don't expect their parents to join them
in Israel because they are too old or because one parent is not Jewish. About
one-half of the young people said that they have relatives in Israel; some said
that the presence of family members is an important inducement, others stated
that they are not close to their Israeli family members and are unlikely to
spend much time with them.
The writer also spoke
with four family units that would make aliyah to Israel in the very near
future. A couple with a toddler son was scheduled to leave Kyiv in less than
two weeks; they would join relatives in Lod. A couple with eight-year old
daughter would go to Israel in a program featuring direct absorption in a large
city; the parents, both of whom are accountants, lost their jobs when their
employer went out of business. They are going to Israel for the future of
their daughter, they said, and one set of grand-parents will join them later.
A couple with two children, ages 3 and 5, were leaving the next week. They
have been thinking about aliyah for five years, they stated, and have enrolled
in the First Home in the Homeland absorption program. (This absorption program
is on a kibbutz and is considered ideal for families with young children.) A
single mother is going on aliyah with her eight-year old daughter; a manicurist
by trade, she and her child also will join the First Home in the Homeland
program.
Concluding
the writer's visit to the Jewish Agency, Elena Shpak made several
com-ments. The Maidan protests and associated violence impaired JAFI
work for some time, she said. JAFI cancelled some Chanukah and Purim events
due to violence on the streets. The office itself was closed for three days
because conditions seemed too dangerous for employees to come to work. Families
are very concerned about potential violence and are leery about sending their
children far away from home and/or near Ukrainian borders. Thus, she
continued, although the Jewish Agency had planned to hold its summer camps
at a site near the Carpathian Mountains (close to borders with Poland,
Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Moldova), they have had to find a site closer
to Kyiv.
Elena Shpak
previously directed JAFI operations in eastern Ukraine, but was transferred to
Kyiv when the earlier Kyiv emissary proved unsuited for the position.
Photo: the writer.
Although aliyah has
increased in
response to the situation, it remains an aliyah of choice, not an aliyah of
rescue. Jews are weighing their options, taking various factors into
consideration before making a decision to go to Israel. Once they decide to
go, they examine the various absorption programs very carefully. Some
middle-age Jews who believe that they have job security in Ukraine send their
teen-age or young adult children to Israel and join them later. Many Jews
believe they are fortunate to have Israel as an option. Non-Jews have far
fewer alternatives - and some have even asked JAFI if emigration to Israel is a
possibility for them.
Obviously, the Jewish
Agency welcomes aliyah to Israel. However, sometimes aliyah takes a toll on
its own staff. The five leading madrichim in Kharkiv, who staffed all
JAFI youth programs in the city, all made aliyah last year, leaving JAFI in
Kharkiv with no experienced youth leaders.
84. The American
Jewish Joint Distribution Committee was functioning without a director for
its Kyiv and central/western Ukraine operations during the writer's April visit
to the Ukrainian capital. The previous director departed, at his own request,
and returned to Israel in late 2013, and a new director had not yet been
appointed.
Notwithstanding the
absence of a director, the writer visited the new JDC head office,
located in a Podil office building. (The space had been leased by the outgoing
director prior to his departure.) Access to the office is gained through a
small vestibule several steps up from street level and then a climb up a steep
stairway of some 20-25 steps. No elevator exists. The office itself is light
and airy, with a partially open corridor stretching through a long rectangular
space of multiple work areas. The premises are multi-level, up three stairs in
one place, then down three stairs in another, perhaps followed by a level
expanse of four to six meters before an elevation of two steps followed by a
descent of two steps three meters later. It is difficult to imagine how any
individual with mobility issues could enter this office, much less work in it.
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