The Resource
Center will move to the new Beit Chana facility when that building becomes
available. Although less space will be designated for the Resource Center than
it currently uses, the more central local of the new premises should be
beneficial, Ms. Olshanitskaya said.
10. Olga Tovkach,
the executive director of the Hillel student organization since 2008,
greeted the writer in the group's new premises in the Menorah Center. Hillel
occupies three activity rooms, the largest of which accommodates approximately
100 people. A second activity room seats about 30 individuals. The third room
is a computer facility with 12 workstations and a small conference room.
Additionally, the Hillel suite includes several offices.
About
300 students and young adults participate in Hillel every month, a
significant increase from the 100 to 200 who came to Hillel each month in
2012-2013, said Ms. Tovkach. The program includes weekly Hebrew classes (free
to participants, paid for by the Israel Culture Center),
English classes (fee-based), Torah portion discussions, dance classes, and
other activities. A group for young families usually draws about 30 people,
Ms. Tovkach said; these individuals are interested in learning and practicing
Judaism, but in a non-Orthodox manner. Hillel also organized a "Pesach
university" that attracted about 40 people eager to learn about the
holiday and the seder ritual). It held a second-night seder in a restaurant
for Hillel members and young families.
Olga Tovkach has revived a
long-substandard Hillel in Dnipropetrovsk since assuming the position of
director in 2008.
Photo: the writer.
Dnipropetrovsk Hillel
sent 80 young people on Taglit (birthright Israel) tours during the past
year, 20 in winter and 60 in summer, said Ms. Tovkach. In April, Hillel
organized a Shabbaton for 50 Dnipropetrovsk Taglit veterans, she continued. Hillel
encourages Taglit returnees to enroll in the longer MASA program, Ms. Tovkach
stated, often collaborating with the Israel Culture Center in helping Hillel
members select the MASA program that is appropriate for them.
The usual Week of
Good Deeds, somewhat subdued this year because of Russian-Ukrainian
tension, was held at the end of February. No large events were scheduled, said
Ms. Tovkach. The focus was on collaborative work with young people from
another large ethnic group, Armenians, in events for children with disabilities
and for children in institutional care. Hillel and Armenian students also
created a Children's Health Festival, adapting various games to health themes. Additionally,
the Hillel-Armenian group used the mechanism of traditionally-popular
intellectual games to teach youngsters about traditions of various ethnic
groups.
The
information technology program is new this year and is based on the IT
program established by Odesa Hillel in 2013.
The 12 workstations and necessary furnishings were purchased with funds
contributed by the same Baltimore donor whose generosity enabled the founding
of the Odesa project. Courses are offered in web design advanced computer
languages, networking, and other IT skills; all are fee-based, although the
charges are lower than in comparable commercial programs. Nonetheless, said
Ms. Tovkach, even the discounted fees are a barrier to the enroll-ment of some
potential students. In addition to the technology skills, the Hillel IT center
offers placement assistance to its graduates, an unusual service in Ukraine.
Ms. Tovkach noted that many IT vacan-cies exist in Dnipropetrovsk.
A portion of the Dnipropetrovsk Hillel
IT facility, located in the Menorah Center, is shown at left. Note the
glass-doored conference room on the right side.
Photo: the writer.
In addition to the
advanced IT classes offered to students, the Hillel IT center teaches basic
IT skills to elderly Jews participating in the JDC hesed program in the
Menorah Center. The older learners commute by elevator to Hillel, where they
are taught in one of two hesed classes by a volunteer teacher, said Ms. Tovkach.
Ms. Tovkach commented that the major interest of the hesed students is mastering
email so that they are able to communicate with family members who have moved
abroad.
A local Hillel
Board has been created, Ms. Tovkach stated, with 11 members, most of them
past Hillel activists. Ranging in age from 26 to 35, they have each agreed to
contribute $100 monthly to Dnipropetrovsk Hillel. Some also donate goods and
services, such as office supplies or special-event premises to which they have
access. Sometimes, Ms. Tovkach noted, Hillel students attend the monthly
evening Board meetings to request funding for specific program ideas. In
common with other organization directors, Ms. Tovkach observed that fundraising
is very difficult in current conditions of political and economic instability.
11. Initiated as a
means of enhancing the Jewish identification of halachically Jewish students
and young adults, a program entitled STARS (Student Torah Alliance for
Russian Speakers) was launched in 2006. Funded by Eli Horin of Brazil and
oligarch Lev Leviev, participants were awarded a stipend for attending gender-segregated
classes in Jewish tradition and practice taught according to Orthodox
philosophy. Certain coeducational events were held in connection with Jewish
holidays, thus enabling halachically Jewish young men and women to meet and, hopefully,
later marry and raise Jewish families.
Early reports
indicated strong success, but several problems emerged within a short
time and now are acknowledged by most of those involved in operating the
program. First, it quickly became obvious that the interest of many
participants focused more on pocketing the stipends than on absorbing Jewish
tradition. As soon as stipends were distributed, students disappeared. Many
graduates of the program declined any further involvement with Chabad. Second,
class syllabi were prepared to appeal to high-achieving university students, but
a large number of enrollees were low-achieving young adults in vocational training
programs, low-paying jobs, or unemployed. Some participants had psychological
or emotional issues and were disruptive in class. Third, many of the more
capable students were aggravated by the others and refused to join with them in
studies or socializing. Fourth, given the high rate of intermarriage in
Ukraine - thought by many to be 80 percent or more - the pool of halachically
Jewish young people is small and is diminishing with each passing year.
In response to these
problems, Chabad in Dnipropetrovsk developed new STARS versions for halachically
Jewish young people with above-average intellectual capacity and ambitious
career plans. It created a special program for aspiring businessmen in which
students meet regularly with successful business people. Yet another version
attempts to engage young people from lower-class backgrounds. Several women's
groups meet separately. Payment of stipends to all groups is conditioned on
the satisfactory completion of examinations based on STARS course material.
Iosif
Masakovsky,
who directs the STARS program in Dnipropetrovsk, stated that STARS continues to
search for different approaches that will appeal to different groups of young
people. However, he continued, these efforts are seriously impeded by the
ongoing financial crisis, which has led to a reduction in funds for instructor
salaries, participant stipends, food, entertainment at events, travel, and
other program components. He also would like to purchase additional furniture
to complement the green chairs in STARS premises in the Menorah Center, but
that is impossible now.
Iosif Masakovsky, a former computer
technology in-structor, directs the STARS program in Dnipropetrovsk. He is
largely self-taught in Judaism.
Photo: the writer.
In partial
acknowledgment that many Jewish young adults were decidedly cool to formal
Jewish education programs, Chabad has created a youth club (молодежный клуб) called See the
Light that attempts to reach young people through informal Jewish
education. See the Light, he said, has many social activities and also
tries to train Jewish young adults to be madrichim (leaders) for their
peers and somewhat younger participants.
12. Elisha
Pavlotsky manages the See the Light program, a Chabad venture
designed for Jewish young adults. A Dnipropetrovsk native, he said that the
program started there in 2012 and in Kyiv in 2013. So far, he said, 20 See the
Light clubs exist in Ukraine, one in Russia (Rostov-on-Don), and one in
Vienna. They are beginning to organize in New York, said Mr. Pavlotsky, and
intend to unite all Russian-speaking halachically-Jewish youth throughout the
world through See the Light clubs.
The
clubs, which are managed by a part-time director in each city, focus on the performance
of a single designated mitzvah (Heb., a commandment or moral duty)
each month. The particular mitzvah is one designated by the last Lubavitcher
Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, as especially important. A financial
prize is awarded for the best performance of this mitzvah. Additionally, See
the Light sponsors social events at all appropriate Jewish holidays;
although the events are primarily social in nature, some informal Jewish
education also is on the agenda. See the Light also organizes informal
three-day seminars with Jewish content for young adults, and plans to
operate a two-week summer camp for adolescents between the ages of 12
and 16; See the Light activists are trained as madrichim (leaders/counselors)
for this camp. Eventually, said Mr. Pavlotsky, they would like to establish
See the Light clubs in both Chabad and public high schools in many different
countries.
Elisha Pavlotsky has grand ambitions
for a worldwide youth club movement uniting Russian-speaking halachically
Jewish young people.
Photo: the writer.
Most programs
operated by See the Light are free of charge to participants, even the
overnight seminars, Mr. Pavlotsky said. Young people are attracted to these
events by the distribution of free gifts, such as i-Pads, notebook computers,
and other electronic goods.
In response to a
question, Mr. Pavlotsky said that See the Light has a contact list of
600 Jewish young people in Dnipropetrovsk. However, he acknowledged, only
about 20 of these individuals are active in the group. He noted that See the
Light imposes no conditions on participants that they become religiously
observant, although creators and funders of See the Light hope that the
informal education nature of the program will encourage young people to adopt a
Jewish way of life. He remarked that three religious weddings had already
taken place among activists.
In a later interview,
Rabbi Shmuel Kaminezki stated that current financial stress has
precluded the establishment of a stable financial base for the See the Light
program. They actually use pushkas (contribution boxes) to collect
funds for it, he said.
13. The Beit
Chana International Humanitarian-Pedagogical Institute was established as
the Beit Chana Jewish Women's Pedagogical Institute in 1955 to prepare teachers
and childcare workers for Chabad-sponsored preschools and elementary schools
throughout the post-Soviet states. Initially, it recruited its all-female
student enrollment mainly from smaller cities and towns, assuming that Jewish
young women in such locales would be eager to escape their often stifling small
town environments for associate degree-equivalent programs in a larger city.
Beit Chana offered free tuition and free room and board in return for a
commitment to teach in Chabad schools upon graduation. Over time, the
institution was forced to confront the consequences of lower educational
achievement of girls from such circumstances, as well as demographic
developments that sharply reduced the number of Jewish young women in smaller
towns, regardless of their capacity to complete post-secondary education
programs. Further, notwithstanding their enthusiasm for relocation to a larger
city, many young women were reluctant to commit to residence in an isolated
gender-segregated dormitory with a religious lifestyle for the duration of
their course of study. Additionally, many young women were not interest in
pursuing pedagogical careers.
Beit Chana never
reached its capacity enrollment of between 200 and 250 young women. It
achieved its peak of 165 students some years ago, and its 2008-2009 enrollment
plummeted to 70. Acknowledging that the institution was unlikely to survive
without a “new vision,” Beit Chana made several changes in its curriculum
and operational procedures in recent years and intends to evolve further in
the future. First, it earned accreditation to award full baccalaureate
degrees, thus enhancing its appeal. It now confers associate degrees in
pre-school and early elementary education as well as full bachelor's degrees in
these subjects, practical psychology, and business management.
Some subjects are taught in the form of intensive seminars led by visiting
Israeli specialists. The baccalaureate programs in education include a
component at Orot College in Israel. Employment in Chabad institutions is
guaranteed to all graduates. Second, it scrapped its residential requirement,
opening all programs to day/commuter female students from Dnipropetrovsk and
environs.
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