Third, Beit Chana developed
a graduate (master's degree) program in education for current teachers; the
curriculum includes local classes, distance-learning, and intensive seminar
sessions. Fourth, the Institute soon will move to new premises in the center
of the city close to the Golden Rose Choral Synagogue. An individual donor
purchased a long-vacant building in a good location and is now reconstructing
and expanding it to meet Beit Chana needs.
Completion is expected in late 2015 or in 2016.

The architectural drawing at left shows
the new Beit Chana building. The exist-ing structure is the center section at front.
It is being expanded in wings to the right and left that will accommodate additional
classrooms, offices, a small auditorium, fitness center, and premises for the
Special Needs Educational Resource Center. The taller building in the back is
new and will host a student dormitory, dining hall, and library
Drawing: Studio 7, Dnipropetrovsk.
According to Marina Mukhina, rector of
Beit Chana, 120 young women were enrolled during the 2013-2014 academic year in
existing premises. Sixty-two were day students, and 58 were boarders. In
addition to the Beit Chana students, the dormitory also accommodated 12 to 13
girls of Jewish background who were enrolled in local public high schools;
these secondary school pupils were from unstable homes and needed the
supervision and stability that the Beit Chana residence could provide.
Rabbi Meir Stambler, Executive Director
of the Chabad Federation of Jewish Communities in Ukraine and an authority on
Chabad education in the country, stated that negotiations with Touro College
in New York regarding an affiliation between Touro College and Beit Chana currently
are in an early stage. Rabbi Stambler perceives an arrangement in which Beit
Chana graduates would receive Touro College degrees. However, he observed,
Beit Chana must improve its academic standing in several key areas, including
English, before Touro will consider such an agreement.
14. The International Hasidic Women's
Seminary, which enrolled its first class for the 2011-2012 academic year,
did not operate in 2014-2015. The seminary is designed to provide a
second-year education experience for Chabad high school graduates who have
completed an intensive first-year religious studies course elsewhere. The
second year class completes a study program in hassidut, education, other
subjects, and volunteer work in the local Chabad community. The failure of the
institution to operate in 2013-2014 is attributed to a management dispute that
left the seminary without professional leadership.
According to Rabbi Meir Stambler (see
above), an American woman has been engaged to direct the seminary, which is
based at Beit Chana, in 2014-2015. Student recruitment is underway at Israeli
seminaries enrolling English-speaking Chabad young women in intensive
first-year study programs. Part of the appeal of the Dnipropetrovsk seminary
to many Chabad young women and their families is its location in an area rich
in Chabad history. Rabbi Stambler and his associates also believe that many
Beit Chana girls from non-observant homes benefit from proximity to seminary
girls.
15.
Established in tsarist Russia in 1880 and later expelled during the Soviet
period, World ORT
returned to Russia and nearby countries as the Soviet Union collapsed in
1991. It now administers or collaborates with other organizations in the
operation of 17 Jewish day schools in the former Soviet states and also manages
technology centers in 20 vocational institutes and colleges in these
countries. As noted, ORT oversees the informatika program in School
#144. It also operates a community computer technology center that is housed
in the Menorah Center. The writer spoke with Natalya Medvedova, who
directs ORT pro-grams in Dnipropetrovsk.
Natalya
Medvedova, right, directs ORT programs in the Chabad day school and in the
Menorah Center.
Photo: Chabad of Dnipropetrovsk.
The Menorah Center ORT studio is housed in
one room and includes 12 Dell work-stations and one smartboard. It was opened
in November 2013 and, at the time of the writer's visit in March, 2014, was
still in a start-up stage. Ms. Medvedova stated that 54 individuals had
completed courses in the facility since its opening; ORT does not monitor the
ethnic background of its students, but Ms. Medvedova estimated that a minimum
of 70 to 80 percent of students are Jewish. They advertise only within the
Jewish community, she said. Perhaps some non-Jews who work in commercial
concerns within the Menorah Center also had enrolled in ORT classes, she
averred.
To date, Ms. Medvedova explained, ORT has
focused on three groups of potential students. The first was
middle-aged adults, particularly those over age 50, who need instruction in
basic computer literacy. The second target group was younger people, already
computer literate, who were seeking professional courses in website development
and related fields. A third group, to be initiated at the end of April, would
focus on network administration. Courses in the latter two categories meet
twice weekly for two-hour sessions over a period of five or six weeks. Fees
are charged, but the cost to students is much lower than charged by commercial
institutes. So far, said Ms. Medvedova, tuition assistance had been offered to
two students.
Each class enrolls ten to 12 individuals. Basic
computer literacy courses for elderly people, Ms. Medvedova continued, should
enroll even fewer pupils. Almost all professional courses convene in the late
afternoon or early evening so that people can upgrade their computer skills
after work. Sunday classes will be offered in the near future to further
accommodate working people.
Ms. Medvedova sees the primary market
for ORT courses as the Menorah Center itself. Many people work in the
building, either in businesses occupying leased commercial space or in communal
organizations.
The business plan for the ORT computer
center focuses on three skill sets, said Ms. Medvedova: system
administration, web design, and infographics (graphics accom-panied by text,
widely used in instructional and science materials). Each individual
completing appropriate courses will receive internationally valid certificates that
will facilitate employment almost anywhere in the world.
Unlike
the Hillel computer center, ORT does not offer placement services.
However, said Ms. Medvedova, many students are unemployed or underemployed and
have specific employment objectives. For those students who are uncertain
about future careers, ORT will orient them toward specific IT fields with good
employment prospects.
Natalya
Medvedova (standing, wearing dress) works with adult students who had arrived
early for a late afternoon class. She also helped one of the students who had
brought an i-Pad tablet to class, seeking assistance in using several specific
apps.
Photo: the writer.
16. Tkumah - The
All-Ukrainian Center for Holocaust Studies
is
the most comprehensive Holocaust research center in Ukraine. Under the
leadership of Dr. Igor Schupak, its director, Tkumah opened its nearly
3,000 square meter (approximately 10,000 square feet) Museum of Jewish
Memory and Holocaust in Ukraine in October 2012. The Museum is located
within the Menorah Center, and the openings of the Menorah Center and the
Museum occurred concurrently.
As its name suggests,
the Museum is designed to present a comprehensive history of Jewish life on
Ukrainian land. Exhibits about the Holocaust dominate the Museum, but
ample space also is committed to an expansive history of Jewish life in
Ukraine. Jewish ritual objects are displayed and explained. Where actual
artifacts are unavailable, the displays are filled in part by custom paintings
and multi-media presentations. The four large halls (with movable partitions)
cover Jewish history, including shtetl life, pogroms, the Jewish intellectual
and cultural role in Ukraine, the prominence of Ukrainian Jews in the Zionist
movement and in modern Israel, the Holocaust in Ukraine (including righteous
Ukrainians who saved Jews) and elsewhere, and post-Soviet Jewish life. The
history of Jewish life in Dnipropetrovsk is covered in some detail. The museum
undergoes a process of continuing renewal, said Dr. Schupak. Interactive
displays are changed periodically, different artifacts are recovered and
displayed, and entire new exhibits are opened. Traveling exhibits originating
elsewhere are sought and displayed.
Managers
of the Museum are very conscious that it is a Jewish museum on Ukrainian
land. Its perspective is Ukrainian, said Dr. Schupak; it must be sensitive
to Ukrainian history. However, Dr. Schupak continued, the museum has no
"blank chapters." It covers the Khmelnnytski pogroms (in 1648),
other pogroms in Ukrainian history, collectivization, the Holodmor,
and the Soviet terror. The role of Jews as both victims and perpetrators of
certain Soviet crimes is acknowledged. The principal language in captions and
other explanatory materials is Ukrainian.
Dr. Igor Schupak, a native of nearby
Zaporizhzhia, earned a Ph.D. degree at a Canadian University. He was recruited
by Rabbi Shmuel Kaminezki to organize Holocaust research in the Dnipropetrovsk
area and to develop Holocaust teaching materials and exhibits.
Photo: the writer.
Visitors to the
Museum are overwhelmingly non-Jewish, Dr. Schupak stated. They include school
groups from throughout the region, as well as youth groups, teachers,
historians, and ordinary tourists.
As a research
institute, Tkumah investigates Holocaust sites, pursues a comprehensive
publications program (scholarly monographs, a research journal, collections of
documents and memoirs), and attends and hosts conferences.
It collaborates with relevant academic, museum, and archival institutions
elsewhere in the post-Soviet states and in Israel, Europe, and North America.
Its educational program includes seminars for teachers and students,
publication of history textbooks, sponsorship of secondary school and
university history clubs and conferences, and popular education for adults. The
last-named includes "Sunday University," a successful program of
history lectures open to the general public.
Dr. Schupak
enumerated a number of Tkumah activities during the past year, some of
which are related to the current political crisis. Many individuals in eastern
Ukraine, said Dr. Schupak, fear an invasion by Russia or provocative behavior
by Russians or Russian agents in eastern and/or southern Ukraine. In response,
Dr. Schupak has been giving lectures in these regions on "constructive
patriotism," that is, Ukrainian patriotism that steers clear of chauvinism
and xenophobia. He encourages discussions on the more controversial periods of
Ukrainian history. He promotes dialogue with institutions of other ethnic
groups, including Ukrainian Catholic University (Lviv). They have organized
seminars on tolerance throughout Ukraine, from Lviv and Rovno in the west to
Luhansk in the east. Tkumah has been a key contributor to the work of a Ukrainian-Polish
committee that prepares seminars for Ukrainian and Polish teachers of history.
Tkumah continues its investigations of Holocaust sites and Holocaust-related
documentation; new publications on these topics are produced every year.
A three-year
collaboration with Yad Vashem in Israel has led to seminars for
Ukrainian teachers on the Holocaust and World War II in the context of world
history. Such seminars have been held in each of Ukraine's 24 oblast centers
and have spurred the development of multimedia teaching materials for
Ukrainian schools.
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