In response to a
question about financial support, Dr. Schupak said that the official
Chabad Jewish community of Dnipropetrovsk (the Philanthropic Fund of the Dnipropetrovsk
Jewish Community <Благотворительный фонд Днепропет-ровского еврейского общины>) provides
significant operational support, but that Tkumah always is seeking grants for
specific projects and programs. The Institute for Holocaust studies has
received funds from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims against Germany,
the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, the Dutch Jewish Humanitarian
Fund, International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (Berlin), several additional
German organizations, Ukrainian Jewish Encounter (Canada), Yad Vashem, and
other groups. The Museum itself is supported by Chabad in Dnipropetrovsk, Ihor
Kolomoisky, the Rothschild Foundation (Hanadiv) Europe, and specific groups
sponsoring particular exhibits.
Regarding
contemporary antisemitism in Ukraine, Dr. Schupak stated that known
antisemites participated in the Maidan demonstrations, but they did not exhibit
antisemitic behavior during the protests. Equally, he said, although public
opinion is strongly opposed to the current Russian government, it is not
Russophobic in nature. This absence of bigotry and intolerance is evidence of
a new direction for Ukraine, Dr. Schupak claimed. In contrast, Dr. Schupak
continued, Russian fascists had attacked both Jews and Tatars in Crimea. Most
of the fascists, he said, were Kuban Cossacks, who had been joined by ordinary
Russian criminals.
17. The Rosalind
Gurwin Jewish Community Center of Dnipropetrovsk occupies one floor in a
small office building attached to the Menorah Center.
Liana Basina, its director, explained that the JCC, which is managed by
the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, currently is in its fifteenth
year of operation in the city and is organized in two functional roles: Jewish
renewal and a Jewish family service.
Ms.
Basina described the JCC Jewish renewal work as offering activities for
Jews of all ages, both as individuals and as family units. It includes a small
preschool, Mazal Tov, that focuses on at-risk children, attempting to
prepare them for successful elementary school experiences. Beyachad (Together)
is a four-hour Sunday school enrolling youngsters between the ages of five and
13. Divided into three groups according to age, Beyachad pupils participate in
various activities, including Hebrew and English classes, under the direction
of madrichim, teen-age leaders prepared by the JCC. The madrichim group
includes 10 active leaders and another 20 in training, said Ms. Basina.
Liana Basina directs a busy Jewish
community center program in very limited space.
Photo: the writer.
The JCC also offers music
programs for all ages (including a children's klezmer group), drama
groups for children and teens, an art studio that welcomes all age
groups, chess lessons with a local grandmaster, and cooking classes
for children. Through celebration of various Jewish holidays, the JCC also
engages in informal Jewish education. A recent Purim event drew 400
participants, Ms. Basina said.
Most of these
activities require participation fees, Ms. Basina responded to a
question. People value the program more when they pay for it, she observed.
However, the JCC endeavors to accommodate poor families and will waive or
adjust fees for certain programs when the program is appropriate for the
participant and the need is real.
In addition to local
operations, the JCC also organizes a 10- to 12-day family summer camp
that sometimes draws as many as 300 people. Some activities are geared toward
children, some toward parents, and some toward families. Some program
components generate follow-up activity throughout the year so that families
remain engaged in the Jewish community.
The JCC operates a children's
summer camp, enrolling about 200 youngsters from the region for 18 to 20
days at a site in Zaporizhzhia. Currently in its third year, the summer camp
charges a substantial fee to families and also has drawn financial support from
the Genesis Philanthropy Group (Moscow) and World Jewish Relief (London).
In response to a
question about the impact of the Russian takeover of Crimea and occupation
of parts of eastern Ukraine, Ms. Basina said that people now are very
nervous and generally pessimistic. Aliyah to Israel has increased markedly,
she continued, drawing both stable and some at-risk families. Parents fear for
the future of their children if they remain in Ukraine. The situation affects
the JCC in several ways, Ms. Basina stated. First, during the period of
massive street demonstrations in Kyiv, families kept their children at home and
would not permit them to come to the JCC or go anywhere else; this sense of
extraordinary protectiveness extended well beyond the few days in which small
and contained demonstrations occurred in Dnipropetrovsk. Parents
have relaxed somewhat
since the protests in Kyiv have tapered down, but attendance at JCC activities
has not recovered completely, she noted. Second, continued Ms. Basina, in
common with many other Jewish organizations, the JCC leased a resort in Crimea
for its family summer camp; she is assuming that Crimea is now inaccessible. Perhaps
they will be able to find a suitable site near Odesa or somewhere in western
Ukraine, but such decisions are made by people at higher levels and she does
not know if the family camp will operate in 2014. It is very difficult to plan
when the situation is so uncertain, said Ms. Basina, and she does not know what
to say when parents ask questions.
18. Project Kesher is a Jewish
women's organization that promotes Jewish identity-building, leadership
development, women's health, and general non-partisan activism in affiliated
groups throughout Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, and Georgia. One of its
leaders in Dnipropetrovsk is Ella Sidorenko, a longtime activist who
stated that it has 65 members in the city.
The
largest of three sub-groups, comprising approximately 25 women, meets at
the Israel Cultural Center,
said Ms. Sidorenko. It focuses on women's legal rights and economic issues,
particularly home budgeting; some women also have enrolled in ORT computer
courses. A second group, perhaps 20 women in all, concentrates on Jewish
religious tradition, Ms. Sidorenko stated. The third group, numbering about 15
women, has the most difficult agenda of all, said Ms. Sidorenko. Comprised of
mothers and some grandmothers of children at the Beit Chana Special Needs
Educational Resource Center,
this cluster of women is concerned with health and nutrition (for their
children and for themselves), access to physicians, and Jewish tradition. Ms.
Sidorenko observed that the demands of raising special needs children - often
as single parents - frequently leaves these women physically and emotionally
exhausted, financially wanting, and socially isolated. Project Kesher attempts
to add some education, networking opportunities, companionship, and happiness
to their lives.
Ella Sidorenko, right, has been active
in Project Kesher since its inception.
Photo: the writer.
Additionally, Ms. Sidorenko continued,
Project Kesher works with some younger women - and a few young couples - in
economic and financial literacy, legal rights, and family issues. It
cooperates with the Jewish Women's Microenterprise Loan Fund to help
women start their own businesses.
The organization sponsors a women's
seder that emphasizes the role of women in Jewish history. Project Kesher
also is active in interethnic activities, meeting with other groups to learn
about their traditions and discuss issues of common interest.
In response to a question, Ms.
Sidorenko said that Project Kesher has no formal office premises in the
city. All of its data is on her home computer, and they use meeting space made
available to it by other Jewish organizations.
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