Let My People Know Limmud FSU: the Story of Its First Decade
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Let My People Know Limmud FSU: The Story of its First Decade LET MY PEOPLE KNOW Limmud FSU: The Story of its First Decade Mordechai Haimovitch Translated and Edited by Asher Weill Limmud FSU New York/Jerusalem Copyright@Limmud FSU International Foundation, New York, 2019 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form without the prior permission of the copyright holder Editor’s Notes. Many place names in this book are interchangeable because of the various stages of historical or political control. We have usually chosen to use the spellings associated with Jewish history: eg. Kiev not Kviv; Lvov not Lviv; Kishinev not Chișinău; Vilna not Vilnius, etc. Every attempt had been made to trace the source of the photographs in the book. Any corrections received will be made in future editions. Limmud FSU International Foundation 80, Central Park West New York, NY 10023 www.Limmudfsu.org This book has been published and produced by Weill Publishers, Jerusalem, on behalf of Limmud FSU International Foundation. ISBN 978-965-7405-03-1 Designed and printed by Yuval Tal, Ltd., Jerusalem Printed in Israel, 2019 CONTENTS Foreword - Natan Sharansky 9 Introduction 13 PART ONE: BACK IN THE USSR 1. A Spark is Kindled 21 2. Moscow: Eight Years On 43 3. The Volunteering Spirit 48 4. The Russians Jews Take Off 56 5. Keeping Faith in the Gulag 62 6. Cosmonauts Over the Skies of Beersheba 66 7. The Tsarina of a Cosmetics Empire 70 PART TWO: PART ONE: BACK IN THE USSR 8. Sighet’s Most Famous Son 77 9. Vinnytsa: Cabbages and Denial 85 10. In the Werewolf Bunker 89 11. New York: Dressing the President 95 12. Roman Kent: Spokesman for the Survivors 103 13. Ben Helfgott: The Weights of his Life 120 14. Lvov: “The Largest Graveyard in Europe” 125 15. The Girl in the Green Sweater 131 16. The Grandson’s Revenge 138 PART THREE: IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF THEIR FATHERS 17. In Search of Nehemia Rabin 147 18. Ze’ev Jabotinsky: A Search in the Catskills 156 5 19. Vilna Street, Vishnyeva, to President’s Street, Jerusalem 164 20. Brisk: Finding Menachem Begin 169 21. Berl and Dita Katznelson in Babruysk 187 22. Ze’eva, Ya’akov and Yossi Encounter their Father, Abba Achimeir 196 23. Matthew Bronfman Discovers Ataki 205 24. Vitebsk: Marc Chagall’s Town and Inspiration 211 25. Minsk: the Ariel Sharon Heritage 216 26. The Ben-Yehuda Tribe 223 27. The Acropolis of Volozhin 232 PART FOUR: IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF THEIR MUSE 28. Bel and Grandfather Shalom Aleichem 239 29. The Zhitomiri 245 30. “City of Slaughter” 264 31. Odessa – Tel Aviv, Corner of Bialik 267 32. “The Silver Platter” 273 33. “King of the Zulus” 281 34. From Fania to Fania 287 35. The Long Fingers of a Composer 301 36. “Perhaps it was Never Thus” 308 37. “Accusation and Faith” 317 PART FIVE: OTHER PROMISED LANDS 38. Birobidzhan: Steps in the Steppes 325 39. New York and the Pull of Mother Russia 331 40. “Your Huddled Masses” - in Ararat, Grand Island, New York 337 6 41. Canada: A Difficult Absorption 344 42. A Little House in the Canadian Prairie 350 43. Kangarusskis 358 44. A Promised Land in the Outback 371 PART SIX: LIMMUD FSU WORLDWIDE 45. Kazan: Meeting of Three Faiths 379 46. Limmud FSU Global Summit – From Sea to Sea 386 47. Rabbis and Hollywood Stardust 390 48. Yasnaya Polyana Comes to Windsor 398 Epilogue: Return from the USSR 403 Index of Names 407 7 8 FOREWORD Natan Sharansky When I grew up in the town of Donetsk, Ukraine, I was, like most Jews of my generation, deeply ignorant of the religion, culture, and history of the Jewish people. Concepts like Torah, Talmud, Yom Kippur, Rosh Hashana, Pesach, Sukkot or Shabbat had little or no resonance for me. Most Jews considered themselves as sophisticated and highly educated Soviet citizens, but at the same time, fully aware of antisemitism and being unable to express their Jewish identity. We also understood that studying hard and acquiring knowledge was the only way to circumvent the authoritarian regime and achieve professional success. For more than 70 long years, beginning after the Russian Revolution of 1917, the Jews of the USSR found themselves facing the inability to live a full Jewish life. For decades, Jewish education, Jewish languages, history and culture, were subject to various degrees of oppression; many synagogues, schools and cultural institutions ceased to function. Then came the catastrophe of the Second World War bringing in its wake, the destruction in the Holocaust – the Shoah – of six million Jews across Europe, one and a half million of them in the Soviet Union. After the war in the USSR, the Jews of Silence, in the immortal phrase of Elie Wiesel, still could not learn about their identity, culture and history. In the mid-1970s in the USSR, there was a big debate between refuseniks such as myself on the dilemma of Jewish continuity; there were those who maintained that the only solution to the Jewish issue was that of Aliya – being able to emigrate to Israel; others believed that education in the spirit of Jewish philosophers such as Ahad Ha’am, was the first essential element to regaining Jewish identity. Later on, as Chair of the Executive of the Jewish Agency for Israel, I saw my primary task as promoting and consolidating Jewish education and helping Jews around the world reconnect with the sources of Judaism as the vital constituent of their identity. A little more than a quarter of a century ago, the Iron Curtain came down; the gates of the Soviet Union finally opened and in so doing, changed the 9 face of the Jewish world. Nearly two million Jews, after years of struggle and refusal, were finally freely allowed to leave the country and build a new life for themselves. I myself, after nine years of imprisonment on charges of high treason, espionage and illegal Zionist activity, was finally expelled from the Soviet Union in 1986 arriving in Israel later that same day. Of the two million Jews who left, more than half – like myself – chose to move to Israel. The vast influx of Russian speakers into the country caused a monumental change to the nature of the state. By the sheer number of new immigrants the very fabric of Israel’s society has changed: its social structure, its culture, theater, music, medicine, science and engineering, even its politics, have been changed. There is no feature of life in Israel that has not been affected by the presence and involvement of new immigrants. But this has happened not only in Israel. Many more hundreds of thousands of Russian-speaking Jews have chosen to make new lives for themselves and their families in the United States, in Canada, in Australia, in Western Europe. In addition, there has been a resurgence of Jewish life in all the countries of the former Soviet Union – including in Russia itself, in Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova. At this point, the Limmud FSU (former Soviet Union) program took up the challenge, realizing that among Russian-speakers, especially those who had chosen to remain in the former Soviet Union, there was a woeful lack of knowledge of basic Jewish culture and Judaism; or perhaps, rather a lack of opportunity for learning and community engagement that would resonate with the younger generation. For many of them, the established Jewish institutions were often not equipped to provide the type of content that they needed. In 2005, a group of far-sighted individuals decided to do something about it and began to adapt the highly successful Limmud educational project which had begun in the United Kingdom in 1980, for Russian- speaking Jews across the world. Over the last decade and more, Limmud FSU has brought opportunities for Jewish learning and engagement, as well as a sense of identity, to over 55,000 people in four continents and dozens of venues, through its outreach programs of Jewish education, history, traditional and religious sources, literature, theater, poetry, music, dance, cuisine, folklore, Jewish identity and Zionism, aimed at an audience of all levels of prior Jewish knowledge – or none. All this is based on a volunteer-run series of pluralistic, egalitarian, non-denominational conferences and festivals aimed at Russian-speakers of all ages – but especially the younger generation which 10 was deprived of its Jewish background for so long and who may now provide a new generation of Russian-speaking Jewish leaders. I too, have had the pleasure of participating and speaking in Limmud events – in the United Kingdom, the USA and of course in Israel. The Limmud festivals are unique happenings that unite all of us, whatever our different levels of observance or knowledge of Judaism and Jewish life and culture may be. For this, Limmud FSU deserves our warmest gratitude and appreciation. Long may its current educational work and promotion of a sense of Jewish unity and pride continue to flourish. 11 INTRODUCTION Outside, the cold intensifies; inside the atmosphere is boiling over. An anonymous hand draws a Star of David on the steam-covered window pane. Another hand adds “Jew” and a third adds “Jerusalem,” and draws a line linking “Jerusalem and “Vitebsk.” The last hand confuses me. It belongs to what appears to be a Hassid with a kippa on his head, but he is dancing in a circle on this Shabbat eve to the electrifying music. His pious wife, in a white beret, is wildly dancing in the circle and holding hands with two men, neither of whom are her husband.