blogs/rabbi-joshua-hoffman

The afternoon of our first day continued with a visit to the home of 12 year old Daniil and his mother Sofia.  Sofia is raising Daniil all by herself and struggles every month to make ends meet.  She and Daniil knew nothing of the JDC,  the Beiteinu social services program,  or JAFI and their summer camp program, Tzror until a year ago, when a Jewish neighbor saw them struggling and recommended to them to get help.

When we met with them, things were still a struggle, but looking up.   Since the matter was extremely sensitive for Sofia, we avoided speaking about it throughout our visit.   We learned that Daniil is going to turn 13 on Sunday and of course we asked him if he would be celebrating a Bar Mitzvah.  He said no, but that he would be waiting for the summer.

He was referring to the time when he AND his mom will travel to a camp-like resort, sponsored by Federation and run by JAFI  for 10 days of total Jewish immersion. The unique experience of bringing the entire family for camp for 10 days each summer is one of the cornerstone successes to not only ensuring that the support these families receive is balanced with a sense of joy and hope, but also communicates the message that living a Jewish life is something possible and worthwhile.

So, while it was only slightly odd to see a decorated tree in their home when we visited that day (especially since we came to learn that the placement of a tree was not to celebrate Christmas but more of a secular embellishment in honor of the January new year) it was clear that Judaism and Jewish value was beginning to find its way into the home.  We saw a prominent "I Love Israel" sticker in the living space and pictures of holidays celebrated by Daniil and Sofia.

It would be naive to think that exposure to Jewish agencies and Jewish camps would be enough to ensure a vibrant Jewish community with thrive in Ukraine.  The work is arduous and highly individual.  Until a real community develops, one shaped by Ukrainian Jews for themselves, all these experiences merely open to doors of possibility.

That's why the group left our visit with Daniil and made our way to the JAFI community center, where we were greeted by Yakov Feitelson and his capable and passionate team of young adults whose sole responsibility is to inspire Ukrainian Jews to deepen their connection to Israel.  We met with small groups of families considering aliyah, young adults who had just returned from Taglit/​Birthright experiences, and we even met up with Daniil again to share with the rest of our delegation what the summer camp experience was like.

All this sharing culminated in one of the most extraordinary moments of the trip, certainly for me, and for my colleagues too, judging by the exuberant dancing to the newly-revived Klezmer music culture to the region.  In fact, when the music was playing, the rabbis began taking some of the children and placing them in chairs and lifting them up as a hora danced around the room!  Before I knew it, our friend Daniil was up in the chair and we were cheering and laughing as we circled around the room with our new friend up in the air.  He was going to have his Bar Mitzvah in time after all!  This community of North American rabbis ensured that this moment, fleeting for us, would forge an indelible memory in his life.  I walked over to his mother, Sofia, after we put Daniil back down and the dance was continuing.  I gave her a hug and she shed a tear.  Sofia, like so many of her generation and her parent's generation knew they were Jewish but were never able to celebrate, or lost their way as a consequence of Communism.  This generation appears seemingly aimless after the collapse of the Soviet Union.  If their were not nationalists, what were they?  They were Jews who had not functional memory of how Judaism really feels.  As the dancing continued, I leaned over to Sofia and said, "He will be a Bar-Mitzvah after all.  He will be a Bar-Mitzvah after all."  "Yes," she replied, with a big smile and a tear in her eye.

This mission was no longer clandestine or serendipitous. Our mission is to give support and hope that the Judaism the people of Kiev and Ukraine are discovering anew each day is filled with meaning and relevance and so much joy, all qualities and values we realized they may not have known they ever had available to them before.