Rabbi Moskovitz raises almost all of his operating funds locally, having developed a Board of Directors consisting of 40 individuals who contribute a minimum of $1,000 monthly and a larger list of individuals who contribute smaller sums.  The Board, said Rabbi Moskovitz, has been outstanding in response to the current economic crisis; although one factory owner is no longer able to donate at all and several others have reduced their gifts, almost all have remained active and have participated in decision-making about cost containment.  Pay raises have been frozen, Rabbi Moskovitz noted, and some programs have been curtailed, but no activities have been eliminated.

More people are approaching the synagogue with requests for financial assistance, especially for medicines, said Rabbi Moskovitz.  Any imported product, including medicine, is much more expensive than previously because the value of the hryvnia has fallen and import taxes have increased.  The cost of utilities also has risen, continued Rabbi Moskovitz, noting that electricity will increase by a factor of four in April.  Chabad continues to operate several dining rooms for impoverished elderly Jews, even after the Joint Distribution Committee has withdrawn support; however, the dining rooms will be closed for Pesach and Rabbi Moskovitz is concerned about the nutrition needs of the diners during this period.  He could provide them with large food parcels, he said, but such parcels will be very difficult for many of the elderly to carry home.

Increasingly, said Rabbi Moskovitz, Jewish life is becoming more visible in general Kharkiv life.  The city will hold its first “Week of Jewish Culture” in April.  A lecture will be given each day in a university auditorium on a Jewish topic, such as “Torah and biology” or “Judaism and jazz.”   A prominent library will host a professionally-mounted exhibit on Jewish culture.  Apart from this designated week, Rabbi Moskovitz is giving occa-sional lectures in local universities and both schoolchildren and adults are visiting the synagogue on tours.

Rabbi Moshe Moskovitz is a native of Caracas.  Miriam Moskovitz was born and raised in Australia.

Photo: the writer.

55.  The Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America (OU; New York) assigns two young modern Orthodox Israeli rabbis to Kharkiv, each for a three-year term.  Historically, these rabbis focus on the work of the Orthodox Union youth center in downtown Kharkiv, rather than on building a Jewish community in the city.  The OU Center is located on a major street in the center of the city; its premises include a multipurpose room that serves as a prayer hall, several class and general activity rooms, a dining hall and kosher kitchen, dormitories,[84] and staff apartments.

Rabbi Benny Srur and Rabbi Yoni Nochum are fully aware that the Orthodox Union intends to terminate funding for the Kharkiv operation at the end of June.  They know that several other individuals, especially Rabbi Shlomo Assraf[85] of Israel, are searching for other sponsors, but they were uninformed about the progress of such efforts.  No one from the OU has been in Kharkiv for several years, said Rabbi Srur.

 Rabbi Yoni Nochum, left, is completing his first year in Kharkiv, and Rabbi Benny Srur is in his third year in the city.

Said Rabbi Nochum, “It feels like six years.”

Photo: the writer.

The two rabbis outlined the major activities of the youth/young adult center.  A morning yeshiva enrolls 10 male students in classes from 8:00 a.m. until 2:30 p.m.  Following their daily yeshiva study, these men attend classes in local universities for the rest of the day.  The best of these yeshiva students are encouraged to go to Israel on aliyah or in the MASA program to continue their Jewish education.  The center also sponsors a STARS program, enrolling 70 young men and women in separate classes.  The young people meet together twice weekly for social activities, a Beit Café in the middle of the week and dinner and socializing on Shabbat.  Several other classes are held throughout the week and individual students drop in for socializing and/or counseling.

The Orthodox Union also operates a co-ed summer camp for teenagers and young adults.  Over the years, the length of the camp has been reduced from three weeks to nine days.  Funding is still not secure for the 2009 season, said the two rabbis.  Due to financial constraints, participation in the summer camp by American Jewish teens enrolled in an OU travel camp no longer occurs.

Rabbis Srur and Nochum spoke proudly of the large number of Kharkiv OU alumni who have made aliyah to Israel since the OU program began more than 15 years ago.  Between 900 and 1,200 Kharkiv OU veterans are now in Israel, they said, and most have been very successful.  Rabbi Srur used to direct Beit Kharkiv, an OU center in Israel for such new immigrants; unfortunately, he said, the center closed five months ago for lack of funding.

Welfare

56. According to Boris Murashkovsky, who directs the JDC hesed in Kharkiv, it is “impossible” to live on income from a pension alone.  Inflation is severe, he said, noting that supermarket prices have increased 25 percent in recent months.  Unfortunately, he observed, JDC is reducing services to Jewish elderly just when these services are most needed.  Both the number of clients served and the extent of assistance offered has been cut back during the last several years.  About 8,000 Jews in the city receive “material services” from the local hesed, Mr. Murashkovsky said. The most broadly offered form of assistance isthe distribution of subsidized smart cards, which entitle the bearer to discounted prices at a chain of local supermarkets.  The 4,000 to 5,000 recipients of the smart cards, he said, must pay a fee for them, the precise amount dependent upon demonstrated need. 

Boris Murashkovsky, left, has directed the JDC hesed in Kharkiv for many years.

Photo: the writer.

About 1,100 elderly Jews receive patronage or home health care assistance, Mr. Murashkovsky continued.  In general, it now is easier to find patronage workers than it was several years ago because local economic conditions are so dire that more people are willing to do this unappealing type of work.  Patronage staff bathe and care for homebound clients, shop and cook for them, and clean their apartments. 

The hesed operates a day center program for Jewish elderly, receiving groups of 15 or 16 clients once monthly (four days each week) for very basic medical care, a hot meal, hair dressing services, and various social activities.  Special groups are organized for individuals who are blind or deaf, said Mr. Murashkovsky.  All clients are transported to and from the hesed by minibuses.

Other than hot meals served to patronage clients in their homes and day center clients at the hesed, JDC has been forced to terminate all dining room services in the city, responded Mr. Murashkovsky to a question.  He praised Rabbi Moskovitz for continuing to operate a soup kitchen for Jewish elderly, even after JDC had withdrawn a subsidy for the program, at the Chabad elementary school.  He is aware that Chabad provides additional nutrition services to individuals at the choral synagogue dining hall.

In addition to “material services” provided to about 8,000 clients, JDC also offers socializing experiences in the form of social gatherings and clubs to about 4,000 additional elderly Jews, said Mr. Murashkovsky.  Most of these individuals had received material aid previously, he noted, but they were cut from these programs due to budgetary constraints.

In addition to a general curtailment of various hesed services, continued Mr. Murashkovsky, another very serious problem is differentiation in service provision between those elderly who are Holocaust victims and those who either escaped the Holocaust (through evacuation) or are “young elderly” born after World War II.  The former receive additional services provided by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany; the latter are ineligible for these subsidies and thus receive a lower grade of assistance.  Those who do not receive the premium services are aware of their lesser benefits and deeply resent the privileges of their more advantaged counterparts.  Tension has erupted between the two groups of elderly, noted Mr. Murashkovsky, and sometimes becomes “extreme.”

Reminded that he had declared a need for a residential program for Jewish elderly in Kharkiv in the past,[86] Mr. Murashkovsky stated that about 50 current clients of the hesed required such assisted accommodations.  However, development of such a facility is “absolutely impossible” under current economic conditions, he said.

In addition to services for Jewish elderly, the hesed provides assistance to some 1,600 Jewish children, stated Mr. Murashkovsky.  Some such youngsters are developmentally delayed or have psychological problems, he said.  Others are being raised in conditions of severe impoverishment.  The hesed works with parents to find appropriate education programs, both general and Jewish, for their children, and also sponsors holiday celebrations for children and their families.  Food, medicine, and clothing may be provided to poor families, continued Mr. Murashkovsky.  Tutoring also is offered so that youngsters are able to pass entrance examinations for various educational institutions.  Professional training has been secured for some parents to enhance their employment options; for example, some have been trained as seamstresses, hair stylists, secretaries, or computer specialists.  In a few instances, Mr. Murashkovsky said, the hesed has secured grants from the Kharkiv municipality for such programs; the grants require that the activities be open to non-Jews as well.

National and International Organizations

57.  Oksana Galkevich is the Director of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee in Kharkiv.  Between 40,000 and 50,000 Jews live in Kharkiv and the surrounding area, she stated, using an estimate that some would consider very high.  In response to a question, Ms. Galkevich said that the official rate of local unemployment is nine percent, but the real rate is much higher.  Many factory employees are working only two or three days weekly, yet are considered employed, she noted.  Few are receiving the bonuses or supplemental allowances that previously were distributed routinely and were relied upon as expected income.  Many pensioners, she continued, are suffering because their adult children are no longer able to provide monthly assistance.

Joint, stated Ms. Galkevich, is trying to raise funds locally.  It has not been successful in obtaining support from local Jews, she acknowledged, because many local Jews focus their Jewish philanthropy on the synagogue.[87]  However, Joint has competed successfully for grants from the Kharkiv municipality and from foreign representations in Ukraine, including embassies in Kyiv.  Further, JDC encourages program components to approach such organizations as World Jewish Relief,[88] the Rothschild Foundation Europe, and the Dutch Jewish Humanitarian Fund.  JDC conducts research on the nature of grants offered by these groups and assists organizations in submitting applications.

Responding to a question about the future of the Jewish community in Ukraine, Ms. Galkevich observed that there is no “rooted Jewish culture” in the country.  Almost all Jewish culture had been destroyed by the Holocaust and 70 years of communism.  Nonetheless, she continued, a Jewish community is being re-built and will endure.  Many Jewish young people are active in Hillel, STARS, or the Jewish Community Center; they are developing their own volunteer programs, such as visiting lonely Jewish elderly or working as leaders for younger Jewish teenagers.  They volunteer to lead Pesach seders and other programs.

JDC organizes10-day family camps that acquaint Jewish families with various Jewish traditions that can be observed in family life.  Most camps, said Ms. Galkevich, are planned for middle class and lower-middle class families and are held in a resort at Yevpatoria (west coast of Crimea).  Families reach Yevpatoria by overnight train and pay 50 percent of the cost of such programs.  Different family camps are organized for families at-risk, she said.  Additionally, seven-day seminars are held for young adults, both singles and couples, between the ages of 18 and 35. 

Notwithstanding the six-pointed star on her necklace, Kharkiv-native Oksana Galkevich, Director of JDC in Kharkiv is not Jewish.  Her appointment is controversial within the Kharkiv activist Jewish population.

Photo: the writer.

58.  Because the Director of the Jewish Agency for Israel office was out-of-town during the writer’s visit to Kharkiv, no meeting was held with representatives of the local JAFI program.

59.  The writer met with three Kharkiv representatives of Project Kesher in the modern office of Sigma Bleyzer, a private equity firm that focuses on investment opportunities in the transition economies of Ukraine, southeastern Europe, and post-Soviet Central Asia.  The Project Kesher group in Kharkiv includes at least 150 women and may be the largest PK organization in all of Ukraine, said the women.

The Kharkiv PK group includes four different sections.  Svetlana Yurchenko, who works at Beit Dan, heads a section that is based there and focuses on Jewish tradition, women’s health issues, and the social status of girls and women.  Ms. Yurchenko, who is overall Project Kesher coordinator in Kharkiv, attended a Project Kesher leadership seminar in which she learned about leadership, organizational structure, planning, fundraising, and Jewish education.  Irina Bondarenko leads a group that meets at Hillel and is concerned mainly with issues of interethnic tolerance and children with disabilities.  Lena Nosareva heads the independent “Esther” group that pursues a multifaceted agenda.  A fourth group follows the Beit Binah model focusing on Jewish education; it is directed by Larisa Volovik and meets at the Kharkiv Holocaust Museum,[89] which Ms. Volovik also directs.

Project Kesher groups in Kharkiv also are concerned with the trafficking of women, AIDS prevention and toleranceof people with aids, and antisemitism.  They have participated in roundtable discussions of the rise of xenophobia and fascism in Ukraine.   They meet with their Project Kesher counterparts in Dnipropetrovsk and in Kyiv; the Kyiv group, they noted, focuses on relations with national organi-zations and with the Ukrainian government.

Three Project Kesher leaders in Kharkiv are (from left) Lena Nosareva, Irina Bondarenko, and Svetlana Yurchenko.

Photo: the writer.

The three women said that Project Kesher in Kharkiv does little local fundraising, relying on subsidies from Project Kesher’s home office in Illinois and grants from various Ukrainian and local women’s umbrella groups, foreign embassies in Kyiv, and international aid organizations.  Beit Dan, Hillel, and the Holocaust Museum provide meeting space and office equipment.

Miscellaneous

60.  Replacing a failed Egyptian-theme restaurant, the Shalom kosher restaurant attracts both Jewish and non-Jewish customers.  A private business, the owners found the Egyptian-theme decor too expensive to replace so diners consume kosher meals surrounded by images of pyramids and other symbols of Egypt and the Arab Middle East.

The Shalom kosher restaurant is attractively furnished with an Egyptian-theme decor.

Photo: the writer.