Mr. Monastirsky expressed concern about the future financial viability of the Jewish Fund of Ukraine.  Its founder and onetime principal sponsor, Alexander Feldman, has moved on to establish and support the Ukrainian Jewish Committee (see below).  Oleg Grossman, a local businessman, is the new president; Mr. Grossman, said Mr. Monastirsky, pays the rent, utilities, and certain staff salaries for Kinor.  Some programmatic support is provided by the Joint Distribution Committee and several foreign foundations. 

The Jewish Fund of Ukraine, stated Mr. Monastirsky, tries to cooperate with all Jewish organizations in the country. It often permits other groups, such as Hillel and the Masorti movement, to use its large multipurpose room for meetings, celebrations, and/or performances.

73.  Mr. Monastirsky also directs the Jewish Forum of Ukraine, an organization that he compares, in part, to the World Congress of Russian-Speaking Jewry, a Moscow group.  The Forum, he said, is a “representative Jewish umbrella organization” for “a new generation of Ukrainian Jewish leaders,” including Ukrainian Jewish leaders in the diaspora.  Mr. Monastirsky estimates that 800,000 to one million Jews all over the world have roots in Ukraine.

Mr. Monastirsky believes that Ukrainian Jews in Ukraine and in the diaspora can work together to build organized Ukrainian Jewish life in the future.  A leadership training program called Shorashim, supported by UJA-Federation ofNew York, organizes leadership develop seminars forJews from throughout Ukraine.  Some women in the program, he continued, have come from ORT KesherNet classes, a collaborative project of ORT and Project Kesher that teaches computer skills to Jewish women.  Already, continued Mr. Monastir-sky, 120 people from throughout Ukraine have completed the Shorashim program.

Arkady Monastirsky, right, directs several Jewish organizations in Kyiv.

Photo: the writer.

Among the projects already supported by the Jewish Forum are a Sunday school enrolling 65 youngsters in Korsun-Shevchenko, traveling exhibits on Ukrainian Jewish history and on Anne Frank, and several Holocaust commemorative events.  The Jewish Forum works with Iosif Zissels (see below) and Dr. Leonid Finberg in mounting such exhibits and commemorations.  A possible future project, said Mr. Monastirsky, might be support of a small museum that the remaining Jews of Ostrog (in Rivne oblast) want to develop for the display of Holcaust artifacts; this small community, he continued, already possesses a suitable community building that was returned to them in a restitution process.

In addition to support from UJA-Federation of New York for the Shorashim leadership program, the Forum also has received grants from the Rothschild Foundation Europe, Natan, and several local Jewish businessmen.  Mr. Monastirsky hopes that the Forum will be able to generate support from Jews of Ukrainian origin now residing outside Ukraine.

Over and above the Jewish Foundation of Ukraine and the Jewish Forum of Ukraine, Mr. Monastirsky has undertaken a number of other responsibilities in the country.  He is President of an umbrella organization for non-governmental organizations (NGO’s) in Ukraine that speaks for 75 large and small groups focusing on education, women, youth, and/or Jews in Ukraine. He also represents Ukraine in People to People International, an organization established by U.S. President Dwight David Eisenhower in 1956 and now directed by his granddaughter, Mary Eisenhower, and is a vice president of B’nai Brith in Ukraine.

Rabbinic Presence

74.   Rabbi Yaakov Dov Bleich, a native of Brooklyn and a Karlin-Stolin hasid, is the official Chief Rabbi of Kyiv and Ukraine.  He arrived in the country in 1989 and presides over the Great Choral Synagogue[110] in the Podil district of Kyiv, an area of significant Jewish population prior to World War II.  In the 20 years that he has served in Kyiv, Rabbi Bleich has developed a number of Jewish community institutions, including the Orach Chaim day school, homes for children from unstable families, a summer camp, an assisted living residential center for elderly Jews, a matza factory, the Jewish Confederation of Ukraine, the Union of Jewish Religious Organizations of Ukraine, and the Kyiv Jewish Religious Community.

 Rabbi Yaakov Dov Bleich is seen at left.

Photo: http://viknaodessa.od.ua/eng/?rabbi.  Retrieved June 10, 2009.

Rabbi Bleich’s native English and familiarity with American culture have facilitated easy access to American representations in the Ukrainian capital.  He also represents Ukrainian Jewry in the European and World Jewish Congresses as well as in other international Jewish organizations.  Yet he is increasingly an outsider, a Karlin-Stolin hasid in a country in which Jewish religious life is dominated by Chabad.  Further, Rabbi Bleich travels frequently, attending to family matters, fundraising, and appearances at international conferences.  His absence, compounded by ongoing economic developments, is felt within his own institutions in Kyiv.  His various umbrella organizations have shriveled, his publications have ceased, and his day school is withering.

Rabbi Bleich stated that the current economic crisis has had serious consequences for his operations.  His own local fundraising has diminished by 70 percent, from over $1 million to about $300,000 annually.  Even wealthy individuals, he said, lack confidence in the future and are reluctant to contribute to charitable causes.  He has been unable to raise funds for the completion of the new community/cultural center adjacent to the synagogue.

The Great Choral Syna-gogue, center, is flanked by

a new education building on the left and a  new community building on the right.

Photo: the writer.

The Vladimir Shifrin Education Center, built on the left side of the synagogue, is host to a yeshiva and dormitory rooms for 30-35 yeshiva students, a heder for boys (up to age 13) from religious families, apartments for staff, and a dining hall and kitchen.  The community/cultural building on the right remains unfinished; it is to contain a large multipurpose hall for community events, a kosher restaurant, a small hotel (16-20 rooms), a mikveh, and a store selling kosher food and Judaica items.  Although Alexander Rodnyansky, a Kyiv communications magnate, has provided a major gift for the community/cultural building, additional funds are required for its completion.  The interior remains empty and some work on the exterior also remains to be done, said Yevgeny Ziskind, Executive Director of Rabbi Bleich’s operations.  Further, said Mr. Ziskind, Rabbi Bleich has yet to obtain official permits for the yeshiva, heder, dormitory, and apartments, even though all of these ventures have been active for some months.  Mr. Ziskind said that the immediate need is to secure sufficient funds to completely close the exterior of the community building and to connect its plumbing and heating.

A Jewish student club that formerly met on the upper floors of Rabbi Bleich’s assisted living center now meets in the basement of the synagogue and attracts 40 to 50 students to most of its functions.  Many of the students are graduates of the Orach Chaim school.  However, said Rabbi Bleich, he is concerned about the future of this venture because its chief sponsor has given notice of a forthcoming reduction in funding.

In response to a question about his summer camp, Rabbi Bleich said that youngsters from 14 “Litvak” Jewish day schools in the post-Soviet states and eastern Europe will attend its 2009 sessions.  The camp has undergone serious renovation, said Rabbi Bleich, and even more modernizing will be done in future years.

Rabbi Bleich spoke again about his concept of creating a unified Jewish day school in Kyiv that would attract the families of Jewish youngsters in grades five through 12.[111]  He acknowledged that the current Orach Chaim school cannot succeed in its existing format.  Nonetheless, he continued, Orach Chaim graduates continue to do well in local and foreign universities and many are comfortable in such Jewish institutions as Touro College and Yeshiva University in New York.

75.  A native of St. Petersburg (then Leningrad), Chabad Rabbi Moshe Reuven Asman studied Judaism in an underground quasi-yeshiva as an adolescent, and then emigrated to Israel where he entered a standard yeshiva.  Rabbi Asman also studied and worked in Toronto, but never completed rabbinic studies according to Chabad standards and never received Chabad smicha (ordination). Nonetheless, he settled in Kyiv and became rabbi of the famed Brodsky Synagogue (the Main Choral Syna-gogue) even as the synagogue remained under the control of a puppet theater.

 Rabbi Moshe Asman, right, is seated next to Rabbi Menachem Deutsch, left, at the King David restaurant attached to the Brodsky Synagogue.  The restaurant, said Rabbi Asman does not earn a profit; it provides a kosher dining facility for local and visiting Jews.[112]

Photo: the writer.

Rabbi Asman presided over the removal of the theater and subsequent renovation of the synagogue. The synagogue building now contains an elegant prayer hall, a mikveh, a small kosher café and the King David kosher restaurant, a soup kitchen (partially subsidized by JDC), and an independent (non-JDC) welfare service operating from a fourth floor office suite. Rabbi Asman also supervises a small off-site day school and a residential program for at-risk children.

Reflecting both his lack of Chabad smicha and serious policy differences with the Federation of Jewish Communities (the Chabad umbrella group in the post-Soviet states that is funded by Lev Leviev and George Rohr), Rabbi Asman receives no support from FJC. Instead, he has attracted contributions from both local Jews and Russian-speaking Jewish émigrés in other countries. Until 2007, he received significant backing from Vadym Rabynovych, a wealthy local Jew who is persona non grata in the United States, Great Britain, and several other countries.[113]  A dispute between the two men focusing on attempts by Mr. Rabynovych to gain access to synagogue financial records led to a rupture in their relationship. Mr. Rabynovych, who had played a significant role in the engineered election of Rabbi Asman as a second Chief Rabbi (after Rabbi Bleich) in 2004, subsequently directed the withdrawal of Rabbi Asman’s title of Chief Rabbi.

Despite his questionable rabbinic qualifications and his loss of stature as a claimant to the position of Chief Rabbi, Rabbi Asman remains a visible figure in Kyiv Jewish life due to the prominence of the Brodsky synagogue. It is frequently visited by government officials and foreigners wishing to be seen in Jewish settings. Tourists and others are directed to the synagogue for Jewish religious observances.

Responding to a question about the impact of the current economic crisis, Rabbi Asman said that the economy has been in crisis for at least 15 years.  However, he acknowledged, the economic situation is becoming much worse.  He has had to cut salaries, he said, and has no plans for expansion of current programs or services.[114]  He no longer rents large facilities for celebrations without a specific sponsor or a partner with whom he is able to share expenses.  For example, he continued, he and Rabbi Bleich jointly rented the circus building for a common Purim celebration.  Without such partnerships or a sponsor, he will confine celebrations to the synagogue.

Rabbi Asman added that he, Rabbi Bleich, and the Federation of Jewish Communities have formed a coalition for negotiation with the Ukrainian government about the return to the Jewish community of confiscated Torah scrolls.  About 1,000 Torahs or parts of Torahs are at stake, he noted.  Discussions with the government are often difficult, recounted Rabbi Asman, because Ukrainian authorities perceive such Torahs as historical documents that are part of local Ukrainian culture, rather than holy texts essential to contemporary Jewish life.[115]  Nonetheless, Rabbi Asman continued, the government is very grateful for the unified Jewish approach because the Russian and Ukrainian Orthodox churches are always fighting over returned icons. 

76.  Rabbi Yonatan Markovich is a Chabad rabbi in Kyiv whose primary interest is the operation and expansion of a Chabad day school.[116]   Relatively well-educated and liberal, Rabbi Markovich avoids Jewish political entanglements.  He has a small following of local Jews with whom he worships, in addition to his responsibilities in Jewish education.

77.  The writer met with Progressive Rabbi Alexander Dukhovny and a husband/wife team of Progressive movement local leaders, Alexander and Alexandra Haydar, at the Hatikvah congregation and World Union for Progressive Judaism center in Kyiv.  Mr. Haydar is Executive Director of WUPJ in Ukraine, and Mrs. Haydar is President of the Hatikvah congregation.[117] The premises include a 60-person hall and several offices located in an apartment building.  Rabbi Dukhovny observed that the first-floor location is a major improvement over two earlier Hatikvah sites, both of which were in basements.

Forty Progressive congregations in Ukraine (including two in Lviv) are officially registered with WUPJ, said Rabbi Dukhovny.  Six to eight of the most viable groups receive financial support from the World Union, although the WUPJ recently reduced its overall funding to programs in the post-Soviet states by 40 percent, from $120,000 for all of Ukraine to $72,000.

Twenty congregations, continued Rabbi Dukhovny, benefit from sister-congregation relations with Reform/Progressive congregations in the West.  Several international foundations, including the Dutch Jewish Humanitarian Fund and the Rothschild Foundation Europe, support specific Progressive programs.  The Moscow-based Genesis Philanthropic Group supports Progressive summer camps.

All Ukraine Progressive congregations charge membership dues, usually 1.1% of a working person’s salary, Rabbi Dukhovny said.  Pensioners are excluded from dues responsibilities, but some elect to make small contributions.  Exceptions also are made for individuals and families who are impoverished.  Modest fees are charged for all special programs, including Shabbatonim.  A tzedekah box in each congregation also draws contributions.[118] 

The Progressive movement clearly needs to attract more business families, said Rabbi Dukhovny, observing that several business people have made contributions of about $1,000 each that enabled the Hatikvah congregation to purchase furniture for its new premises.  However, many local people need to see more substantive congregational property to feel secure and confident in Progressive Judaism.  Obviously, a suite in an apartment building cannot “compete” with the elegant buildings of choral synagogues.

In all, continued Rabbi Dukhovny, the 40 Progressive congregations in Ukraine own seven synagogue buildings and are served by two rabbis[119] and three para-rabbis.  (The latter have completed a two-year course of studies at a Moscow Progressive machon and an additional period in supervised internships.)  The movement sponsors 11 preschools throughout Ukraine, including two in Kyiv,[120] and eight Sunday schools.  Twelve Netzeryouth groups operate throughout Ukraine with 400 active teen members between the ages of 13 and 17.   A single WUPJ summer camp will serve 300 youngsters in one session this summer, instead of smaller separate camps in the different post-Soviet European states.

Left to right are Rabbi Alexander Dukhovny, Alexandra Haydar, and Alexander Haydar.  Mrs. Haydar is President of the Kyiv Hatikva con-gregation and Mr. Haydar is Eexcutive Director of WUPJ in Ukraine.

Photo: the writer.

Notwithstanding a deficiency of suitable buildings and budgetary constraints, the Progressive movement continues to grow in Ukraine, Rabbi Dukhovny stated.  Some new participants in small towns, he noted, previously supported Chabad, but left Chabad when that group reduced its programs in response to financial distress.  Chabad no longer appears vigorous in all of its locations.  He noted that the Jewish Agency in Kyiv works well with the Progressive movement in collaborative programs and that Rabbi Yonatan Markovich of Chabad will appear on the same platform with him.  Rabbi Yaakov Dov Bleich, Chief Rabbi of Kyiv and Ukraine, always greets him when they meet.  Leaders of indigenous Jewish groups also are cooperative, he said, citing Iosif Zissels in particular.  Mr. Zissels, said Rabbi Dukhovny, invited him to join the Ukrainian representation on the Board of the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress, an invitation that Rabbi Dukhovny has accepted.[121]

Regarding the Kyiv Hatikvah congregation in particular, Rabbi Dukhovny said that 400 to 500 people attend its events.  About 100 individuals are paying members of the congregation.