78.  The Masorti or Conservative movement does not support a rabbi in Ukraine (or in Russia).  However, it has leased a program center in Kyiv for some years, and also operates a day school in Chernivtsi and a summer camp that, in recent years, has convened at a site near Kyiv.  All of its programs function under the supervision of Midreshet Yerushalyim, the Russian-language division of the Jerusalem-based Schechter Institute, the academic and administrative center of the Masorti/Conservative movement in Israel.  A Russian-speaking rabbinical student at the Schechter Institute visits the Kyiv program occasionally and is expected to assume rabbinic responsibilities there following ordination.

The writer spoke with Diana Gold, director of the Kyiv Masorti center and a graduate of the Masorti day school in Chernivtsi.  Ms. Gold was aware that the Schechter Institute is terminating its lease on the Masorti center at the end of June; although the premises are crowded (тесно), its three activity rooms enable Masorti to operate four ulpan classes, a Sunday school enrolling 30 youngsters, aJewish cinema club, Israeli dance classes, a Marom student club attracting15 students, and other activities, including holiday celebrations. Ms. Goldwould like to add computer classes to the program. The future of the movement in Kyiv, she said, depends on the availability of suitable premises and Ms. Gold is uninformed about Masorti plans to acquire such space.

Diana Gold, a native of Chernivtsi, directs the Masorti center in Kyiv.

Photo: the writer.

In addition to uncertainty about program premises for the following year, Ms. Gold also was unable to confirm that the movement would sponsor its summer camps for youngsters between the ages of 11 and 16 (Ramah Yachad) and for families with younger children in the summer of 2009.  The cost of renting the camp site, providing food, stocking medicines, and other camp components has risen during the past year, said Ms. Gold.

The majority of individuals active in Masorti programs in Kyiv probably could be described as “working poor,” responded Ms. Gold to a question.  Some have credit problems and others have been victims of crime that is a product of the economic crisis.  She estimated that actual unemployment in Ukraine is about 25 percent, exacerbated by the return to Ukraine of citizens who had migrated to western Europe in search of work; few such employment opportunities remain.  Althoughshe isan optimist, stated Ms. Gold, many other people are very pessimistic about the future in Ukraine. 

 Shown at right are about half of the members of one of four ulpan classes, each of which meets at the Masorti center for two 90-minute classes each week.  The Jewish Agency provides the teacher and text books.

Photo: the writer.

Welfare

79.  Whereas the Kyiv hesed previously served 14,000 clients, it now serves only 12,000, a decline that reflects the rising cost of welfare services, said hesed director Dimitry Donskoi.  The majority of clients – approximately 10,600 - reside in Kyiv itself, he continued, and the remaining 1,300+ live in various outlying areas.  Those receiving aid are Jewish elderly and other Jews with chronic needs. 

Almost 1,200 people receive patronage or home assistance, 1,100 in Kyiv and the others in smaller towns outside the capital.  They are served by about 300 home care workers, said Mr. Donskoi, of whom about 200 are well-qualified.  The job is physically taxing and lacks prestige; although it might be expected that the economic crisis would drive better-trained individuals into the field, this is not necessarily the case, Mr. Donskoi commented.

Regarding nutrition programs, the dining room at the hesed has been closed.  It became too expensive to prepare and serve kosher meals, stated Mr. Donskoi.  Initially, the hesed contracted with a Turkish company to prepare non-kosher meals, but their service was unsatisfactory so the dining room was shut down.  About 2,800 people in Kyiv receive discount cards that can be used at any of nine stores in the city; 450 people in the region receive such cards for use at specific shops.  The value of such cards is about $7 monthly for people who live alone and $9.50 for families, said Mr. Donskoi.   A commercial firm now has a contract to prepare and deliver about 300 meals on wheels, Mr. Donskoi related, including meals delivered to the hesed for consumption by participants in the hesed day center program.  This service is very expensive, he added.

The day center program enrolls 29 groups in Kyiv itself and five groups in the region outside Kyiv.  All come to the hesed in groups of about 26 individuals once every eight to ten weeks for general medical services, hair care and manicures, arts and crafts, social programs, and hot meals.  They are transported between their homes and the hesed in buses accommodating 26 to 36 individuals.

The hesed continues to operate 12 warm homes, three on the right bank of the Dnipr River and nine on the less affluent left bank.  Eight to 12 elderly Jews attend a twice-weekly warm home in a participant’s apartment; tea and cookies are served.  Mr. Donskoi commented that the demand for warm homes is extremely high in remote neighborhoods where few socializing opportunities exist.

The hesed building itself remains a major problem for the Joint Distribution Committee, said Mr. Donskoi.  It was built as a two-story preschool in the1960’s and has very narrow corridors that may have been appropriate for small children, but are uncomfortable for adults.  JDC added a third story in 1996, but the roof was improperly constructed and has leaked from the beginning.  Condensation has been a constant issue and mold forms on the walls.  The building also needs new windows, a renovation that might reduce its very high heating costs.[122]

 Dmitry Donskoi, left, is director of the JDC hesed in Kyiv.

 Photo: the writer.

 Mr. Donskoi concluded by saying that he expects the needs of Jewish elderly to increase.  People are living somewhat longer and thus becoming more frail.  Whereas some previously received financial assistance from their adult children, they now feel compelled to contribute some of their pension money to their grown children who may be out of work.  The first priority of the hesed, said Mr. Don-skoi, should be augmenting assistance for the purchase of food and medicine, two items that have become very expensive.

80.  The Home for Assisted Living sponsored by Rabbi Yaakov Bleich currently accommodates 32 elderly Jewish men and women on the second and third floors of a six-story building, a decrease in census from the 36 who were residents during the writer’s most recent previous visit in February 2008.  Four of the residents pay monthly fees; most of the others transferred the apartments in which they had been living to an organization that sold them and used the earnings to establish an endowment fund that provides income for client support.

Two of the remaining four floors are intended for future occupancy by Jewish elderly, but remain vacant for lack of financial subsidy.  Commercial tenants who had occupied the sixth and most of the fifth floors have left the building as their fortunes declined during the economic crisis, thus depriving the Home of needed revenue.  Discussions with potential new tenants, said Rabbi Bleich, have convinced him that he needs to install a separate entrance and elevator to properly serve the needs of businesses; it is possible, he continued, that he has found a client for the sixth floor who may share the costs of making such changes to the building.

Pending additional income from commercial clients on the fifth and six floors, the two remaining residential floors are rented to Jewish groups for Shabbatonim and seminars.  When fully occupied by elderly residents, the total capacity of the building will be approximately 85 people in 65 apartments on four floors. Forty-six units are large studio apartments intended for one person. The remaining 19 are one-bedroom units in which two people could reside comfortably. Each unit has a bathroom and a fully-equipped kitchenette and dining area. The ground floor has an institutional kitchen and dining room seating 75 people, variousactivity rooms, a suite of medical offices, and several staff apart-ments. 

The Kyiv Home for Assisted Living is located in a pleasant residential area of Kyiv near public transportation.

 Photo: Rabbi Bleich’s office.

In additional to the residential facility, Rabbi Bleich continues to operate a day center on the ground floor that JDC started and then abandoned.  He found a donor, said Rabbi Bleich, who provides funds for 150 Jewish elderly to attend a program three days each week in which they receive a hot lunch and participate in various activities.  Some participants live close enough to the building to walk to it and others come by public transportation. 

Four Residents at the Home for Jewish Elderly in Kyiv

 Anna Abramovna Butrim (top left) was born in the village of Dunaivtsi, Kamianets-Podil’skyi region, in 1920.  A trained nurse, she left for the front on the first day of the war in 1941.  Her husband served 30 years as a pilot in the Soviet air force; she followed him wherever he was transferred.  He died from radiation poisoning that she attributes to the Chernobyl disaster.  Their only child, a son, was a musician who died as a young adult.  She is very satisfied at the Home; it is like a big family there, she said.

 Tamara Alekseevna Lukash (top right) was born in Kyiv in 1932, daughter of a Jewish mother and Ukrainian father.  Her father, she said, managed to save her and her mother until 1942, when a neighbor exposed her mother.  Tamara stayed with friends some of the time, but life was very difficult in Kyiv during the war and she also slept on the street.  She was educated as a librarian and worked in on her profession in several different Ukrainian cities.  She is very pleased with conditions at the Home.

 Vladimir Haimovich Basovsky (bottom left) was born in Boguslov, Kyiv oblast, in 1924.  He was evacuated with his family to Kazakhstan in 1941, but joined the Red Army in 1943 in Belarus.  He served 33 years in the Soviet armed forces, retiring as a colonel in the finance division.  After his wife’s death in 1999, he lived near his brother, but the brother then died.  After first declaring that the Home was “not bad” (не плохо), he became more expansive, asking rhetorically, “What is not to like?”  He then listed the food, medical care, his own apartment, and companionship as being “very good,” and the staff as “well-organized.”

 Sofia Abramovna Yusipovich (bottom right) was born in the Podil district of Kyiv in 1925.  She worked as a translator at a medical station in Uzbekistan during the war and later worked for the railroads.  “Everything” is good at the Home, she said.  She enjoys living there.

Ukrainian Jewish Organizations

81.  The Association of Jewish Organizations and Communities of Ukraine, better known as the Ukrainian Vaad, is chaired by Iosif Zissels, a longtime community leader and observer in Ukraine.  The Vaad now occupies a suite of 14 rooms (offices, classrooms, two small auditoriums) in newly renovated premises at National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy (NaUKMA).  The modern quarters are provided free of charge, said Mr. Zissels, in return for services rendered by the Vaad to NaUKMA.  Individuals associated with the Vaad teach Jewish studies courses and provide expertise in contemporary Jewish life to 34 students, he explained.[123]

The Vaad program consists of four main components, continued Mr. Zissels.  First, it is a national organization representing the Jewish population in many areas related to the heritage of the Ukrainian Jewish population.  For example, it advocates for the restitution of confiscated Jewish property (probably 2,000 buildings) and monitors and attempts to care for almost 1,000 Jewish cemeteries and monuments.  It probably has some success with 800 cemeteries and one-third of the monuments, Mr. Zissels estimated.  It analyzes contemporary Ukrainian antisemitism and does archival research, although work in the latter field has been reduced due to declining financial resources. 

Second, continued Mr. Zissels, the Vaad works in the area of interethnic tolerance, focusing on organizing seminars for adolescents.  He works with Anatoly Podolsky of the Ukrainian Center for Holocaust Studies[124] in this endeavor.  Some of their efforts, Mr. Zissels said, are subsidized by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.

Third, the Vaad represents Ukrainian Jewry in a number of international Jewish forums, including the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress and the Jewish Agency for Israel.  Finally, said Mr. Zissels, the Vaad operates Jewish community programs in small Jewish population centers, focusing on summer camps for adolescents. 

Speaking about Ukrainian Jewry in general, Mr. Zissels estimated the Jewish population (according to the Israeli Law of Return) of Ukraine at 300,000 and the Jewish population of Kyiv at 60,000.  Although general xenophobia is a major problem in the country, Mr. Zissels stated, antisemitism has declined.  Responding to appeals from many Ukrainian government officials, MAUP (Міжрегіональна Академія управління персоналом or Interregional Academy of Personnel Management) is no longer pursuing an antisemitic agenda.  The number of annual antisemitic publications has declined substantially, and antisemitic attacks on people and property also have diminished, Mr. Zissels declared.