The
heart of Hesed is the library. There are 15,000 books. As we walk in to the
building, the “Savlanut” choir of older volunteers sings “Shalom Aleichem.” They
practice several times a week, for the past eight years. They appear in concert
all over the Jewish community and the wider city events.
We
meet with Inessa Chugainoa, the Hesed Director; we visit the elderly in the
Hesed
has 1500 clients in Almaty; all the work is done by 100 volunteers. As we come
into the main (tiny) hallway, they're busy packing food packages for the
homebound elderly.
The
literature club has been meeting for 13 years; it’s called “Mishpachat Shalom
Group.” There are four generations represented in the group, they meet every
two weeks.
Svetlana
(pink, in the center) is the volunteer director of programming.
The
group is reading a Danielle Steel book, “Echoes” about the Shoah; we spend some
time discussing its themes and meanings, what can they learn from it. Svetlana
summarizes the book for us and says how grateful the group is to the author for
writing this story.
We
live longer because of the day center, Svetlana says. Everyone here is from Ukraine , Poland ,
Russia Kazakhstan
In the
second room there's a photo exhibit run by the youth – with some terrific
photos. Sasha and Nataliya are in charge of the exhibit. Their hobby is
photography and they initiated this idea; they decided to go round taking
photos of the community, because they see the community as their family, then
the idea widened to others in the community, then outside Almaty, then
international to other countries. It’s incredibly inspiring. You talk to these
terrific young women and see the spark of Jewish community continuing.
In the
Day Center :
Ludmilla (purple shirt with
red hair) greets us, she was born in Dnepropetrovsk
That’s what they did. They built a life here.
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