Minsk

I’m here in Minsk, Belarus, getting ready to help in the staffing of the Campaign Chairs and Directors Mission (CCD) of the Jewish Federations of North America.

Minsk is beautiful. It’s clean, wide, and friendly, safe at night and the food is great.

Most of all, I've been impressed by the professionalism and passion of my colleagues who are working here.

We spent the day yesterday in prep briefings, preliminary socioeconomic tours (supermarkets, etc) and site visits. The aim will be to inspire, guide and lift the annual campaign of our federations in the year ahead. Looking at the quality of itinerary, the programs and – most importantly – the people here – I think it’s going to be great.

A Match Made in Szarvas

Quite possibly the cutest video from Szarvas I've ever seen ...

Barbi Pasternàk-Szendy and Andràs Pasternàk met at Szarvas, the pioneering international Jewish camp JDC runs with the help of the Ronald S. Lauder Foundation, in the early 1990s. First arriving in the camp in the Hungarian countryside as staff members in 2001, the two became close friends before beginning to date and eventually becoming engaged. For this couple whose love story is inextricably linked to their life-changing Jewish immersion experience at Szarvas, there was no better place to celebrate their union than the camp itself.

It's going to be an amazing mission

I’m getting ready to go this weekend to Minsk, Belarus, for the Campaign Chairs and Directors (CCD) Mission with the Jewish Federations of North America. 

Belarus has fascinated me for a long time, because in so many ways, it’s a microcosm of the Jewish world. 

In every meaningful way – the challenges, the expectations, the horizons – what we see in Minsk is what’s happening around the Jewish world today.

Before the 1917 Soviet revolution, millions of Jews lived in Russia and the Pale of Settlement. 

Most of them lived pretty autonomous lives, set apart from their non-Jewish neighbors. 

Even secular Jews had a decent knowledge of Jewish tradition. But in the seventy years following the revolution, generations were cut off from Jewish tradition and memory.

With glasnost, the opening of society in the late 1980s, it was clear that there was no community, no organized Jewish life. JDC’s Minsk offices, opened in 1922 and closed by Stalin in 1931, were finally reopened in 1990; the first task was to locate and reach out to those Jews who were scattered throughout Belarus. Even though so many (and davka those with the most developed Jewish identities) left for Israel, Europe and the US, within just a few years there were synagogues, community programs, a Hesed program and much more.

And today, like in so many countries around the world, JDC does three things in Belarus:

(1)   We bring Relief to the poorest and most vulnerable Jews, with food, medical support, home care and other programs for thousands of elderly, struggling young families, youth at risk and the disabled.

(2)   We work for the Renewal of Jewish life with camps, retreats, celebrations, community festivals and more.

(3)   We develop tomorrow’s Jewish Leadership with programming and training.

It’s going to be an amazing mission.

Brain Spa

This was a really moving visit.

How do we prevent or delay cognitive impairment?

It turns out that almost a fifth of elderly Israelis (65+) suffer from cognitive impairment and dementia.  Since our brains are flexible and we can learn new skills, (well, you know, so they tell me), you can treat people and prevent further deterioration.

I went to see how we can help elderly Israelis suffering from cognitive deterioration. JDC-ESHEL has a workshop teaching new skills and exercises to stimulate the brain, enhance cognition and improve memory. 

"Brain Spa" is at ten day care centers for the elderly.

The staff from each center take part in a 40 hour training course to become program facilitators, and they lead weekly workshops over the course of nine months involving discussions, imagination, movement, coordination and the use of computers for exercises. Participants’ cognitive functioning is evaluated before and after completion of the program.

The average age in Shilo HaCarmel Elderly Day Center in Haifa, a longstanding JDC partner, is 85. There are some 100 participants who come for a full day of activities, and Brain Spa is the JDC-Eshel program we’re launching there. It’s part computer-program and part therapy group. I went to the therapy group to chat with the participants.

I’m sitting in a quiet relaxed room with seven lovely women.

We’re doing some deep-breathing and relaxation exercises, a bit of meditation with our eyes closed, and the madricha (counselor) has some (very) relaxing music in the background. 
We go all over the body, relaxing muscles.

When we’re back together and awake (who nodded off? I'm proud to report that I stayed awake, comfortable though it was) we have a chat with the ladies.

Everyone laughs when I start talking to them in Hebrew (they were expecting an American visitor but didn’t know I’m from Israel too). Photographs of small children are passed around, my marital status is discussed, and my "elegant" Hebrew intonation and vocabulary are praised and corrected at the same time.

And then we go round and talk about what we thought about when we were meditating. Rachel, who’s sitting across from me, tells the group that last week she fell at home, had to go to hospital. “I was in pain and they put me on a stretcher there. My feet were cold. The stretcher-bearer spoke all the time in Arabic and ignored me, so at one point I said to him, chamud (sweetie), can you help me with my shoes. It’s the first time in seventy years that I've said ‘kondara’ (shoes) … I've forgotten that word since I was a little girl. But I remembered the word this week.”

All this led to a conversation about remembering things, our short-term and long-term memories.  We go around the table talking about how we remember some things and not others. Chana remembers as a little girl - eighty years ago - going down to Eilat and diving into the sea from the bridge – what colorful fish there were there. And how we threw them some bread.

With age, long-term memory strengthens.

We do a round of remembering names and faces. This is increasingly difficult but really important. The madricha takes out a foam ball, they’re all laughing as they throw the ball (roll it) to each other. Then you have to say the name of the person you’re rolling to. And so on.

By the age of 75, half of the elderly suffer from some form of cognitive impairment. 
These kind of groups are really critical.

This is the first generation

This is a period of massive change and turmoil in Bedouin Israeli society. So many are moving from traditional to modern life.

It’s not an easy transition. There are gaps between age-groups; there are massive cultural and tribal obstacles. Bedouin youth today is very different from their parents, with vastly different exposures to other cultures.

The question in Bedouin society has become, who is the ‘socialization agent,’ on what values do they raise their children.

One of the most fascinating visits I've ever had to an Arab-Israeli program was to Hesegim (‘achievements’) in the Bedouin town of Rahat. It’s a program that provides higher education counseling to young adults in the periphery (geographically or socially speaking).

When you live in the periphery, your access to higher education is going to be very difficult.  And that means your chances at getting a good job are limited too.

So we have Hesegim, which works in 44 locations (hopefully expanding to more) through government and local partnerships.  In each location a single dedicated Higher Education Counselor in the JDC Young Adult Center recruits and counsels young adults to enter higher education, helps them choose a career path, prepare for higher education and secure scholarships and financing to make it possible. 

What I find interesting is that the work impacts not only the young adults themselves, the ones that receive help. It also raises awareness to higher education among their peers, families and younger brothers and sisters. For example, it makes a college degree seem more attainable.

Each year the higher education coordinators from Hesegim reach out to some 20,000 young adults who either weren't planning or weren't preparing for higher education.

So I walked around Rahat … a city with 55,000 residents. 60% are aged under eighteen!

20% of the boys of Rahat go to university; almost 70% of them drop out!

There are 11 tribes and 60 chamulot (extended tribal families) but people have different feelings of belonging. Residents I spoke to said that there are different layers of identity, but very little sense of belonging to the city.

Hesegim, to achieve higher education in Arab society, began with the geographic periphery and then understood that peripheries were also social and demographic. So the coordinator works in various levels: with individuals to provide escort/support, within the community to raise awareness about higher education, and to connect to academic institutions, making sure that expectations are coordinated.

I sat with three volunteers in the program, who explained that the three main obstacles to Bedouin youth are the psychometric exam, financial resources and English. The young people here feel they fall on these issues; many therefore go to Jordan, the West Bank or the US and have a better chance of success there. There are 220 Rahat students studying in Hebron, for example. If you come from a wealthier family, you have means and that makes it easier to make choices.

Nidal, the coordinator, told me that Hesegim has been a success story; but the economic obstacles are still critical. We've been very successful in helping people find and obtain stipends and grants. Sometimes they need a small push from us, a letter, a phone call. Guidance is critical.

Nidal spends his day going into the schools to give guidance and counseling. He identifies and helps with finding loans – there aren't enough resources for these students. If you didn't do the army or national service it’s very difficult to get grants or stipends. He works to prepare students for psychometric courses and English courses. And he’s simultaneously trying to encourage deeper leadership and volunteerism in the community.

“Our society is undergoing a complex process,” he says. “Because this is the first [Bedouin] generation in higher education, and the effect will last for generations.”

Not Nice People

Mishmarot Street, in the Musrara neighborhood of Jerusalem, is maybe one of the most important streets in Israel. I went for a walk there on Shabbat, and stood right on the edge of the neighborhood.

Musrara (sometimes called Morasha) is right in the middle of Jerusalem, between the Old City, Meah She’arim and the Municipal center. Today it’s importance lies – among other reasons – in how increasing gentrification and the influx of immigrants have changed the neighborhood dynamics. There’s amazing street art and beautiful architecture, alongside neglected areas and rundown buildings. Every stage of architecture, from the last 130 years, is there. And there’s some fascinating cultural buildings and installations.

But what made Musrara’s name was what happened in the 1960s and 70s there.

With the massive housing shortage after the establishment of the State, thousands of new olim (immigrants) were moved into Musrara, which was right on the border with Jordanian-held Jerusalem. They were subject to daily attacks from Jordanian snipers, the neighborhood was rundown and many streets were basically open sewers.

On Mishmarot Street, also an open sewer through the 1970s, a group of second-generation Mizrachi Jews founded the Israeli Black Panthers. They were a protest group against all the injustice and discrimination by the Government, the lack of respect, the alienation and more. There were demonstrations, riots, and significant community organizing.

After meeting with Prime Minister Golda Meir, she famously called them, “not nice people.”

The events in Musrara, and the exposure of discrimination and alienation in Israeli society among more vulnerable Israelis, were critical, I think, in helping us get to where we are today.

Druze excellence

Meeting Yifat was a rare treat.

She is the founder and Director of “IT-Works,” which partners with JDC to help Arabs in Israel find quality hi-tech jobs, especially in the Druze sector. The program is called "Excel HT" (as in: "excel in hi-tech")

Many Druze Israelis who get a university-level education don’t succeed in getting great jobs. 
There are several reasons for this:

(1)   They don’t have the connections to Israeli business networks (networking, etc) and they don’t have a real community leadership that can connect them to these business networks.

(2)   There aren’t enough role-models for them: there are lots of Arab-Israeli teachers, so people assume that this is what you’ll become.

(3)   There's still discrimination (I sat with Amran, who’s in charge of the Leadership Track of this program. She told me a story that I’d heard in various forms in other circumstances – she and a Jewish friend sent their resumes out to various hi-tech firms. Her friend got callbacks. She didn’t).

(4)   So … therefore there’s a vicious cycle. They're not trying, so there’s very little chance of success.

The Excel HT program is a JDC partnership with the Prime Minister’s Office and other generous supporters. We’re helping 150 young Druze and Circassians each year find employment with training. Their first year had 83% placement! 
The Leadership track – an amazing partnership with the Ruderman Foundation, takes ten students each year as role-models, with 100% placement, in leading hi-tech companies.

Five years ago there were only two Druze from the town of Julis in hi-tech careers. Now there are 12.

These new recruits are role models. Excel HT trains them, guides them, supports them. They are ambassadors for change in their own communities.

Israeli-Arabs are 20% of the population but only give us 0.5% of the hi-tech sector. And at a conservative count there must be at least 8,000 open hi-tech positions waiting to be filled.

It’s a missed opportunity for everyone. 

Especially because there are almost no Arab women in hi-tech. Nearly every Arab woman who is working in hi-tech has been placed there by Excel HT ...

Walking on the grass (when it wasn't there)

The thing she remembers most, Rachel says, is walking on the ‘grass’ in the center of the neighborhood, and her feet sinking into the sewer and open sewage. This shouldn’t be happening in modern Israel.

We’re walking in the Herzl neighborhood of Kiryat Malachi, perhaps one of the most difficult neighborhoods in the South of Israel, certainly it has the most challenging socioeconomics in the region. The neighborhood has a total of 21 large apartment buildings, with almost 3,000 households.

I’m walking with a colleague of mine, Rachel, who is the Better Together coordinator. Better Together is a platform, on which we can build stronger communities for youth at risk, especially Ethiopian-Israelis. And Kiryat Malachi was the pilot, some eight years ago, when Rachel came and did her first walking tour of the neighborhood.

Rachel went with spirit and determination from house to house and persuaded residents to join residential housing committees (ועדי בית), she brought them to meetings, introduced them to each other … because in a neighborhood filled with crime, despair and neglect, no one was talking to each other, there was hostility, vandalism, drugs and more. Kids were hanging out at night with nothing to do, taking drugs, drinking alcohol, in holes in the neighborhood [at first we thought she meant holes metaphorically, but then she explained – real holes, dug into buildings] smoking.

We’re walking in this lovely neighborhood now … where local activists, set up and empowered through Better Together, have beautified the gardens, worked together to lobby the municipality for services, and run programs and services that bring together immigrants, the poor, the different sectors of the community. Lots of enrichment programs, community building services, early-childhood projects.

From the apartment buildings, people used to throw their trash out from the windows. The main road sides of the building had trash reaching the second floor.

We brought all the departments together to one table, Rachel says. All the activists, everyone. In the past no one worked together. Now we sit together and listen to the needs of the community. The mayor is very interested and involved. It’s never happened before. They were surprised at first that the municipality got so involved – at first they said, why, there aren’t elections due right now. It’s established credibility for the municipality among the residents. Greater change; greater involvement.

Last week Rachel pulled ten building-residents together for cleaning and beautification of the neighborhood..

Rachel organized a clean-up campaign. Everyone helped, cleaned, painted, did gardening, planted seeds. They used to throw their trash out of the window into the road. Now there's neighborhood pride, organization, advocacy with the municipality.

There's a nice open grassy area between the buildings now, (in the photo at right). People picnic there.

Before Better Together started, it was a mound of trash. It took three massive dump trucks to clear out all the trash.

Moked ...

This is one of my favorite programs. It's such a simple, clear idea. But it has massive impact. And every time I visit, in any location, I always walk away amazed at how people's lives are enriched and ennobled by simple things.

Moked is an amazing, unique program in many Hesed buildings that gives services to our elderly / at-risk clients for repairs, equipment loans and more.

There’s nothing quite like the Moked program anywhere outside of Hesed in the former Soviet Union. In some places in Ukraine, the State comes to Hesed and asks for Moked support.

In Dnepropetrovsk, for example, 1400 clients use the Moked service; they get walkers, walking sticks, toilet seat frames and bedsore mattresses (these can get really expensive) for the chronic bedridden clients. They have a tailor and a barber.

  

In Hesed Yehoshua, in Tashkent, Uzebekistan, the Moked program has 24 different types of equipment for loans.

Some Moked programs can send repairs to your apartment for things like TV sets, fridges, radios, locks. And others can assist with bath and toilet rails. The idea isn’t only to provide our clients with basic necessary equipment, but also to raise their quality of living.

It raises them from more dependence to more independence. About 60,000 clients receive free Moked services. 

Every year.

Everything is run by volunteers. And everything is free.

Three Minute Primer on Jewish Elderly in the former Soviet Union

A colleague from a Jewish federation asked me the other day about the elderly Jews in the former Soviet Union, how we got to where we are, and what the needs are going to look like in the coming years. All in three minutes ...

So here's the basic idea (and I'll try to do some more down the line):

As the caseload has aged (thanks to the help the elderly get from Hesed), their needs have changed ... they are less mobile, more sickly, and more isolated.  

Given the fact that there is virtually no institutional care, these clients become home-bound, without the resources needed to care for them
-no one to cook
-no one to clean
-no one to shop
-no one to pick up their medicines, etc.

On the scale of need - these people really are at the top.  So, as we have done from the onset of our re-entry in to the FSU, we have made the program sensitive to the greatest needs of those who depend on us. 

To give it broader context, we started out in the early 90's with food distribution as the primary function of Hesed.

As medicines became harder to secure, we added them to the mix, recognizing that from a limited pension, food and medicine were the two most expensive and critical items. 

About six years ago we graduated into food cards, which allowed the elderly to choose their individual mix of food and medicine by using the equivalent of a debit card, based on arrangements with supermarket and pharmacy chains, where possible.  

And about three years ago we started putting more of an emphasis on homecare, because this was emerging as the primary need.  

There is still, of course, a food/medicine distribution program, and food cards where these are available.  But the growth area is in homecare so that we can respond to the needs of the most vulnerable, especially in the former Soviet Union. And it's the support of our Jewish federations and donors that allow us to reach out to these most vulnerable, in several thousand locations, on a daily basis, to bring them food, medicine and homecare.

We try to find as many opportunities as possible to say thank you. But if you're reading this, and you're one of those generous donors, or federation donors, then you should know how grateful we, and the clients whose lives you're saving, really are.

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