People need people

My inspiring colleague Oksana and I spoke at the Jewish Federation of Greater Middlesex County earlier this month. The New Jersey Jewish News did a nice piece about our briefing there.

JDC officials describe Ukraine relief effort

by Debra Rubin
NJJN Bureau Chief/Middlesex

May 20, 2014

Despite months of turmoil, Ukraine’s Jews have continued to receive lifesaving medicine, food, and other vital services through the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.

“During the last five months we have never interrupted our services,” said JDC Ukraine Government Affairs director Oksana Galkevich.

Galkevich and JDC colleague Dov Ben-Shimon appeared May 2 at a leadership briefing at the South River offices of Jewish Federation of Greater Middlesex County. At the meeting, it was announced that the federation had made an emergency $11,700 donation to JDC, a federation partner, for its Ukrainian efforts.

Federation executive director Gerrie Bamira said the donation was made to “ensure the uninterrupted delivery of vital services to poor and isolated elderly Jews as well as at-risk children and their families. This ongoing partnership and relief effort is possible because of the generous donors in Jewish Middlesex.” 

Galkevich said JDC representatives have braved sniper fire, crossed dangerous checkpoints, and devoted countless extra hours to ensure the health and safety of Ukraine’s 300,000-350,000 Jews, 17,000 of whom live in Crimea, the area taken over by Russia in March.

The Kharkov native, who came to the United States to update her organization’s community partners, said that support has been stepped up at its hesed welfare and community centers in affected areas of the country. Security and food and medicine deliveries had been increased, additional counseling services provided, and a round-the-clock emergency phone chain had been set up to monitor clients. Additionally, situation rooms throughout the nation have been established to provide constant updates on the local situation even as contingency plans have been prepared in case of emergency. 

JDC operates 32 hesed centers in Ukraine, including three in Crimea, and serves Jews in more than 1,000 locations. 

“People are scared, and when they need someone to talk to they call or come to our hesed centers,” said Galkevich. “We thought with all the disorder, people would not come to the centers, but we were wrong. People need people. Our social workers try to comfort them.” 

Particularly vulnerable are the elderly who live on meager monthly government pensions and are suffering because of Ukraine’s devalued currency and sharp spike in prices for goods and services. She said many are survivors of the Holocaust and the privations of the communist regime.

“People literally have to make a choice between heart medication and a carton of eggs,” said Galkevich. “The JDC has such deep infrastructure, we were able to help every single person” who approached the centers, said Galkevich.

The aid given to the Jewish community has produced a situation rife with irony. Ben-Shimon, JDC’s director of strategic partnerships, said Jews tend to live longer than non-Jewish Ukrainians because of the food, medical, and homecare services made possible through the JDC and its partners in the North American federation system, but “they live longer, lonelier lives” because in many cases, their children have left the country.

And while there is “no institutional anti-Semitism on the state level or government level,” said Galkevich, widespread violence has left the community frightened.

“So far the Jews have not been targeted,” she said, but downtown Kiev “is in ruins” with cobblestones ripped from the streets for use as weapons. In Odessa, with 40,000 Jews — and where JDC serves 7,000 clients — a flare-up of violence between pro-Ukraine and pro-Russian factions has had a chilling effect on the population. 

Galkevich said JDC staff members are committed to continue serving their clients. She told the story of Irina, a homecare worker in Kiev who stayed at the home of one of her clients, a disabled Holocaust survivor terrified of spending the night alone.

Realizing she had another elderly client nearby who depended on her for meals, Irina cooked enough for both women. Between bursts of sniper gunfire from rooftops, Irina ran back and forth from one apartment to the other. 

In Sevastopol, a city with about 5,000 Jews on the Crimean peninsula, the hesed center remained the only “fully functioning” Jewish organization after the Russian invasion. Galkevich said its director gave every worker traveling to a client a signed letter explaining they were doing humanitarian work for the center. 

In a testament to its reputation, when the letters were shown to Russian soldiers turning away vehicles at roadblocks, many would say, “Ah, hesed — you can go through.”



 http://www.njjewishnews.com/article/22989/jdc-officials-describe-ukraine-relief-effort#.U30IDPldWyU

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Ukraine

My colleague Ofer Glanz reports ...

 " With increasing unrest and violence in Eastern and Southern Ukraine, I want to brief you on our continuing emergency efforts in those areas of the country. Rest assured that our remarkable colleagues — from JDC staff to Hesed employees to homecare workers — are tirelessly working around the clock to ensure the well-being of our clients and Jewish communities where they live and work.

      During this critical time, we have:

• activated our emergency contact system, communicating with clients on a 24-hour basis to assess their needs and address them immediately;
• established situation rooms around the country that are regularly reporting in on changes on the ground;
• constantly adjusted our contingency plans to reflect these changes.

Above all, we are providing stepped-up support with extra food, medicine, homecare, and counseling, just as we have done since this crisis began.

In Odessa — which is the site of ongoing violence and 46 deaths last week — our Hesed social welfare center cares for approximately 7,000 Jews (out of the city’s 40,000 person Jewish population). Services for the elderly and poor have continued uninterrupted during this chaotic time. For other JDC-supported Jewish institutions and programs around the city — including the flagship Beit Grand JCC and our Metsudsa young leadership training program — some workshops and classes have been cancelled for security concerns.

In Eastern Ukraine — where continued unrest and fear have gripped the local population — JDC serves more than 6,000 Jews in the cities of Donetsk, Lugansk, Mariupol, Kramatorsk, and Sloviansk. Our staff in these cities continue to provide increased services and support, constantly adjusting to an ever-changing and concerning situation. " 

How much stuff costs

I had a conversation with a colleague the other day from a nearby Jewish federation about "how much things cost" for JDC services around the world.

Bearing in mind that costs differ from community to community, and equivalencies aren't as simple as you'd hope ... here nonetheless are some basic illustrative 'unit costs' that give you a good sense of the kind of tzedaka (charity) opportunities you can have when you make a donation.

$180 sends an Israeli with a disability to an independent living skills workshop, like computer skills, healthy living, household management.

$300 send an at-risk Israeli kid to a business entrepeneurship program, helping ease his or her transition into society and keeping them safe and off the streets.

$1000 sends one kid to the Szarvas summer camp in Hungary, changing lives and renewing Jewish community across Europe.

$1750 can cover the cost of an elderly client with food, medicine, home care and winter relief in the former Soviet Union.

$2150 can allow an Israeli woman to take part in a 'Woman of Valor' Employment program, shifting her from economic dependence to independence, and changing the face of Israeli society.

If you're looking for a way to make a difference - a real, powerful, personal difference - in one person's life, consider these ideas when you go to make a gift.
And if you've already made that gift, directly to the Joint or through your federation, then know how grateful we are - on behalf of the people above, and all those whose lives you've enriched, empowered and rescued.

Food packages

When I came to the Joint almost ten years ago, the big issue was the transition from food packages to smart cards. Food packages were critical in the first years when the Joint came back to the former Soviet countries. And tens of thousands of elderly Jews were receiving them.

But there was a problem.

In the food packages, the maximum number of items we could give you was 18. And it was really basic stuff, for the most part: oil, pasta, kasha, that kind of thing. Not luxuries. 

So the smart card system came into being ... in Argentina.

We were facing a situation in the winter of 2001-2002 in which tens of thousands of Argentinian Jews were suddenly thrust into poverty and dependent on the Joint for food. Many of these were the 'new poor' – men and women, many in nice middle-class suits and dresses, lining up for food packages at Jewish institutions. 36,000 clients receiving food from the Joint. Because of our Jewish federations and donors.

My colleagues told me that we were receiving reports of anti-Semitic attacks, of Jews being beaten up and attacked for their packages. None of it was true. It turned out that these reports weren't true. But they taught us something very interesting. That the food packages carry a price - and not just a logistic price; a price for overhead and our shipping and handling. They taught us that there's a price for dignity and self-respect.

These "new Poor" Jews didn't like that price. To line up and ask for food can be demeaning. It can take away your self-respect. Which is why rumors – false rumors – were spread about anti-Semitic attacks, because so many people there hated the food package system.

So the food card system - the 'coto' card - began. And as it spread, we noticed some fascinating side effects .... people had more choice, more dignity. It wasn't just about food. It was about hope.

Which is why the last few weeks in Kiev and Crimea have been so interesting. Because, in the name of security for our clients and keeping homebound and less-mobile clients secure, we've had to increase the food package system because so many of the older clients are too scared, or unable, to go shopping with the cards. In other words, we're going back to our history for a slightly less efficient - but more caring - method of taking care of food needs.

So, the other day, I was looking through some archival notes and I came across this photo ...

It's a photo of JDC staff in Munich, Germany, loading matza and food packages for transportation to DP (Displaced Persons) Camps in Europe, 1949. 

Because some things haven't changed: a global commitment to providing food for those in need, backed by our federations and donors.


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Wars of nations are fought to change maps. But wars of poverty are fought to map change

I was giving a briefing last night here in Boston on the situation in Ukraine and, specifically, on the increased costs of our operations there. If we have to keep Hesed case workers longer hours, have them sleep over in the homes of immobile clients and increase security ... these items add to the budget. But more importantly, there's a huge issue of food costs that's looming for our Hesed programs and our clients.

As inflation, hoarding and shortages hits the food supply, we've noticed a 15-30% increase in the cost of basic food items in the past couple of weeks. The problem is that if you're a Jewish pensioner living in Ukraine, then your pension barely covers the minimal amount you were buying beforehand. As it was, you've been forced to make horrible choices between food and medicine, or limit the amount of decent produce you could buy. But now ... even a slight fluctuation in food costs will make life impossible.

Explaining this with stories is important. But there's a clear visual image that brings this home:

Even before this latest crisis, the state-run social services haven't been adjusted to keep pace with the deteriorating local economies. So you saw rising costs, growing unemployment, and ongoing currency fluctuations. If you're living in Ukraine, or Russia, or many of the countries in which we serve - you won't earn enough in your pension to cover even your basic expenses.

Want to know why life expectancy in these countries is so short, and why health is so poor? Start with that chart.

Want to know how to make a difference? Help us help the poorest, neediest Jews in the world through your Jewish federation or with a direct donation.


(The quote is by Muhammed Ali)

As you think and act, so your world becomes.

My colleague Ofer Glanz, our director of operations in the former Soviet Union, just returned from a visit to southern Ukraine. In his report was this beautiful story ... so important to all those of us who have seen our Hesed programs distributing food and medicine and home care support to tens of thousands of elderly clients in Ukraine alone. 

Ofer says ...


... Many of the Jewish community's leaders in Crimea fled the area the minute the Russians moved in. The only single fully functioning Jewish organization in Sevastopol today is the Hesed. The Hesed director - Alla Krasnovid continues to operate the Hesed, offering not only material support but also emotional support to the Jewish community by calling people, supporting them in different ways and ensuring some level of
stability at "ground zero" of this crisis.

... There is apparently a new addition to the Russian language vocabulary - "Hesed" - in Sevastopol. The Hesed director -Alla gave everyone who is traveling to clients a printed letter, signed by her, stating the fact that whoever holds this letter is performing humanitarian work at the service of the local Hesed.

This letter is presented at road blocks manned by Russian soldiers who are prohibiting access to some parts of the city or accessing some roads. Well, some soldiers see the letter and then comes the following response: "ah - Hesed? Yes you can go through...."

(The quote is by T. Scott McCleod)

Strangers on the Ground

I was listening in to my colleagues Alan Gill and Ofer Glanz speaking on a phone-conference this afternoon with the Jewish Federations of North America. There were some excellent speakers from our colleagues in NCSJ, ORT and the Jewish Agency.

In addition to some excellent insights into the situation and the latest developments, Alan said something critical that was also mentioned by my colleague Misha from JAFI. “We wouldn't have been in Kiev a week ago when violence struck if we hadn't been there the week before,” he said.

The core funding that we receive from our federations is critical. The key is that we’re there and we’re going to be there.

We have seven Hesed (welfare distribution) centers in  southern Ukraine, three of which are in Crimea, serving 13,000 elderly Jews and some 2,000 children-at-risk. The job right now is to ensure ongoing operations, keep our clients and operations secure (as well as our amazing and dedicated staff), and to plan for possible future scenarios.

But without core federation funding, as Mark Levin (NCSJ) and Misha Galperin (JAFI) pointed out on the call, we’d be “strangers on the ground” without credibility.

So, if you’re a federation donor, know this: it’s because of your support that we’ve been able to do so much so far. And we’re grateful for that.



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I live like a flower

Sometimes, when I’m looking for inspiration, I look through notes from meeting Hesed clients – elderly Jewish survivors and community members who rely on our donors and federations for their food, medicine and homecare. Without the support of our donors and our Jewish federations, these elderly Jews wouldn't be alive.

And this weekend I came across the story of Ida, in Vilnius, Lithuania, whom I met last year. Our car got lost on our way to her in a labyrinth of Khruschevkyas, badly-numbered and randomly-ordered massive Soviet-era buildings. It was difficult to drive through because the spaces between the buildings weren't designed with the idea that people would have private cars parked nearby.

Ida lives on the fourth floor. She hasn't left the apartment since January 2007. She was in her kitchen carrying coffee grinds and she slipped. She broke her hip and since then she stays inside. Once a year a family friend takes her to the cemetery to see her son’s grave. Her Husband died in 2007, a few weeks after her son. Her sister in 1984, her mother in 1986. Her dog died in 2008.

But she is still living. We bring her food, winter relief, a social case worker, and the knowledge that she’s not alone.

Ida was born in 1924 in Gomel, Belorussia so she’s now 90 years old. She’s full of life, with a beaming smile and more energy than her visitors.

 “Oy Joint” she says with a beautiful smile. “I remember the Joint. In 1944 in the war my mother and sister and me came to Gomel and the Joint gave us help. They gave us cans of fish and meat and clothes. I want to share a story. I got a skirt from the Joint. It was black and beautiful with short sleeves and this skirt was very short (she giggles). It was called ‘the man doesn't have time.’ It was slit down the side.” (Yes, I was blushing. No, she wasn't).

“Later when I came to Vilnius I got four JDC packages – clothing, winter clothes. Thank you."

“Why do I live so long? Because God loves me. I live like a flower. I open up slowly and I have a beautiful fragrance that surrounds me. And now the Jewish community is my family, and they take care of me.”

Storytelling (continued)

I was running a seminar the other week in Miami and gave some examples of how I like to present “the story” of elderly Jews in the former Soviet Union.

I’ve used perfume (the “Red Moscow” perfume, used ubiquitously across the former Soviet Union and frequently used by our elderly women clients), bricks from old buildings, food packages, smart debit cards, alert watches, and more … the idea being that a visual, sensory trigger is far more powerful than just telling a story with photos and a narrative.

But the other day I met a Jewish federation donor who told me that some eight years ago she was with me on a home visit to a Khrushyovka (a low-cost concrete-paneled five-story building from the 1960s, seen all over the former Soviet Union).

She remembered the name of our client, an elderly woman who receives food and medicine and a care giver through our Hesed (welfare distribution) system. She remembered the room in which we sat, and how she felt when she was there and when we walked out. 

Why? Because at one point, during the visit, I held her hand and had her run her fingers and palm along the crumbling wall to feel the rot and decay. She said that she never forgot the feeling of the wall … and that was why she never forgot the visit to the woman whose life was saved by Hesed, the Joint and our federations.

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Lots of places ... or just a few

I’m in Connecticut for the next couple of days, meeting federations and supporters of our work. One aspect, in particular, keeps coming back as a theme in my meetings, and I wanted to write a few thoughts about it now.

It’s this issue of the elderly in the former Soviet countries. We work in some 2800 locations, across 11 time zones (don’t get me started … I’ve been down that road before) and in many of the locations there are elderly Jewish clients dispersed to the far winds. 

Wouldn't it be so much easier – I often get asked – if we centralize the clients in large urban areas?

On the face of it, this is a really good, and obvious question. 

And especially when you think about two factors that are worth considering:

(1)    The Joint is a leading agent for ageing-in-place programs in places like Israel (such as “supportive communities,” which we call Naturally Occurring Retirement Communities” or NORCs, in the US)

(2)    The trend of Jewish life is to consolidation and urbanization (lots more on this in some future post).

And yet … there are (at least) three reasons why we’re not going to see any centralization of elderly clients to receive the life-saving food, medicine and homecare provisions that we give in the former Soviet Union:

(1)    From a demographic perspective … all those who would have moved, already moved. Most of them left, in the late 80s and early 90s. Those who are now elderly in their apartments don’t want to move anywhere. Forcing them to move isn't something we can feasibly or morally do.

(2)    From an economic perspective … building old-age homes is an astronomically expensive proposition in former Soviet countries. It would destroy our budgets and we’d need to create a whole infrastructure around these homes that doesn't currently exist.

(3)    From a psychological perspective … the idea of an old-age home in the former Soviet Union is a terrifying prospect for an elderly person. It conjures up all kinds of horrible institutionalized Soviet memories of times past.

I’m not saying it won’t happen. I’m certainly not saying it can’t happen. But if you've got the desire to make a massive impact on the lives of elderly Jews in the former Soviet Union, the best bang for your charitable buck right now is the Hesed system and its incredible life-saving work.

And if you haven’t yet climbed the five flights of stairs in a crumbling Khrushchyovka building, held hands with an elderly client whose life is saved because of the generosity and kindness of our supporters …  come with us on a mission soon, and see what we mean when we talk about saving one life is like saving the entire world.

Renewal

Lovely video from my colleagues in the former Soviet Union ... why do we do renewal, what's the purpose, and what's the inspiration ...

Mission to Minsk … and more

Lovely article in the Jewish Voice of Rhode Island By Susan Leach DeBlasio

Friday, 16 August 2013 20:27

PROVIDENCE – Eddie Bruckner, Jewish Alliance of Greater Rhode Island’s vice  president for financial resource development, and I experienced Minsk and Israel  on a Jewish Federations of North America mission with 96 other lay and professional  leaders from across the United States and Canada. Missions are peripatetic,  transformational summer camps for grownups. There’s no sleep, only days and  nights filled with inspiration, education, training, and bonding with our counterparts  and instant new friends. The mid-July mission was no different. In Minsk and Israel, we visited programs sponsored by the American Jewish Joint  Distribution Committee (JDC), the Jewish Agency for Israel (JAFI) and World ORT.  Each of these organizations, collaborating on a continuum of services with the dollars  we (and other donor organizations) raise, ensures the renewal and vibrancy of Jewish  life all over the world. Today, about 25,000 Jews live in Minsk, the capital of Belarus (birthplace of Marc  Chagall, Shimon Peres and Meyer Lansky), the first country invaded by the Nazis  and the last liberated by the Allied Forces. The Nazis slaughtered 80-90 percent of the  Jews in Belarus, and the Communists imposed official anti-Semitism for decades after  the war, obliterating entire generations of Jewish knowledge, tradition and communal  life. We began our visit to Minsk by exploring Yama (“pit”), a deep depression carved  out of the earth where 5,000 Jews rounded up from the ghetto were shot to death in  just one day. There we recited Kaddish and heard from several young leaders of the  Jewish community as well as its head, Leonid Levin, an architect and sculptor.   Descending by the stairway into the pit is his statue of 27 soulful figures about to die.   In his remarks, Levin reminded us, “Each of us could have been in that line.”   Transporting us from those tragic moments in the pit, where “the ashes of our people”  are buried, he summed up the successful rebirth of Jewish life in Minsk with his  dramatic conclusion, “We are few, but we are Jews.” Jewish life flourishes in Minsk today. There are synagogues, schools, summer camps,  young leader and cultural enrichment programs, Shabbatons, family retreats,  newspapers and kosher food, with a robust infrastructure of Jewish social service,  cultural and philanthropic organizations.  The Minsk Jewish Campus, a thriving  social, cultural and educational center, is the central address for Jewish communal  activity.   JDC, JAFI and World ORT are partners in their efforts to promote and  sustain Jewish identity and care for the community’s needy and vulnerable. Together,  with support from the Alliance, they are saving a generation of young Jewish adults  who would otherwise assimilate into obscurity. JDC’s Hesed Rachamim Welfare Center provides medicine, food, home care,  cultural life, companionship, winter relief and home repairs for the last generation  of elderly victims of the Nazis and life under a Communist regime. As Dov Ben-Shimon of the JDC explained, “Jews don’t need our help getting out of  any country in the world today. They need our help in staying.” Their needs arise from hunger and thirst – hunger for food and sustenance, thirst for  Jewish community and belonging.  Eddie and I shopped for groceries for 86-year old  Tatiana, who lives alone in a tiny room of a communal apartment. We had an  allotment from the JDC of 100,000 rubles ($11) to spend. We bought chicken, oil,  tea, kasha, bread and noodles.  We all contributed to add oatmeal, fruit, potatoes  and eggs. Astonishingly, many young people we met exploring and celebrating their Judaism  did not learn they were Jewish until they were into their teens.  Sometimes a  grandparent or aunt let them know, or they discovered old family papers or a  siddur (prayer book) in a shoebox in the attic.  Yoni Leifer went to shul for the  first time when he was 11.   After Jewish summer camps and Hebrew school, he made aliyah, and then after  serving in the Israeli army and attending university, he returned home to Minsk to  work for the JDC. In Volozyhn, we visited the world-renowned Volozhyn Yeshiva, the site of the  Second Zionist Congress and the “Harvard” of yeshivas, attracting the greatest  Jewish intellectuals of the time (from 1803 until 1939).  There, we met Vladimir  Levitskiy from Moscow and other Jewish young adults participating in an  “Expedition” program where they do community service projects across the former  Soviet Union and learn about their Jewish heritage.  Vladimir is 21 and first learned  he was Jewish three years ago.  Since then, he has been to Israel on Taglit-Birthright,  traveled all around the United States, participated in a number of cultural programs  sponsored by JDC and JAFI, and hopes to return to Israel on a MASA program.   Together we spent several hours cleaning a Jewish cemetery next to a monument  memorializing the mass grave of thousands of Jews killed by the Nazis. Recognizing that Jewish adolescents and young adults need multiple touch points in  their lives to concretize their Jewish identity, these agencies sponsor summer camps,  Birthright trips and Jewish schools, to create a long-term immersive experience in  Jewish life.  JAFI runs summer camps where children learn local Jewish history,  Jewish customs and practices. At one camp, I met Kseniye, 19 and a counselor, who  did not learn she was Jewish until she was 9 and had an opportunity to attend the  camp.  As they learn to engage young campers in the Jewish community, counselors  develop their own Jewish identities. In Israel, we traveled to Haifa, Afula, Jerusalem and other areas where programs  rescue children at risk, provide services to those in need and integrate immigrants,  including Ethiopians, into Israeli life.  At a World ORT science and math campus  focused on “program-based learning,” we launched rockets and enjoyed other  experiential learning opportunities with 14- and 15-year-old scientists. One personal highlight was a visit to a JDC-run father/son sports program in Afula.  Fathers and sons must commit to spend 90 minutes each week together with coaches,  counselors, and other father-son pairs. Together they practice and play soccer, but  what they really learn are social skills, teamwork, confidence, self-esteem and responsibility.  The program successfully strengthens the relationship between father  and son, and their lessons spill over into all other areas of their lives, generating  emotional wellbeing, family relationships and better school attendance and grades. The Alliance has been ensuring a vibrant Jewish community for nearly 70 years  both domestically and overseas. As the central address of Jewish philanthropy in  greater Rhode Island, the Alliance provides care for people in need and support to  Israel and collaborates to develop a strong Jewish community for the next generation. As the great Lubbavitcher Rebbe Schneerson cautioned, “If you see what needs to be  repaired and how to repair it, then you have found a piece of the world that God has  left for you to complete. But if you only see what is wrong and how ugly it is, then it is  yourself that needs repair.” I invite all of you to join the Alliance and me this year to help repair the piece of the  world left for us to complete. Susan Leach DeBlasio ( sdeblasio@apslaw.com) is vice chair for financial resource development of the Alliance. http://jvhri.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4381:mission-to-minsk--and-more&catid=41:community&Itemid=62

How Good and Pleasant

Vera Goffman, Head of JDC's Hesed Minsk Choir, sings with the Campaign Chairs and Directors Mission of the Jewish Federations of North American (JFNA), July 2013, in Minsk. In the audience are Shoah (Holocaust) survivors and Righteous Among the Nations.

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CCD Minsk 2013

My speech to frame the content for the Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA) Campaign Chairs and Directors (CCD) Mission this morning:

Good morning. Boker Tov. Dobre Utra. Buenos Dias.

Why did we want you to come here?

Because the reason why it was so important for you to be here, to see, to touch, to taste … has nothing – and everything – to do with Belarus itself.

(Because) This is Our Jewish Story.

What you’re seeing this week, and especially what we’ll see today is the story of who we are, and why our lives are intertwined.

Not in some nice, comfortable, we’re-all-in-this-together warm-fuzzy encounter.

But, rather, in some very real and surprising ways.

This, among others, is the story of Meyer Suchowljansky, born in Grodno, Belarus, in 1902.

In the long-established Jewish community of Grodno, up the road from where we were yesterday, Max and Yetta Suchowljansky called their firstborn son Meir, a bringer of light.

Grodno, like all of today’s Belarus, has changed hands many times over the years.

Sometimes it was in Russia, other times it’s been Polish or German.

At a conservative count, if you’re one hundred years old and lived in Grodno all your life, you’ve been the citizen or subject of at least a dozen different countries.

Nearly 70% of the population of Grodno was Jewish when Meir was born, almost everyone spoke Yiddish. There were over 40 synagogues, a Jewish orphanage, a Jewish theater and a Jewish hospital.

Meyer Suchowlijansky grew up in Grodno. He went to cheder, the religious school, where he learned his prayers and the Hebrew alphabet.

But the warm and textured life created by Jews in the five centuries they had lived in Grodno was collapsing.

New laws prohibited Jews from buying land, from going to university, from changing their names to non-Jewish ones. All Jewish identity passes were marked with the word Ibray - “Jew.”

Worst of all, the czarist government approved of pogroms against Jews.

They said it was the Jews’ fault for exploiting ordinary Russians.

When Meyer was five years old there was trouble in nearby Bialystock, and Jews fled by the hundreds to Grodno with stories of rape and murder.

So: what was special about Grodno?

Grodno was one of the first – and one of the only – eastern European communities where the Jews met violence with violence. There were some tough Jews around here.

They formed a self-defense organization, hiding weapons in their homes.

They fought back against policemen who helped their persecutors.

They assassinated the Russian police chief who had organized the Bialystock pogrom.

Grodno’s endurance earned it some reprieve from the worst effects of anti-Semitism, but the odds were not on its side. After centuries of life here, Jews were starting to contemplate their options.

They are the same options that they have today.

One direction was aliyah.

As early as 1851 a Grodno kolel, a religious community, was set up in Jerusalem. By 1902 it was a small township outside the city walls with 2000 Grodno Jews.

Another option was America, a different kind of goldene medinah.

And tens of thousands of Belarussian Jews started to move there in the late nineteenth century.

Max, Meyer’s father, set off for America in 1909. Within two years he had saved enough money for his wife and children to join him.

They reached Ellis Island in April 1911.

10-year old Meyer was so skinny and malnourished that he was redefined as an eight-year old by American immigration officials.

He was also given a new birthday, July 4^th, since he was now “made in America.”

Growing up, he fell into occasional street violence on the Lower East Side, petty crime and street gangs.

“I never got on my knees,” he said proudly. “We had the choice. We could run away, or we could fight back.”

There were Jews who fought back.

Jews in Belarus and Jews from Belarus.

Jews like the Bielskis, an organization of Jewish partisans who rescued Jews from extermination.

They fought against the Nazis and their collaborators in the vicinity of Lida, now western Belarus.

Under their protection, 1,236 Jews survived the war, living in the forests.

It was one of the most remarkable rescue missions of the Holocaust. 

Jews like Maria Klimovitch, a Hesed client, whom some of you will meet today.

Maria is eighty-one years old and survived the War by hiding in the forest.

Later her family joined the partisans and they all stayed with them to fight for freedom and survival until the end of the war.

Maria is now a Hesed client with homecare services, food packages, and – most importantly – the knowledge that people care about her, that she is part of our community. That she's not forgotten.

Jews like Galina Naumova, a wonderful and inspiring client of our Hesed whom some of you will also meet today.

Galina is eighty-eight years old.

She grew up in Vitebsk, the child of partisan fighters; her brother was killed in the Siege of Leningrad.

Galina herself was caught by Nazi policeman, but she miraculously escaped execution.

She's now a widow, disabled and finds it difficult to move around the house. She suffers from a heart condition and is partially blind and deaf. 

She is alive today because of Hesed.

Because of you.

Because her state pension won't cover her medicines and her basic food needs.

But you do.

There were other Belarus Jews who fought.

Jews like Menachem Begin, born in Brest.

Like Yitzhak Shamir in Ruzhany.

Like Shimon Peres in Vishnyeva.

Eliezer Ben-Yehuda and Chaim Weitzman … and countless others. Born in what is now Belarus.

Because in Belarus we created the foundations of the Jewish State.

In Belarus, we created vibrant, beautiful Jewish art.

With Jewish artists like Moishe Segal, born near Vitebsk, who later changed his name to Marc Chagall.

And in Belarus, we created the foundations of the American Jewish experience.

With Belarussian-born Jews like Irving Berlin and Louis B. Meyer; and the children of Belarussian-Jewish immigrants like Kirk Douglas, and Ralph Lauren.

And immigrants like Meyer Suchowljansky.

Fifty years after he fought in his street gang in the Lower East Side, Belarus-born Meyer Suchowljansky stood in the lobby of a beautiful hotel that he had built.

It was New Year’s Day, January 1^st, 1959.

He had kept his first name, he was still called Meyer.

But he had changed his last name to Lansky.

Meyer Lansky was standing in the lobby of the Riviera Hotel in Habana, Cuba.

Fulgencio Batista, the Cuban dictator, had boarded a plane at 3am, escaping Castro’s rebellion and fleeing to the Dominican Republic.

By 4 o’clock, news of Batista’s departure had begun to spread.

People started to leave their homes and gathered cheering in the streets, honking their horns.

But the mood quickly turned angry, there were clashes between the police and the rebel militia, who were coming out of hiding in Habana.

There was a wild shoot-out at the Parque Centrale hotel.

(I know some of you have stayed there recently.)

Years of frustration were bubbling over, anger was mounting and directed at anything and everything that symbolized the Batista regime: the parking meters, the slot machines

… and most of all, the hotel-casinos that had sustained the dictatorship for all these years.

And the greatest symbol of the hotel-casinos was the Riviera, built by Meyer Lansky.

In an act of revolutionary anger, campesinos brought into the city a truckload of pigs and set them loose in the lobby of the hotel and casino, squealing, tracking mud across the floors, and doing their business all over Lansky’s pride and joy, the beautiful lobby of the Riviera.

As dawn rose on the new Habana, there was dancing in the streets,

The workers at the Riviera deserted their jobs to go out and celebrate, and Meyer Lansky, limping on a swollen knee, worked personally in the kitchens to give out food, free of charge, to the bewildered guests.

Teddy, his wife, poured some vinegar into a bucket of water, took a mop, and started to wipe up the Riviera’s lovely marble floors.

Several months ago, sitting in the same beautiful lobby, looking at the same marble floors, I was comparing the nature of Jewish life in Belarus and the former Soviet Union to that in Cuba, with a Jewish federation mission from North America.

I’m not the first to make these comparisons.

Many of us here this morning have done the same.

And what surprises people is that, like in Cuba, every Jew in Belarus can leave. They don’t need our help in getting out.

Every Jew in every country around the world can leave. From anywhere.

They don’t need our help in getting out. They need our help in bringing in.

And in Cuba, like in Belarus, like in Russia and Ukraine and dozens of other countries, the challenge that we face is twofold.

Because in so many of these countries what strikes us is hunger and thirst.

Make no mistake. There is real hunger in the Jewish world.

Hundreds of thousands hungry, needy. They need food, and medicine, and homecare.

And you will see this today.

But there is also thirst.

A real thirst for Jewish identity, for belonging, for community.

For Jews like Irina Mikhlina, a lovely young woman whom many of you will meet today at the JCC. In her professional work, she is an English translator and interpreter in the Minsk Transport Science and Research Institute.

But since 2005, as a 22-year old Hillel student, she got turned on to Jewish life.

She went to leadership programs, warm homes, working with youth groups.

She’s now volunteering on a program for small Belarussian Jewish communities.

Irina wants to celebrate what, in some ways, we take for granted in the United States.

But so many were cut off for some seventy years of Communist rule.

And then, precisely when the gates opened, as the Soviet system collapsed.

Precisely when the Joint came back, and we had the chance to start rebuilding, renewing … what happened?

All those on whom we would have built the next generation of Jewish leadership … left.

All those with the strongest Jewish identities … moved to Israel, or to the US, or to Europe.

So what you see now, the revitalization of hope, is not something we could have seen twenty years ago.

In some places not even ten years or five years ago.

It took time, and energy, and precious resources, to rebuild, and restore, and renew.

And we did it with the support of our federations.

With you.

Because at the end of the day, every single JDC program, in every country around the world, is rooted in the core value that we share with you, our federations: that kol yisrael arevim ze bezeh – that all Jews are responsible one for another.

Every day.

That's not just a nice abstract statement from the Talmud – (masechet Shavuot, 39a). It’s a business plan.

No one gets left behind.

Every Jewish community can stand on its own feet.

Every Jewish community can become self-sufficient.

For children, families, the elderly.

For communities, thriving and challenged.

In Israel, for hundreds of thousands of the most vulnerable: the elderly, the disabled, youth-at-risk, the difficult-to-absorb, the difficult-to-employ.

For 99 years.

In Israel.

And in over seventy countries around the world.

We don’t need your help in getting out. We need your help in bringing in.

We need your help in building Jewish life here in Belarus, there in Cuba, there in Russia, there in Argentina, there in Hungary.

And those of you who have been with us on missions to these countries know this.

We have a global Jewish commitment that defines us.

It enriches our sense of community and Jewish identity.

Even if it’s hard. Even if it takes time.

We do this for the same reason that you do this.

Because we want our Jewish community to have meaning.

Because we want our children to be proud of us.

And because we love the Jewish world and all that it entails: the good … and the not-so-good …

We read this morning in our mission journals the beautiful song written by the Belarussian author, S. Ansky, of Vitebsk.

The Emigrant Song is our song. “Wanderers, wanderers we are.”

And who was Shlomo Ansky? He was the author of The Dybbuk.

And he subtitled his masterpiece, “Between Two Worlds.”

Those two worlds were the story of his Belarus.

Of our Belarus.

A story torn between the past and the future. Between the dirty, daily struggle … and the noble aspirations that we all share.

It’s the story of Meyer Lansky, who was so flawed … yet worked with the OSS, the predecessor to the CIA, to help in the Allied invasion of Sicily and broke up Nazi rallies and spy rings in New York.

It’s the story of Marc Chagall, who moved from Belarus and worked as an art teacher in a JDC school near Moscow in the 1920s.

He wrote a beautiful autobiography, My Life.

It’s one of the most extraordinarily inventive and visually striking autobiographies you’ll ever see.

The text is accompanied by twenty plates which he prepared especially to illustrate his life story.

In the book, he writes, “In our life there is a single color, as on an artist's palette, which provides the meaning of life and art. It is the color of love.”

That’s why we are here today. That’s why our task is so sacred, so important, so filled with love.

Our love for Maria, and Galina.

And countless other Hesed clients.

Including the amazing and inspiring Righteous Among the Nations, who honored us and blessed us with their presence yesterday.

Our love for Irina and thousands of other Belarussian Jews, whose thirst for Jewish life is being met because of you.

They love you.

We want to show you this today.

This love is the reason why we’re so proud, and so grateful, to show you our past, present and future today.

Because this is our Jewish story.

It belongs to all of us here.

Thank you.

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Survivors and Rescuers

We had an astonishing, moving and inspiring meeting today, during the Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA) Campaign Chairs and Directors Mission (CCD): a number of elderly Shoah (Holocaust) survivors joined us, along with Righteous Among the Nations (non-Jews who saved Jews and risked their own lives in so doing). It was an incredible privilege to introduce this session. Several people asked me for a copy of my speech, reprinted below ...

Primo Levi, describing his rescuer, Lorenzo Perrone, in his masterpiece “If This Is A Man,” said:

"I believe that it was really due to Lorenzo that I am alive today;

and not so much for his material aid, as for his having constantly reminded me by his presence…

that there still existed a just world outside our own, something and someone still pure and whole…

for which it was worth surviving"

Many were indifferent.

Many were hostile.

During the Shoah, the Holocaust, the majority watched as their former neighbors were rounded up and killed.

Some collaborated.

Many benefited.

In a world of total moral collapse … there was a small minority who mustered extraordinary courage to uphold human values.

There were survivors, several of whom bless us with their presence today.

There were Righteous Among the Nations, some of whom honor us with their participation here.

They stand in stark contrast to the indifference and hostility that prevailed during the Shoah.

Who are these rescuers?

The term “Righteous Among the Nations” (Chasidei Umot HaOlam) comes from Jewish tradition – from the literature of the Sages.

Non-Jews who help the Jewish people in times of danger.

The Yad Vashem Law in Israel, which guides the global recognition of these remarkable individuals, characterizes the Righteous Among the Nations as those who not only saved Jews but risked their lives in doing so.

Most of these rescuers were ordinary people.

Some acted from deep political or religious convictions.

Others just cared about the people around them.

They could have been killed. Their children could have been killed. Everything they had and loved would have been lost and destroyed.

For people that perhaps, probably, they didn’t even know!

Bystanders were the rule.

Rescuers were the exception.

However difficult and frightening, the fact that some found the courage to become rescuers demonstrates that some freedom of choice existed.

The Righteous Among the Nations teach us that each and every person – each one of us – can make a difference.

Each and every one of us has the ability to save, to rescue, to change lives.

This may be one of the most unique and important encounters we can give you. Here in Minsk. In the former Soviet Union. In the Jewish world.

Because there are heroes in this room.

Jewish heroes, and heroes from the Righteous Among the Nations.

Some of our honored guests here are heroic Jewish survivors of the Shoah.

Some of them were saved by the Righteous Among the Nations.

Our responsibility to care includes all those here.

With Hesed.

What is Hesed? Not just the technical name we give to our federation-supported JDC welfare program, which you’ll see tomorrow.

Hesed means kindness.

It means caring.

It means love.

It means that the Survivors and the Righteous Among the Nations are equally our clients. We have a commitment to all of them.

With food programs, and medicine, and homecare … and the warmth and love of our community.

So we are honored, and privileged, to welcome all of you here today … and I invite the young leader at each table to begin the conversation.

Thank you.

 After the discussions with the Survivors and Righteous Among the Nations, we were thrilled to have Vera Goffman sing with us. Vera was born in 1936 in Bobruisk, which is some 90 miles southeast of Minsk. During the Second World War, as a five-year old girl, she was evacuated to Uzbekistan with her mother. She graduated from Brest Music College and is the lead of our Hesed Minsk Choir. Her singing was beautiful.

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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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