Published July 13, 2007
Streams of Judaism are competing for survival in Ukraine
This is the last in a three-part series on Jewish Ukraine.
By Lorne Mallin
Rabbi Alexander Dukhovny beamed from the bimah of the revived synagogue in the seaside Crimean town of Evpatoria as he looked out at pews full of local Jews and a boatload of foreigners from our Klezmer Heritage Cruise.
"Now we know that Jewish life is rebuilt here, and your trip here is another reassurance that synagogue buildings will never be closed again," said Dukhovny, who is Ukraine's chief rabbi of Progressive Judaism, a fledgling egalitarian movement in a country where Chabad-Lubavitch is by far the major player. Reform Jews in North America are part of the global Progressive Jewish movement.
The 97-year-old brick building is a symbol of the revival of Jewish life in Ukraine after the end of Soviet rule in 1991. Like hundreds of other synagogues, Ehiya Kapai Synagogue was closed decades ago by the Communist party. It functioned as a sunflower seed oil plant and was returned to the Jewish community in 1999. Local and foreign sponsors paid for the rebuilding and it was rededicated in 2005.
About 160 of us from the cruise ship Dnieper Princess, which was docked in the Black Sea port of Sevastopol, came there for the dedication of an aron kodesh (the holy ark where the Torah is kept) that was financed by the Beth El Reform congregation in Virginia.
Arriving in four big buses, we caused quite a stir. Every police officer in Evpatoria was assigned to security for the biggest tour group ever to hit town. Even an ambulance was on standby outside the synagogue gates.
In an emotional ceremony, the head of the congregation, Raisa Shepavalova, carried a Torah scroll under a chuppah through the sanctuary as people reached out to touch it as she passed. After speeches, the community's lay leader, Evgeny Tzvi Perevozchykov, placed the Torah in the wooden ark.
"To see this tiny Jewish community ... continuing to fight to keep their identity, despite everything they must have gone through, was really an eye-opener," New York clarinetist David Krakauer later told me.
To celebrate, Krakauer and the rest of the professional musicians on the cruise played a concert, boogieing on the bimah in the synagogue and then leading everyone out into the courtyard, where we all danced.
Krakauer said it was the most moving concert of the cruise for him, and Dukhovny told the crowd it was a homecoming. "The music which your ancestors took from Ukraine to Canada or to the United States, this klezmer music, you are bringing back," the rabbi said.
Music plays a central role in Dukhovny's own congregation, Hatikvah, in Kiev. One Friday night service I attended was largely led by a lay cantor, Mike Urisman, 27, who played guitar and guided the 25 or so people there in prayers with tunes composed by such Jewish songwriters as Debbie Friedman and some of his own. It was a thrill for me to lead a chant during the service.
The Ukrainian capital is Dukhovny's home turf. He was born there 57 years ago. His mother was the daughter of a Chassidic rabbi and she taught Dukhovny and his brother to keep Shabbat. At 44, Dukhovny switched from a career in the sciences to attend Leo Baeck College in London, the Progressive rabbinical school.
His offices and synagogue are in a rented space a few steps below ground level. Dukhovny said that, with the formerly Jewish buildings in Kiev all claimed by Chabad and other Chassidic groups, it's difficult to attract wealthy patrons to his synagogue and help it prosper. "Rich Jews don't want to pray in a semi-basement," he said.
"Saying to business people in Kiev that the Reform movement in North America is the strongest and widespread and that Chabad-Lubavitch is a small sect - they do not believe me, seeing the gold, silver and marble of the Chabad synagogues.
"The constant challenge for the movement is that many of our programs are under-budgeted," Dukhovny said. The movement can financially support only 16 of its 47 communities.
Still, Dukhovny emphasizes the positive. "The main success of the Progressive movement in Ukraine is that the movement was able to build a strong presence," he said. "[It] presents another way how to be Jewish, opposite to the ultra-Orthodox view that there is the only one way how to be Jewish."
He explained that the constitutions of the congregations, which are part of the Religious Union for Progressive Jewish Congregations of Ukraine, open their membership to people who identify as Jews and can document they have Jewish heritage somewhere in the last three generations.
With an intermarriage rate of about 80 per cent, Ukrainian Jews are highly assimilated. Estimates of the Jewish population range from a low of 94,000 to as many as 500,000. Thousands emigrate every year to Israel and the West.
Dukhovny, one of only two Progressive rabbis in the country, said his movement, which serves about 15,000 people, has trained lay leaders and para-rabbis, built Netzer youth groups, opened eight pre-schools and six Sunday schools and owns six synagogue buildings.
Among the 240 registered Jewish organizations in Ukraine, there is a minor Conservative and Modern Orthodox presence, but Chabad is the largest, with more than 100 communities. Chabad moved quickly to revive Judaism in Ukraine and has opened thriving day schools.
There are Jewish community centres, welfare services, Holocaust memorials, museums and summer camps in Ukraine, plus a Jewish university in Kiev. When our cruise group visited the five-year-old Jewish museum in Odessa, it made an impression on Ronnie Tessler, who was the first executive director of the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre and was instrumental in developing the new Jewish Museum and Archives of British Columbia.
"Visiting the museum was a very poignant experience," she said. "The sorry condition of the building the museum is housed in is disturbing. It is obvious from the size of the museum and the home-made appearance of the exhibits that their work is being accomplished on a very tight budget by a small staff."
Ukraine has a rich Jewish history, going back to the sixth century CE, when the Khazars ruled the region, with some evidence that predates the Christian era. The Polish-Lithuanian Empire governed from the 14th century until the expansion of the Russian Empire in the 17th century. To contain the Jews, Russia imposed a Pale of Settlement that included much of present-day Ukraine.
The rebirth of Jewish life has not been without tensions. There are rival Jewish umbrella organizations, even rival chief rabbis from Chabad, competition for Jewish facilities returned by the government, pressure from Messianic Jewish groups and rising levels of anti-Semitism, with increasing reports of violent attacks on Jews and damage to Jewish property.
Lorne Mallin is a Vancouver writer, editor, designer and Jewish chant leader. His website is lornemallin.com.
HOW TO HELP
• Odessa is one of Vancouver's sister cities and home to a struggling Progressive Jewish congregation, Emanu-El. Last year it received a Torah scroll from Chilean Jews, replacing a stolen scroll that had been donated by Temple Emanu-El of San Jose, Calif., with which it is twinned. There are almost 150 members and they need more help to secure a building and run programs. Contact spiritual leader Julia Grischenko at judith@mail.od.ua.
• Contact Rabbi Alexander Dukhovny at ravdukh@ukr.net.
• Learn about the Odessa Jewish Museum at english.migdal.ru.
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