Wedding Unites Families in a Show of Jewish Life Revival

A Jewish wedding celebration in Dnepropetrovsk this month bound two families whose grandfathers were once persecuted by the very government now embracing the religious revival taking place in Ukraine.

The bride Yehudis Kaminetzky’s great-grandfather, Rabbi Avrohom Mayor Drizin, and the groom Shneur Futerfas’s great-grandfather, Rabbi Mendel Futerfas, both directed various components of the underground Chabad-Lubavitch yeshiva system that fueled and nurtured Jewish life behind the Iron Curtain. Many of the estimated 2,000 participants noted that the marriage serves as a testament to the continuity of Jewish life for which these two men risked their lives.

The wedding celebration took place on the 70th anniversary of the day Communist authorities effectively put an end to Jewish education in Dnepropetrovsk. On that day, the Soviets raided the clandestine school that Futerfas operated out of a synagogue in the city formerly known as Yekatrinoslav, confiscating the sefarim. It wasn’t until decades later that Jewish education was revitalized there.

Reb Mendel Futerfas and Reb Avrohom Mayor

As a youngster, Reb Mendel lived the life of a Soviet outlaw by studying in the underground Jewish school system, always on the run to escape detection by the secret police. Under dire circumstances, Reb Mendel became known as a scholar and one who was extremely careful in Jewish law, although it brought him many unwanted difficulties and placed him in danger at times. He became the person whom community members with questions in their Jewish studies or Jewish law would turn to for answers.

When he was a young married man, he assumed the responsibility of raising funds for the various struggling yeshivas. Finding it challenging to fundraise from local Jews, he started his own business, and used his earnings to benefit the school system.

Reb Mendel was instrumental in helping thousands of Jews escape the Soviet Union after the Second World War, using forged papers to make Russian Jews appear as Polish refugees—putting his life in great danger.

Time passed and Reb Avrohom Mayor’s daughter married the bride’s grandfather, Rabbi Reuven Kaminetzky. Once, when Kaminetzky was fleeing from the KGB, Reb Mendel hid him under his bed, where he remained undetected.

Both great-grandfathers eventually left the Soviet Union and became roshei yeshiva and mentors in the Lubavitch community. Their knowledge of Jewish texts became renowned, both of them being great Torah scholars.

Jewish rebirth in the former Soviet Union

With the arrival in 1990 of Rabbi Shmuel and Chana Kaminetzky as Chabad-Lubavitch emissaries, Jewish life in Dnepropetrovsk experienced a striking revival. Before long, the community requested that the rabbi accept the position of chief rabbi.

The past 21 years have seen tremendous expansion of Jewish life in Dnepropetrovsk. Serving the thousands of Jewish adults and children who comprise the growing Jewish community are several Jewish day schools, a network of programs and educational opportunities, and a teacher’s seminary. Additionally, there are two orphanages, a facility for children with special needs, and a retirement center.

“Today not only is it easy to be a Jew in Dnepropetrovsk,” remarked billionaire philanthropist and Ukraine native Gennady Bogolubov, “it is an honor to be a Jew in Dnepropetrovsk.” He is backing a new Jewish community center in the city that will be the largest in the world.

It was a deeply emotional experience for the grandfather of the groom, Rabbi Yehuda Krinsky, to witness his grandchild joining in marriage with the Kaminetzkys’ daughter, noted his son Rabbi Levi Krinsky. The senior Krinsky served as a close aide to the Rebbe and observed up-close as the Rebbe ran the Jewish underground in the Soviet Union from his office in Brooklyn and, subsequently, presided over Judaism’s rebirth there.

“[The great-grandfathers] couldn’t have envisioned this happening,” said Krinsky. “Their offspring…getting married in a city where they themselves couldn’t walk safely in the streets.”

“This is a uniting of families who worked so hard to nourish Judaism in the Soviet Union,” rejoiced the groom’s grandfather Rabbi Berel Futerfas. “They’re back together, continuing to nourish Judaism where Communism once ruled.”

To subscribe to Ami Magazine, call 718-534-8800 or email subscriptions@amimagazine.org. Mention Crownheights.info for a special subscription discount.