The Kharkov Camp Question.

Kharkov, Ukraine –- My introduction to Ukraine began in the check-in line at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York. Despite torrential rains, our flight was scheduled to leave on time, according to a Ukrainian man standing behind me who spoke in a heavily accented English. Nervous to be flying on the Ukrainian national airline, I turned to him for assurance that AeroSvit would get me there in one piece. Unfortunately, he had none to offer – he hadn’t been back to his birthplace in the 14 years since he immigrated to the US. Instead assurance came via a young haredi, who seemed ready to vouch for the airline.

He was one of many haredim to board my plane, a strange counterpart to the high-heeled, flashy Ukrainians – mothers and daughters alike – with bare midriffs and summer bronzed skin.

I had heard about Chabad’s efforts in the Ukraine. The “Rebbe’s army” acts as a strong presence, sometimes the dominant one, in Jewish outreach efforts throughout the former Soviet Union.

My understanding had been that Chabad and the Jewish Agency were engaged in a turf war, each wanting to shape what was left of the Jewish community in their own mold, particularly in the realm of summer camps. But over the next five days as I traveled to Odessa and Kharkov with a group of journalists, organized and paid for by the agency, it seemed that in Ukraine the organizations had to flex their muscles to suit the needs of the community. Chabad here was not the Chabad of the US nor was it that of Israel.

Ukraine’s Jewish community seems to be barely surviving. Most of those who sustained a strong sense of Jewish identity through the post-Stalin era emigrated from the Soviet Union, leaving behind a large group of relatively unidentified Jews, who know very little of their heritage. It is hard to determine exactly how many Jews remain in the former Soviet Union, in part because of problems with lost documentation, but a population survey in 2002 estimated 450,000. With a high intermarriage rate and few affiliated with any Jewish framework, the community is at risk of dying out. That’s why for over a decade, Jews of all stripes have been rushing to their rescue, setting up schools and summer camps, ulpanim and community centers, before the window of opportunity closes.

The underlying question for all those engaged in outreach efforts – be it Chabad, the agency, the Orthodox Union or the Reform Movement – was whether Jews have a future here and, if so, what kind.
Desecrated exhibit

My instinct was right. The haredi in line with me at the airport was on his way to a Chabad summer camp. When I mentioned the purpose of my trip – visiting Jewish Agency summer camps – our conversation ended abruptly. And when the Ukrainian who stood behind me realized that perhaps I was also a Jew, he too turned away, leaving an awkward silence.

Ukraine, which was known for its fierce anti- Semitism, has not yet transcended its past. Traveling through Odessa and Kharkov, residual anti- Semitism was physically noticeable in several desecrated memorials we visited.

Last year, an Israeli photography exhibit in Kharkov called “That’s How We Live” was set on fire two days after opening. Agency officials believed the burned exhibit showed even more poignantly the way Jews live, and demanded that the exhibit remain open in its desecrated state.

Visiting the monumental memorial at Drobitsky Yar, a ravine just outside Kharkov, where in December 1941, Nazi troops began a year-long massacre of local inhabitants, we noticed several Ukrainians picnicking. Some farmers had even begun growing potatoes in the fields surrounding the monument, where thousands of Jews were transported to be killed.

Today’s antiSemitism may be complicated by envy, explained Rabbi Moshe Moskowitz, the chief rabbi of of Kharkov, sitting in his office in the only remaining synagogue in the city. Originally built in 1909, it is a large impressive building that, unlike the rest of the buildings on the block, is set back from the street to conform to a law requiring synagogues to be a certain distance from the cathedral down the block.

“Last year I stopped someone in the park on Succot, as Lubavitchers often do, and asked if he was Jewish,” said Moskovitz, who was sent here from his home in Caracas, Venezuela. “He said, ‘Unfortunately not.’” Moskovitz used this anecdote to explain the complicated relationship between the Jewish and non-Jewish populations.

Maybe in part it was envy, not antiSemitism, that contributed to the cold shoulder I received from the Ukrainian standing in line with me at JFK. His story, which he warmed up enough to tell me as we crossed the Atlantic, is worth mentioning. Fourteen years after immigrating to America, he was being deported back to his motherland. Upon discovering he was an illegal immigrant, he was sent to jail for three months. And now it was unclear when he would be allowed to return to the US, if ever, and what would become of his family – wife and twins – in New Jersey. He, unlike many Jews in Ukraine, could not rely on relief efforts to come to his rescue.

“The Jewish community around the world cares so much about the Jews in Ukraine,” the man in the park told Moskowitz.

It was the manifestation of this – in particular, Jewish summer camps – that we came to view first-hand.

Despite differences in emphasis between Chabad and the agency, which each sponsors a range of educational and social activities, both groups spoke respectfully of each other. Sometimes the two cooperate on certain events. More significant is the fact that many kids often participate in camps and other activities sponsored by a variety of organizations.

“Once kids get interested in Judaism, they go to as much as possible,” said Rabbi Moskowitz. Chabad operates a day school, a yeshiva for boys (50 students), a machon for girls (40 enrolled) and an academy for girls who finish the machon. Many of the kids who study at the Chabad school in Kharkov attend agency activities in the afternoon. “They end up seeing Israel and Judaism as one thing.”

Last year, 7,500 Jews made aliya from the former Soviet Union, 35 percent of the worldwide total. This year, the agency expects that number to drop by 10%, according to Alex Selsky, who led the trip to Ukraine for journalists. Whether the camps and other outreach efforts contribute to aliya is hard to measure, but based on responses from participants and counselors, they seem to have a tangible impact.

“This is the third time I’m here and every time I feel more and more proud to be Jewish when I go back into the world,” said Dima Ruchinsky, whose father lives in Israel. In a room of about 20 campers and counselors, a handful said they were considering aliya.

Asked what leading a good Jewish life meant, Ruchinsky responded: “I lead a good Jewish life; leading a good Jewish life is feeling comfortable as a Jew.” ON MY flight back from Ukraine, I was reminded of something Kapelnikov told us at the end of our tour of Kharkov: “Here you see the horror of our people and the hope of our people.”

After visiting several memorials throughout Ukraine, monuments to a century that did not bode well for the Jews, to see a group of young Jews dancing to Israeli music was a vista more real than the one at the end of Yad Vashem.

Against all odds, the Jewish community in Ukraine was being offered a second chance, whether through strengthening itself or by relocating to Israel.

And then I thought again of the Ukrainian who had been deported from the US and separated from his family, and I thought about the unlikelihood of a Jewish future for Ukraine.