Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania
April 14 – 28, 2013
Judy Patkin - Executive Director
Karen Rosner - Mitzvah Project Liaison
OVERVIEW
On our trip we traveled to 8 cities in the Ukraine, as well as 2 in Belarus and 1 in Lithuania. Our purpose was to ensure that our programs are being administered properly and to assess the needs of our clients. As with all of our trips, we visited Bubbes, dined at Warm Houses, spoke to medical care providers, and met with Rabbis. This trip brought home just how vulnerable our clients are, with the cost of food, medicine and clothing approaching global levels, while their incomes are fixed at levels at or approaching poverty.
Cities visited in the Ukraine:
· Dnipropetrovsk – met Action’s Ukrainian program coordinator, dined at a Warm House
· Poltava – met with our Adopt-a-Bubbe coordinator, made two home visits, and visited the old Jewish section.
· Cherkassi – met with the Rabbi for the only Synagogue, our Adopt-a-Bubbe coordinator and made two home visits.
· Dniprodzerzhinksk – met with our Adopt-a-Bubbe coordinator and the local Rabbi. Made a home visit, and dined at a Warm House in Dnipropetrovsk.
· Melitopol – visited a weekly Havdallah service which Action sponsors, met with the head of Chesed and a leader of the Jewish community, and made home visits.
· Kirovograd – met our new Adopt-a-Bubbe coordinator, made home visits.
· Zhovty Vody – Visited a Warm House, made home visits with our Adopt-a-Bubbe coordinator.
· Pavlograd – met our new Adopt-a-Bubbe coordinator, made home visits.
· Novomoskovsk – visited a new Holocaust memorial, made home visits with our Adopt-a-Bubbe coordinator.
Belarus:
· Minsk – toured the city
· Bobruisk – met with the leader of the orthodox community
Lithuania:
· Vilnius – visited the former Jewish section of the city, met with a member of the American Embassy who handles public affairs, and met with leaders of the Jewish community.
Day 1: Dnipropetrovsk
We met with Action’s Ukrainian Program Coordinator, Yan, and dined at a Warm House. Yan is concerned with the continued rise in the price of food, poor medical care, and lack of programs to handle the disabled. Life in the Ukraine can be very hard for those who cannot work and rely on government assistance. Many of Action’s clients are either elderly, unable to work due to illness in the family, or just struggling to make ends meet in a poor region of the world. Our clients cannot afford fresh fruits and vegetables, meat or cheese. When they are ill, they tend not to go to the Doctor, since they have seen friends and family come home sicker than before the visit. There are few programs offered for the disabled, placing the burden of care on family.
Yan’s job is to find the neediest of needy and to set up and administer programs to supplement their food, deliver used clothing, and provide medical assistance when possible.
One of Action’s programs, the Warm House, helps to provide a nutritious meal and gives our clients Jewish community. Action sets up Warm Houses throughout the Ukraine, which bring together a dozen or more Jewish retirees for dinner each month. This is made possible by Action’s contribution of $50 towards the purchase of the food.
We visited a Warm House in Dnipropetrovsk at the home of Genya, who took over as host after the former host suddenly passed. For Genya, hosting a warm house is a dream come true. Over dinner, Genya and her 14 guests gather each month to enjoy a homemade meal, celebrate Holidays, chat, tell stories and sing.
Genya served gefilte fish, herring, sardines, beet salad, vegetable salad, potato salad and a meat dish called Manty which comes from Central Asia. The meat in the dish is spiced and then wrapped in dough and boiled.
Genya worked as an interpreter and speaks 11 languages, including Ukrainian, Russian, Arabic, Hebrew, Yiddish, Turkish, English, Pashto, Farsi. She was born in 1943. Her husband died from cancer at age 47, leaving her alone with her son, Bulat. Bulat, who was recently laid off cannot collect his pension until he is 65. He, his daughter and granddaughter all live with Genya in her one bedroom apartment.
Genya’s guests include Janna a former computer programmer and analyst. Lola, who worked in measurements and quality control for the food industry, and Lena who, worked at a construction company for 35 years.
Maria had four great uncles who emigrated to the US in the early 1900’s, who she has lost touch with. She worked in energy engineering for almost 50 years. Eyae worked as an engineer and Esfir was a factory worker.
Day 2: Poltava
We visited with our Adopt-a-Bubbe coordinator in Poltava, made 2 home visits and toured a former Jewish neighborhood.
Action’s Adobt-a-Bubbe Coordinator in Poltava is responsible for delivering food to 30 elderly clients. There are no Warm Houses in Poltava. As with all of our Adobt-a-Bubbe coordinators, she gets funding from Action to purchase food, typically $12/client, and volunteers her time to buy and deliver the food packages.
Poltava, 2 hours drive north of Dnipropetrovsk, was once home to 30,000 Jews. Now there are 2,000. They do not have a synagogue, but do have a Chabad Rabbi who works from his home. The main industry is agriculture.
Pensions in Poltava are $108/month, subsidized rent is $20/month, including utilities. This does not leave enough for food, medicine, and clothing. As a result, our clients are grateful for what we can do for them.
We made a home visit with Roza, who is an only child and never married. She has diabetes and hypertension, and pays for her medicine from her pension. She received clothing, chicken, fish, apples, cheese, a liter of cooking oil and artificial sweetener from Action, and was very grateful.
We visited with Zoya next, who is not able to work since she takes care of her mentally challenged son, Maxim. His formal education ended at age 18, and there are no other programs offered to him. Now 20, he cannot be left alone. Zoya has no other living family. Maxim greeted us wearing clothing that had been donated by Action and thanked us for our help. Zoya received a similar package of food and clothing.
After the visits, we toured a former Jewish neighborhood, and saw an old synagogue that is now home to the Poltava Philharmonic. Another Sephardic synagogue is now a private home, with Magen Davids still present in the decorative iron work surrounding the second floor windows.
Day 3: Cherkassi
We visited with Rabbi Alexrad and his wife, Chany, met our Adopt-a-Bubbe coordinator, made two home visits and toured an old Jewish neighborhood.
Cherkassi, a city of 300,000, has a Jewish community of 6,000. Prior to WWII, there were 13 synagogues. Now there is one Chabad Synagogue and a Jewish Day School with 22 students enrolled, all college bound.
The main industry is making missiles and guns for tanks, as well as agriculture and food storage.
Our Adopt-a-Bubbe program serves around 20 clients, and is run by a Synagogue staff member. Chany provides dinner and discussion each week for 12 elderly women. We talked about setting up a second Warm House sponsored by Action.
Following our visit at the Synagogue, we made a home visit with Alla, who taught physics for 40 years at a Cherkassi HS. Her husband passed away in 2002 from emphysema, leaving her with her only son, Yuri. Yuri suffers from a severe case of Parkinson’s, requiring round the clock care. Alla has her own health issues, and only goes out to places close by.
Our next home visit was with Raisa. Her husband died two months ago from cancer, and her brother died at age 45 of a heart attack. Her only living family is her nephew, who lives nearby, and works at Chesed. Raisa’s health is not good, she suffers from hypertension, heart problems, and a broken leg that never healed properly. She spends most of her days listening to the radio and watching TV.
Day 4: Dniprodzerzhinksk (DNZ)
We met our Adopt-a-Bubbe coordinator, who serves 20 clients and overseas one Warm House, and visited the only Synagogue in the city, a Chabad Synagogue run by Rabbi Stambler. DNZ is a city of 250,000 to 300,000 people, 2,000 of which are Jewish.
DNZ has factories that process heavy metals and pollute the surrounding area. We were able to see small bits of graphite dust that sparkled in the light that had been spewed out of a chimney at a metal factory and covered the ground. There are also fertilizer and chemical factories, which pollute the air and water, and a nuclear dump site from the first uranium enrichment plant. Unfortunately, there is no environmental protection agency or process for instituting and enforcing environmental programs in the Ukraine. Rabbi Stambler is very concerned about the health of his congregation, and recently lost a teacher at his school from brain cancer at age 35.
We visited a thriving Jewish Day School that provides education for 65 students and a Jewish medical clinic, which offers immunizations, checks blood pressure, and does testing. The idea is to avoid sending patients to the hospital for testing, since the tests are often administered incorrectly, leading to false diagnosis.
Our Adopt-a-Bubbe coordinator borrows a car from Rabbi Stambler’s wife, Dina, to make her deliveries. We made a home visit with one of our clients, Boris, born 1928. He does not have any family left, his wife passed away a few years ago and his daughter moved to the US. He was an only child, orphaned in the war, and lost his leg in a railroad accident in his early 20’s. He is able to get around, but is very depressed and lonely. His wife was his life.
Next, we dined at a Warm House in Dnipropetrovsk, one of three in the city. The guests were all very friendly, and Vera, their host, made everyone feel welcome. She did all of the cooking, including salads, herring, gefilte fish, potatoes, vodka, and cake for dessert. Vera lives in a one bedroom apartment, with her daughter and granddaughter, and grandson from her deceased other daughter. Her grandson, a teen, attends school at the Jewish Day School.
At dinner, we were joined by Boris, an accomplished singer, completely blind, and a member of the Synagogue choir. Sasha, born 1941, played the accordion while Boris sang, and everyone else joined in along with a couple dinner guests playing a hand drum and cymbals. It was very festive!
Day 5: Melitopol
Located three hours drive south of Dnipropetrovsk, Melitopol has a population of 168,000 and a Jewish community of 3,000. The city is made up of 110 nationalities, and everyone seems to get along, regardless of religion or nationality. During the Soviet era, the city had factories that made car engines, large appliances and metals. Many are closed, so there is high unemployment and the community is very poor.
We visited a weekly Havdallah service at the Chesed, with food sponsored by Action. 23 guests participated in the service.
We next met with the head of Chesed, located in a building built for the Jewish community in 1790 and returned to them in 1997, and a leader of the Jewish community. The clothing that we are sending is very much appreciated. They need more sweaters, casual clothes and shoes for adults, and fleece jackets and shoes for children. They prefer several boxes of clothing at a time, so they can put it out and let people take what they need.
We made home visits with our Adopt-a-Bubbe coordinator, who works at Chesed. She shares the responsibility with other Chesed staff members.
We visited Vladimir and brought him a mattress topper to help reduce bed sores. He is partially paralyzed and unable to walk after suffering from a stroke eight years ago. He lives with his wife and his son visits daily.
Next we met Maya, born in 1930. She taught Russian and literature at a high school for 52 years. Her daughter lives in Germany, and she has two granddaughters, one living in Germany and one in Israel. We delivered chicken, oranges, butter, cheese and biscuits.
We then traveled back to Dnipropetrovsk and had dinner with Rabbi Kaminezki, head of the Rose Synagogue. He founded the Synagogue and is responsible for taking care of his own congregations as well as other Jewish communities throughout the Ukraine. He works closely with Action, identifying Jews living in the countryside who are in need of our services.
Day 6 - Kirovograd
We met our new Adopt-a-Bubbe coordinator, Elena, who brings food packages to 80 clients in her city. She brings packages to 20 at a time when she receives funding from Action. Packages cost between $6-10 each, and can include chicken or another meat, cheese, fruit and tea. She tries to fulfill special requests, as well, like buying a folding chair for one of her clients so she can sit in the yard. Sasha had been our coordinator, but emigrated to Germany with his family last year.
Elena is unable to work because she cares for her mentally challenged daughter. She was happy to give back to Action, after having received assistance from Action for the care of her daughter.