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Odessa Jewish orphanage doesn’t fit the stereotype

By Alex Weisler · November 1, 2011

Chava Melamed, director of the Tikva Children's Home facility for small children, leads a group of boys in a rendition of Chiddy Bang's "Mind Your Manners." (Alex Weisler)

As we pulled up to the orphanage, located in a historically Jewish Odessa neighborhood called Moldavanka, I wasn't sure what to expect.

I'd never been to an orphanage before. Was I in for something out of "Annie"? Would I be greeted by the Ludwig Bemelmans vision of "in two straight lines, they broke their bread and brushed their teeth and went to bed"? Or would this be something bleaker -- gruel and rags and the sort of dismal grayness we're all too quick to associate with Eastern Europe?

What I wasn't really prepared for was the vibrant facility I found.

I was visiting the orphanage as part of a look into the operations of the Tikva Children's Home, an Odessa-based group founded in 1996 that tackles the complicated issue of caring for the underprivileged and orphaned Jewish children of the city -- and indeed the entire former southern Soviet Union, a region encompassing parts of Ukraine, Russia, Moldova and Belarus.

The charity operates three homes in Odessa -- a home for young children of both genders, and two homes for older boys and girls. Tikva also runs boys' and girls' schools and a university operated near Odessa's main synagogue that is operated in connection with the Crimean State Humanitarian University.
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Despite language barrier, Odessa Limmud event has palpable energy

By Alex Weisler · October 31, 2011

Moscow cantor Dmitry Karpenko discusses the American Jewish musical tradition at Limmud FSU, held in Odessa, Ukraine. (Alex Weisler)

I only speak English and bad high-school Italian, so covering a conference held almost entirely in Russian isn't the easiest for me.

Luckily, Limmud doesn't make it too hard.

There's usually about five options for each time slot over the next two days, from more traditional lectures -- these would be the workshops in which I smile blandly and try to pick out the odd word -- to multimedia seminars, like the one just held by Dmitry Karpenko, cantor of Moscow's progressive Jewish community.

I couldn't comprehend most of Karpenko's lecture (apart from "Americanska," "Ashkenazi", "music" and "Debbie Friedman"), but his subject -- how Jewish music in America is connected to the country's larger musical culture -- intrigued me.

And of course, when Karpenko began to play his guitar and sing lively versions of "Modeh Ani" and "Mi Khamokha," the language gap was closed.

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The week ahead: trips to Ukraine, Moldova and a country that doesn’t exist

By Alex Weisler · October 30, 2011

No one told me that today was the day to turn back your clocks in Europe.

That's why I'm currently sitting in a Caffe Nero near London's Hammersmith tube stop in the southwest of the city, shamelessly abusing free WiFi and killing time before hopping an express train to Gatwick for my flight to Ukraine.

I'm heading to Odessa today, Ukraine's fourth-largest city and a cultural jewel on the Black Sea, to cover the city's second Limmud conference. Last year's event attracted about 500 young Russian-speaking Jews.

As I've traveled through Europe, I've heard only the best things about the Limmud program, a workshop-based educational model that started in the United Kingdom in 1980 and has been operating in the former Soviet Union since 2006.

But I haven't seen it in action -- that's why I'm so excited for this trip to Odessa, which will incidentally also reunite me with some friends I made at the European Union of Jewish Students' Summer U event back in Greece in August.
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In London, a metropolis with a rich and diverse Jewish life

By Alex Weisler · October 23, 2011

If it feels like it's taken me awhile to get started in London, blame Stephanie Oxner -- or whoever the person actually is who impersonated a 29-year-old nurse and bilked me out of a good deal of money in a Craigslist apartment scam.

But as I've spent about a week bouncing around from hotel to friend's couch to hotel again, I've also managed to fit in a good deal of meetings -- it's been a week that's served as a great introduction to London's rich and varied Jewish life.

It's been almost three months since I left Paris, with its 300,000 Jews. London, with 200,000 Jews that constitute the lion's share of the U.K.'s 250,000, is the first Jewish community that rivals that city's in terms of scope and influence I've seen in quite some time.

After one day of letting myself freak out about housing, I dove headfirst into what London Jewish life has to offer.
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Babushkas—occupational hazard or unexpected gift?

By Alex Weisler · October 15, 2011

In college, I lived in a house named after Kate Bush, so it's only fitting that my nearly four months in Europe have been punctuated by babushkas -- though I suppose Kate would insist that the proper word is "Babooshka."

When I visited Vilnius, Lithuania, in late August, a wizened crone screamed at me as I was crossing the street: "You! Jew! Go to the synagogue!" In retrospect, I'm not sure how she knew I was Jewish. I wasn't wearing a yarmulke, and the only identifier of my religion was my admittedly prominent nose. My response was simple and swift, though: I scowled at her and took her advice, heartily enjoying my visit to the city's Choral Synagogue, a gorgeous building that dates back to 1903. I mean, who am I to judge? God works in mysterious ways.

The babushkas didn't like me much in Russia either. Over the course of an approximately two-week trip to Moscow and St. Petersburg, ex-Soviet women of a certain age seemed to love nothing more than to scream "nyet" at me -- as I handed over inappropriately large bills to pay for subway tickets, as I attempted to mail expense forms to JTA "bean counter" Lee Silverstein, as I tried to navigate Russian pharmacies to purchase a razor.

I was beginning to think that the sturdy old women of the world were allied against me, but today's encounter at "?", a popular Belgrade tavern, changed my outlook.
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Through minyans, a better sense of my Jewish identity, responsibilities

By Alex Weisler · October 13, 2011

Members of the Jewish community in Nove Zamky, Slovakia, speak about the town's Jewish history at its Orthodox cemetery. (Alex Weisler)

Before this trip to Europe, I'm not sure I properly appreciated the value and simple beauty of the minyan.

Minyans are about collective responsibility, the recognition that there are certain Jewish rituals we are obligated to make communal.

Back in New York, I'm generally a High Holidays kind of guy in terms of my synagogue attendance -- and on the occasional alternate Saturdays that I make it to shul, it's pretty clear that I'm not a make-or-break member of my local congregation.

That's not the case here in Europe. In fact, I've taken to carrying a yarmulke around at all times.

See, I've been corralled into some unexpected minyans over the last few months, and though I dropped out of Boy Scouts in the fourth grade, I remember the important thing: Be prepared.

In Belgrade, a warm, inviting Sukkot celebration

By Alex Weisler · October 12, 2011

Greetings from Belgrade.

I got into the city -- which on first glance reminds me alternately of Athens and Moscow -- in late afternoon and had just enough time to drop my stuff off before the Sukkot celebrations began at the city's only synagogue, located just a few blocks away from my hostel.

I'm no expert on the Serbian Jewish community, and I haven't conducted any interviews yet -- that all starts tomorrow, after morning Sukkot services -- but I'm already struck by the warmth and friendliness of the Belgrade congregation.

In so many places I've traveled in the last three months, relations between historic Jewish communities and more recently established Chabad outposts are frosty at best. But here, Rabbi Ichak Asiel of the Belgrade synagogue and Rabbi Yehoshua Kaminetzky of Chabad sat side by side in the sukkah, comparing strategies for how to verify the ancestry of people finding their way back to Judaism.
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Off to Serbia to … well, I’ll figure that out

By Alex Weisler · October 12, 2011

I'm off to Belgrade, Serbia, today for five nights before I move into a little flat in Westminster for about a month of London-based reporting.

Why Serbia? Part of it is simply the appeal of geography. I've been dying to go to the Balkans for years.

Yes, Thessaloniki in northern Greece, where I spent a week covering the European Union of Jewish Students' Summer U, is sometimes referred to as the "Seattle of the Balkans" -- but I'm not sure Greece counts. I haven't been anywhere else in that part of the world -- and as I begin to wind down my European tour, I'm beginning to realize I'm running out of chances to hit some of these dream locations.

Budapest was a fantastic Central European base, so I figured I'd throw in one more regional destination before I relocate to the other side of the continent.

Of course, I'm mostly going to report. Serbia's Jewish community may be small, but it seems like there are a host of stories to be found in Belgrade and its surroundings.

In Slovakia, a tale of two synagogues … and then some

By Alex Weisler · October 10, 2011

The former Orthodox synagogue in Trnava, Slovakia, has been converted into an avant-garde art gallery. (Alex Weisler)

Leave it to Slovakia to put it in perspective.

This trip has provided me with examples from the full spectrum of options for synagogues in western Slovakia -- and I have to keep reminding myself that it's all relative.

The shul in Stupava has been blessed by dedicated volunteers committed to reviving the space and creating a new, vibrant Jewish cultural center. I've been in Europe for more than three months now, and my Gmail account is full of projects I've made a mental note to check back on in a few years' time -- Stupava quickly vaulted to near the top of that list.

But the problem with something like Stupava is that you get spoiled.

At our next stop, in the dull, grey town of Malacky, I had trouble completely embracing the synagogue, which was beautifully preserved and a clear focal point of the community. Malacky's Alhambra-inspired, salmon-striped shul is in great condition, but it's now an art school and our trip leaders told us that much of the interior has been reconstructed for that purpose.

Rather than celebrating the comparatively good fortune of the Malacky synagogue, I found myself lamenting the fact that it is no longer an explicitly Jewish space.

Our next stop, in the town of Senec, reminded me that's the wrong approach.
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In Stupava, an old synagogue gets new lease on life

By Alex Weisler · October 9, 2011

The synagogue in Stupava, Slovakia, is being restored by Jewrope, an NGO dedicated to restoring Jewish cultural life. (Alex Weisler)

My whirlwind tour of Jewish sites in Western Slovakia -- tagging along with about two dozen students and faculty from three regional Jewish studies graduate programs -- kicked off this morning in Stupava, a sleepy town just outside of Bratislava's city limits.

Tour organizer Michael Miller, of the Jewish studies graduate program at Budapest's Central European Univesity, told the group that bypassing Bratislava was a conscious choice.

Just up from Budapest on the Danube, it's easily accessible by train -- unlike the synagogues and cemeteries we plan to visit, which are more remote and require cars or buses.

In Stupava, we visited a synagogue that dates back to 1803 and is believed to be one of the three oldest in Slovakia.

It's "the only one still to some extent used for Jewish affairs and Jewish events," said Tomas Stern, director of Jewrope, a Slovakian NGO that has made the restoration of Stupava's synagogue a top priority in its quest to rebuild and sustain Slovakian Jewish cultural life.
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