It's 9:30 p.m. Chicago time and as I write this Anne is in the aisle doing exercises, Ellen and Susie are in pursuit of a bathroom and Rhonda is organizing herself for a long snooze. We are actually in a plane on our way to Russia. The plane left about 1 1/2 hours late but all our bags made it through without any overage charges and only minimal repacking by Rhond. I had a short moment of panic when the security guard looking through Anne's suitcase proceeded to take every book out of every bag and look through the pages. She told me she was Jewish and she was impressed with what we were doing, but she till proceeded to go through every book. (I wonder if that's why the plane was delayed). But...no one called us back to security, so we'll see what gets through when we arrive in Moscow.
When we got through customs we began looking at all the signs looking for our "contacts' Finally spied the sign that said 'JOINT" and met Yuli. He wanted to be gentlemanly and push our carts one at a time for us to the van that was about a mile away in the parking lot, but I persuaded him that we Americans are strong and we headed out together. It's about a two hour drive form the airport to Pushkine. Our driver didn't like the looks of a traffic jam, did a U-turn to go the wrong way up an entrance ramp and seek out a more scenic route through the country.
Mostly we perused the countryside and occasionally we napped on the long ride out to Pushkine. Arrived at Pushkine at about 9:15 p.m. To me it looks like what I imagined an old sanitarium to look like. I think it was once a family vacation center and they are trying to fix it up. The floors are a bit shaky, the plumbing is rather ancient, the beds are a bit lumpy, but we have our own rooms with matching bedspread, curtains and wallpaper and our own bathrooms.
I couldn't sleep past 6:00. Finally decided to get up, shower and write. showering felt great. However-the cold was really hot-at least we get hot water; there is no hook to hold the shower head so you soap with one hand and rinse with the other, the toilet seat lid won't stay up unless you hold it, the bathroom door won't close and the mirror was made for a giant-I can only see my eyebrows.
The sheets are about a foot short for the bed and the floor covering definitely merits shower shoes. My bedside light is a plastic moon face attached to the wall. In the bathroom there are pipes exposed everywhere in fact the towel rack is a pipe. There is no outlet in the bathroom. I think I'll have to unplug the moon to dry my hair. It's a good thing we brought our own towels. Rhonda's informant was right-the ones they provide are dish towel size. We have these super flat super absorbent ones that feel like a cross between flannel and fake leather, but they work!
We have been here little more than a day and I feel as if it has been closer to a week. It was an amazing day and I'm not sure I can capture it, but I'll try.
We met for breakfast at 9:00 a.m. Breakfast consisted of some sort of fried meat patty, potatoes, cucumbers, tomatoes, eggs, bread, tea and Israeli wafers Susie had a leak in her room, so the first order of business was switching rooms. Then we had a tour of the building to see our meeting rooms. This place is in major disrepair. The floor is buckling, there is a major mold problem and sometimes it seemed almost treacherous to go up and down the stairs, but we found three good workable spaces. The big room was an auditorium with about 100 plastic porch chairs and 3 tables. It even had a large stage and a piano. Outside of that room is a large covered porch which we also used as a meeting place even though most of day it rained. Tucked away upstairs on a floor in such bad shape that we almost ruled it out just because of the route, was the director's office. It has great tables for doing art projects, built in glass covered cabinets on the walls & upholstered chairs. Not exactly board room quality, but a notch above everything else. It was also the location of the old fashioned switchboard. I believe that now regular telephone reception here is pretty difficult, I'm sure there is no phone connection to the individual rooms.
Places identified we set out to finish organizing. We filled the bags with all the remaining items, took pictures of the contents of one bag, dusted chairs, gathered supplies and set up the rooms. By 11:00 we were done and went back down to change into our "Presenter" clothes.
The van arrived about 11:00. Suddenly there was a mass of humanity in the hall way-it was real; our conference was about to begin. The participants dropped off their bags in their rooms and we all met in the dining room for tea and opening remarks. I was quite nervous to begin and it was hard at first to get a rhythm with the translator It was not simultaneous translation, I spoke and then she translated. (Augstina is a neurologist here working on a post doc and translating to make extra money. She is from Ghana and her mother is Russian so she is totally bilingual.) It was hard to be my natural expressive self when I got no facial reactions from the audience until a minute later. I quickly realized that my prepared speech was too long and decided to improvise. Everyone did laugh at the idea that the conference was my 50th birthday present.
My first session was Partners with God and it was a full house. Lucy was sitting right next to me and it was so wonderful to be teaching with her by my side after she had translated all the materials. ( I should put in a note about meeting Lucy. As all of the participants were pouring into the halls I caught site of a familiar face-one that I had seen in pictures and a woman came and threw her arms around me. It was so wonderful to finally meet Lucy after all these months of letter writing and planning. Our meeting was only for a moment because she headed off to put her suitcase away and I headed into the room for our first session. We still really hadn't had a chance to talk, but it was just nice to know that she was sitting next to me.). When I talked about putting sugar into a glass of water to show that God exists even though you can't see God, one woman talked about asking her students if they had ever been to America. They said no, but how do you know that America exists, she asked them. They pointed to a map. An interesting analogy.. People had some hard questions-teaching about why many religions in the world, teaching why God doesn't answer specific prayers. They liked the material about creation and connections to Bereshit. Many had not heard of the sheheyanu prayer.
After lunch was the bibliodrama workshop and it was fun. I had a large group-almost 20 people, in fact, I tried to encourage some of them to go to other workshops promising that I would do a second bibliodrama workshop tomorrow. They were into it immediately, easily took on roles and didn't hold back at all. One gentleman (there were only two men here) was so powerful in his role that he just encouraged a great interaction Later it turned out that professionally he is a director. Another woman made up a wonderful midrash about a bracelet going from the hand of an Egyptian to an Israeli to being used for the golden calf. It was so spontaneous and yet so rich. They had good questions, such as how to get adults to relax and take part and they loved the idea of using a talk show format.
Next was reflection groups and I think that was one of the most rewarding moments of the day. It wasn't the receiving of thanks, but rather the validation that we had touched on skills they wanted, shown them new perspectives, and validated them as teachers. One woman thought she had invented bibliodrama herself and was glad to see she was on the right track. Another really appreciated Rhonda's tricks of how to help children remember songs and prayers. One educator is a doctor by profession and just recently volunteered in her community. She was moved by all the ways her peers are working to stimulate the future for Jews. Another participant shared many ways she makes paper prints in her community using salt and watercolor washes or reverse painting off of cellophane or plastic.
The final program of the day was the sharing of artifacts. We divided into four groups and people shared what they had brought from home-something personal, something from their family and something from their community. They told us a lot about the activities back home, shared their own artwork and artwork from their communities. One woman carried a huge poster on the bus and train , a collage of various community activities-there was bead art work, crocheted shawls, theater programs, Jewish star necklaces. It was very moving, especially to hear the journey so many had made to find their Jewish roots.
I think I have to start at the end of the day and then go back to the beginning because the end was so powerful. Just as the evening program was about to begin the electricity went off due to a big accident down the road. We are far enough north that at 9:00 p.m. it wasn't pitch black, but it was getting dark and it was not really light enough to see the song sheets we had prepared.
A group of young Russian madrichim came today to prepare for a family camp that begins Sunday. Non plussed, they began by leading us in Israeli singing in the dark. Before each song they told a story or gave an explanation and if it wasn't for the fact that I couldn't understand a word of the explanation I would have sworn it was a group of Israeli madrichim.
At one point we sang several version of Oseh Shalom and spontaneously the Americans started a version the Russians didn't know. A few sang along, but most just listened. Then we taught Hallelu, Hava Nashira and Esa Ainai. Hava Nashira was a little high for us to lead, so Larissa came to our aide. She began teaching Israeli dances in the dark with no music, giving instructions in Russian. It was a lot of fun. Everyone was laughing and dancing and humming along. Finally the lights came back on and the madrichim put on their music with a live microphone. They taught more dances and did a few very fancy ones on their own. Rhonda and I got up to learn a new dance. They taught it in steps without any music. You can imagine our surprise when the music came on and it turned out to be "Cotton Eye Joe".
There was such a wonderful sense of camaraderie-everyone singing and dancing and having fun. We were all Jews together-our common language was our Judaism. Just as we were getting ready to leave to go to bed, they started to play Yesh. This was a new song-the madrichim had just learned it and it was new to the rest of the group. The only problem was that they didn't quite know it. Luckily we were there to save the day, using hands and just guiding bodies we laughed our way through. We got down to our rooms to discover that when the electricity had gone out the water stopped pumping,--no flushing, no showers and just when we were the most sweaty. Oh well, such is life in Pushkine.
So now let's go back to the beginning of the day. We began with text study of Exodus about the burning bush. We were looking at the question of why God chose a burning bush to be a sign for Moses. One person suggested that the Egyptians and Moses in particular were so far from God that they needed a magic trick to get their attention. Perhaps the plagues were also magical for the same reason. Another person disagreed and said it was not magic at all, but that the burning bush was protecting Moses from the heat of God's face. Then we talked about Moses as a leader and suggested that the teachers are like Moses for the Russian people. I think this type of text study was new to many of the participants, but they enjoyed it.
Next we gathered in the big room . I thanked everyone for sharing all of their artifacts last night and told them how impressed we were with all they had accomplished, starting form so little. Then we taught them the Sheheyanu and we all sang it together. It was another beautiful moment.
My first workshop was another section of Bibliodrama. Today we looked at the story of Esther. We broke into small groups and then showed each other our Bibliodramas. It was very well received.
I was off for the second workshop, so I visited everyone else. Rhonda was teaching about values using regular books (not specifically Jewish ones) We had an interesting discussion on Bal Tashhit and found that Russians don't recycle-except for newspapers and occasionally beer bottles. A focus of this workshop was making tzedakkah connections to Jewish values an ongoing part of their curriculum .
Anne's workshop was about creating new rituals for the Pesach Seder. She had asked participants to think of people in the community whom they might honor by talking about them at the community Seder. They chose to talk about artists, musicians, and community leaders. Not surprisingly, Lucy was identified as a community leader. Another set of groups worked on the four sons-each identifying modern characteristics of the sons and then talking about how to engage each of these modern sons more fully in the community. I think it was a totally new way of looking at this material for all the participants and they were quite engaged.
Lunch was probably the most moving moment of the Seminar for me (definitely not because of the food). There was a young bride of two months participating and Anne suggested we put into practice the idea of creating new ritual and write her Sheva Brachot. We had her stand and then we all read the blessings we had written and sang Siman Tov. Of course, all of the Americans were crying and the bride had an amazing smile on her face. It was an incredibly spiritual moment.
After lunch I had my artifacts workshop. I handed out a few real artifacts and several pictures of artifacts from the Museum kit. One of my "real" artifacts was the map we made at home marking the cities of participants. In trying to read the artifact I had them guess what the circles were from-they were quite surprised and pleased when they learned the answer. We talked about creating museums and using artifacts to introduce a new unit. To close we played the "What's the most Jewish thing in your house game". Several people said they had nothing Jewish in their home and I promised that by the time we were finished they would see that they did. They were all surprised by my statement that my dining room table was Jewish. But by the end , even Augustina our Russian translator realized she had some books by Jewish authors. For the rest of the Seminar people kept coming up and asking "is this an artifact." They really got it. Most rewarding was when one participant , a history professor told me how much she enjoyed it and how it gave her new ways to think.
Next we had reflection groups. The feed back was very positive-the workshops are interesting, easy to understand. They get lots of new info and they liked the way we play as we teach. Pesach-they loved the Haggadah, they could study it for a month.
What would they like in future seminars methods of teaching Hebrew to young kids. learning meaning of Jewish symbols: lion, fish and more more techniques of working with handicapped.
They learned that they could see art from other perspectives and that there isn't a right way of looking at things. We need to serve coffee at this conference Communities have multi-age groups from 5-15 all in the same room, ho do you do it? Doing the sheva brachot concretized the idea of creating ritual for simchas They enjoyed making the salt dough creations Ellen's workshop-it was new way of looking at the parsha. Groups drew their own interpretations-one group drew a hamsa with a road going through it-wherever Jews travel they are in God's hand.
It's actually mid-morning Friday as I write this-we are in Kineshma sitting in our glorious hotel room after showering and rejuvenating after our long train ride. I'm still a day behind on my journal writing so I'm catching up.
We all slept long and soundly after our exercise with the dancing. Breakfast was kasha and herring.
We started again with text study. This time it was the first chapter of Ruth. Many interesting interpretations. Sergei felt that Ruth's famous speech marked the direction of her destiny, her strong tie to the Jewish people and Naomi's change of name signified that her life is done. We had a long conversation about converts. Basically Russians don't convert.-the rabbis highly discourage it. Then we spent some time talking about each person's journey towards Judaism-
Ludmila: I used to attend Jewish clubs, but I never though I would be teaching. After I visited Israel and saw the Hebrew letters on the signs, I wanted to learn Hebrew. I got more involved. Then I offered to help with the family clubs.
Victoria: I'm not Jewish, I'm Russian. I don't know my roots. For a Russian person, I started to get interested in Judaism as I wanted to know more about the Bible. Based on what I read, I understood that the Jews were not just one of many, but the chosen people. God said to Abraham, "Whoever blesses you, I will bless them." In spite of the fact that I'm Russian, I'm interested in Jewish culture. I believe that every person in their heart believes in God. Leah is the curator of a museum in Moscow. The only experience I'd had with Jews before this was to see how they laid a table. Leah wants to set up a family club and she invited me to come to the conference and learn so that I can help her with the club. I've only been learning about Judaism for the past two months.
Sergei: For me everything is new. I haven't been involved with the Jewish community for more than two weeks. I have my own mission here. I am trying to write a play about Jews and I wanted to immerse myself in the Jewish culture. The people here are amazing, independent of the their nationality. It is a very human atmosphere. It was great to talk to participate and to meet the teachers and Augustina, the translator. The question of whether or not I will stay in the Jewish community is hard. I have four roots, and only one is Jewish. Neither religion or nationality is how I generally relate to people, a person is a person. I'm here to learn about the culture and collect actresses for my play.
Augustina (translator, Russian mother and father from Ghana-she is Black). It was a little strange at first with all of the Hebrew words. It was similar to workshops I've done with Protestants and Christians in Africa. I was amazed by the energy of all the people with only one aim, to learn about Jewish culture and education. I learned a lot about Judaism. As a person from a mixed marriage Russian/African, I can elate to the challenges.
One teacher commented that her most important view of a Jewish school is that it teaches children to see time differently A psychologist was interviewing a young child and asked her to define the word spring. Her answer..."When the Jews left Egypt!"
We met as a whole group before the workshops and taught the blessing Laasok be'divrei Torah. Then we headed out for our last workshops. I wasn't teaching this morning, so I was a floater. First I sat in Rhonda's workshop on Israel. She did a great job of reviewing KWL and webbing She talked about how she sets up her class to keep students Israel aware all the time. I added some info for older students. I had made a map of Rogers Park that showed where all of us live, the locations of Jewish stores, bakeries, and synagogues. It was a floor map and I explained how I used my floor map of Jerusalem to teach map skills, to get kids to move around and to tell stories about important places. I also talked about the school's Yom Ha'atzmaut rotations.
Next I went to visit Ellen's class on the Israeli Flag. She had some amazing photos by Yitzhak Yoresh of symbolic Israeli flags and she asked people to work in small groups to create midrash about them. The participants were so involved that they spent almost 2 hours and never got to the part where they create their own images A few of their midrashim in brief
Finally I went to Anne's workshop on preparing to teach Tish B'av and how to teach Jewish history. When I walked in she had just explained the concept of taking a well known song and rewriting the lyrics to fit your theme. She asked them to work in small groups and write songs about different moments in Jewish history. Olga got up and said we don't have to do that, we already have a Russian Jewish history song and she started to sing Go Down Moses in Russian. Clearly it was a song about Jewish history and everyone else joined in. We were rather stunned. Anne asked if they knew it was an American slave song-Olga actually knew that, but most thought it was just a Jewish history song. Anne explained that wasn't what she meant and redirected them. They ultimately wrote several new songs which they performed for us later in the afternoon. Anne had begun her session by bringing them into a dark room where she was sobbing. She finally lit some tea lights and they talked about how to bring Jews out of darkness to light.
Then they made a newspaper-assigned articles and photographers and posted it on poster board on the wall. The photographers drew pictures of what they would have "snapped". She talked about different ways to use a newspaper. We ended the session by playing an adaptation of the name game in relation to leaving Spain. Students had to say what hey were taking in their suitcase when leaving Spain and also list all those that came before them. Anne explained that once you had finished the list you could dissect it, to see what's missing and what you might want to add given the reality of the historical situation. It was interesting for me to observe that no one had suggested bringing Shabbat candlesticks or a siddur. The first Jewish artifact mentioned was a menorah.
After lunch we had our final reflection groups. Everyone had really enjoyed the morning workshops and felt that they were a good conclusion for our studies together. The funniest comment I had was one woman asked if it was ethical to write new words to popular tunes. I told her we did it all the time and that the songs were for our use, not for publication. Then we all went back to a "hidden room next to the dining room where we had challah dough waiting for us. Everyone got their hands dirty and we all braided challot to take home.
The final program was a review put on by everyone. They claimed they only needed 20 minutes to prepare but actually took 40. It was worth it! We ended the Seminar by standing in a large circle listening to a blessing Anne made up about the strength of our people, we taught them the tune to Amen and all sang together Od Yavo Shalom
The participants all got their bags and headed for the bus. It was a fancy coach bus the kind we take to Camp Chi-about 100 levels above our accommodations at Pushkine. We brought the freshly baked challot and the clay braided designs they had made in one of Anne's workshop right to the bus. We had intended for people to take the challah home and use it for Shabbat, but most used it as food for the road. They insisted that we take one for our travels, which was good because we used it to make Shabbat in our hotel room.
As the bus pulled out Rhonda, Sveta, Yulya, Lucy and I stood alongside and waved singing Od Yavo Shalom. It was a moment of mixed emotions.
Came back to Pushkine and spent some time as a group with Yulya and Sveta, the Russian coordinators of the Seminar We talked about Jewish vs. Russian schools. Jewish teachers are perceived as being warmer and more caring, but on the other hand Jewish schools are seen as less prestigious. We discussed the various non=-Jewish participants in the Seminar and how they came to be there. One woman had been the pre-school director of a public school. The school closed for renovations and when it reopened a Jewish kindergarten was going to be housed in a part of it. This director was interested in returning to her old school and she was interviewed by the Jewish school for her pedagogical expertise. They made a match. She was sending some of her teachers to the Seminar, but she wanted to get the background Jewish knowledge for herself as well. Another person was thinking about working at a Jewish school and also came for background. Sergei, the theater director, had only been involved in the Jewish community for two months. He is interested in writing a play about Jewish life and is trying to immerse himself in Jewish culture. He is only 1/4 Jewish and he doesn't know where he'll end up, but he was impressed with the dedication of the people who participated in the seminar.
After our meeting we had a light dinner and board the van with the other participants from Kineshma-Sveta, Christina and Yulya and our trusty greeter Yuli to head to the bus station. This time Yulya and Sveta serenaded us with a round of Od Yavo Shalom.
And now for the time warp. We went from the "deepest pits" of Pushkine to a mall in downtown Moscow to kill an hour before our train. What culture shock. It was like going to Water Tower place-bright lights, clean stores, high prices, a food court and several American chains. It was quit unsettling.
We headed downtown for the train station, but had trouble finding a place to park-there was no drop off site in front of the station. I think we went around a four block radius about 3 times before we finally stopped and with the traffic it took about 45 minutes-we could have walked across in five. We unloaded our bags and headed for the train. Yuli was pretty peeved with us when walking to the train we each wanted to pull our own luggage. He just didn't know what to make of these modern American independent women.
There was a slight problem -our guard could not be found. The JOINT insists that any American group of 3 or more must have a guard when traveling. Lucy, Sveta and Cristina were traveling 2nd class in the next car. We were traveling 1st class which meant that our linens and a light meal were included...we didn't make these reservations, but the JOINT saw us as spoiled Americans. Got in a lot of talking and a little sleeping. We were still pretty keyed up from the excitement of the Seminar. At about 9:30 a.m. our train arrived in Kineshma. As we were getting ready to get off the train, Lucy told us of her dream the night before. She dreamed that we were all riding camels and that Yulya was on the first camel waving an Israeli flag-a great analogy for this group of educators leading the Russian educators out of their desert! Victor, Lucy's husband, Vladimir, the head of the community and Galena his wife, and Christina's father had come to meet us at the station. We were here at last.