The Minyan participates in the Yad le Yad program, which pairs congregations in the United States with Jewish communities in the former Soviet Union. The Minyan is working to help the community of Kineshma, a city in Russia, North East of Moscow.
Here is some information on the community from Lyudmila Shlyundina, our correspondent in Kineshma:
We are a community of 219 adults and 148 children. Adults attend classes on ivrit, traditions, read the Torah, and "meet". Children attend Sunday school. They have drawing, Jewish songs and dances, ivrit, traditions, theatre, Torah, English, maths. Amang adults we have teachers, doctors, engineers, librarians, nurses etc. But our salaries are very small (for example doctors and teachers have $50 per month). In spite of it we take care of elderly and sick members of our community: we have charity cafe. We buy sometimes pills for them or bring food. Not long ago we arranged the City Day of Jewish culture with exhibitions of books, posters, magazines, dishes of Jewish cooking and samples of handicraft of member of our community and a big concert. We observe the holidays together in the restaurant. Our children prepare wonderful performances. We decorate the hall.
In the summer of 2004, after a year of preparation, a group of Jewish educators from the minyan visited Russia. They ran a seminar for Jewish educators from smaller communities all over Russia at a conference center outside Moscow. They then traveled on to Kineshma, where they spent two days visiting our friends in Kineshma. Before the trip this article about it appeared in the Chicago Jewish News. Both the conference and the visit to Kineshma were great successes. Click here for a D'var Torah by Bev, Ellen, and Anne which ties Parashat Reeh and the trip.
A recent testimonial from Lucy Shlyudina in Kineshma:
Dear Marilyn and Natasha! It is Lucy from Kineshma,Russia. This summer I attended 2 seminars. 1 in St.Petersburg,devoted to family education and 1 in Moscow,devoted to the programmes of Jewish Sunday schools in Russia.,both rather theoretical. There I met many teachers,who attended the seminar which was run by the team of Bev Fox last summer. All the teachers from different cities say,that that seminar was much better,as they got many books,texts,materials and learned many methods of teaching,they used in their schools and family programmes. I understood,they used all the given materials for 100%! So Bev, Ellen, Rhonda, Anne "planted seeds" in Russian Jewish teacher's programmes and they grow and blossom already! That was the goal of the seminar! These teachers understand what we need very well.
On behalf of teachers from Kursk,Joshkar-ola,Voronez,Kostroma,
Tula and many others I want to express our gratitude and
admiration to Bev's team and your great help in their trip.
We hope maybe next summer to have though 2 of them
in Russia to teach us.The value of such work is
priceless. We appreciate your help to Jews in Russia.
Lucy Shlyundina
For Bev Fox's detailed journal of the visit, click on part one, part two, part three .
To the left is our own David Bardach on a visit to Kineshma with Lucy.
Learn more about the minyan.
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