In Difficult Region, JDC is Helping to Engender Tolerance and Peaceful Co-existence

This past summer, in the presence of national dignitaries, a ribbon-cutting ceremony marked the opening of a Jewish Home in Baku, Azerbaijan, by JDC in partnership with the Posner family and the United Jewish Federation of Pittsburgh. The facility, which will house various Jewish organizations including four JDC-operated entities – the Hesed social welfare center for the elderly, the Jewish Community Center (JCC), Hillel youth club and the charitable center HAVVA – will provide social and educational services to the Jewish community of Azerbaijan, as well as a major Jewish address for the estimated 18,000 Jews currently living in Baku.

The Home is the third such facility to be opened in the Jewish communities of the former Soviet Union in 2004 by JDC and the Posner family, and the nineteenth in the history of the partnership. Furthermore, the center in Baku is the second Jewish Home to be established by JDC and this partnership in a predominantly Muslim country; the other is in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

Though perhaps not as readily identified with the former Soviet Union as Russia or Ukraine and their modern-day metropolis -- Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Kiev – Azerbaijan, too, was under Soviet rule. In fact, it is one of eight countries in the Central Asia and Caucusus Mountain region that formerly pertained to the Soviet Union. Others, now classified among the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), include Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kirgistan, Turkmenistan, Tadjikistan, and Uzbekistan. Parts of this region are also located in Southern Russia. Each of these countries, comprising populations of diverse tribes, religions, and cultures, has experienced its own form of economic and social upheaval since achieving independence. In some cases this has meant war, as with Azerbaijan and Armenia, for example, who still have not made a peace agreement with one another. In addition, though they are largely impoverished nations, several including Azerbaijan lie on the Caspian Sea, home to major oil reserves.

The social, political, and economic climate of neighboring countries also impacts the region. Despite the end of the Taliban regime in nearby Afghanistan, the Islamic regimes in Iraq and Iran -- which shares a significant border with Azerbaijan and is home to a large Azeri Diaspora -- continue to exert pressure on the seven Muslim countries of the CIS.

Significant populations of Jews -- an estimated 145,000 -- live in the Central Asia and Caucusus region today. Among them, 37,000 are JDC clients, benefiting from welfare or Jewish renewal programs. While the Jews are mostly concentrated in the large cities of Baku, Azerbaijan; Tblisi, Georgia; Tashkent, Uzbekistan; and Almaty, Kazakhstan, JDC works in well over 100 smaller communities within these countries. For example, near the site of the recent terror attack on the middle school in Beslan, Russia, in North Caucasus towns such as Pyatigorsk and Vladikavkaz, JDC helps Jewish Chechen and Dagestani refugees forced to flee their homes in the early '90s due to fighting.

Another of JDC's Jewish efforts in this region is the new "Children's Initiative". As part of a wider effort to reach out to children-at-risk in the former Soviet Union, in a short period of time this program has rendered aid – including physical, psychological, and material assistance -- to thousands of Jewish youngsters. Under the Initiative, JDC created a special program for child victims of radiation in Ust Kamenogorsk as others have done for victims of Chernobyl. During Soviet times, this area in the north of Kazakhstan was used as a nuclear testing site. The radiation fallout has affected – and continues to affect – many local inhabitants. JDC's project provides medical, educational, and psychological assistance to children impacted by the radiation.

In this region of emerging national identities, JDC is not only working to foster Jewish life through its welfare and renewal programs, but also focuses on relationships between the local Jewish communities and their non-Jewish neighbors through its non-sectarian efforts.

For example, in the capital city of Almaty, Kazakhstan – a country larger than all of Europe – JDC established a Special-Education program for non-Jewish children with learning disabilities such as dyslexia. Prior to the creation of this program, no local or national infrastructure existed for taking care of children with developmental challenges. Seeing its success, Kazakhstan's Ministry of Education opted to duplicate the project in other school systems, bringing in teachers from all over the country to be trained by JDC professionals in how to work with children with disabilities. JDC's effort was partially subsidized by a local Jewish donor in Almaty to improve relations between the Muslim and Jewish communities. Subsequently, JDC developed a similar education program in Uzbekistan for Muslim children.

Perhaps the most remarkable non-sectarian effort JDC has carried out in the region – for the uniqueness of the circumstances -- occurred in the summer of 2001. When heavy June rains flooded vast areas in the south of Russia, devastating the mostly rural, deeply impoverished, strife-ridden region of the northern Caucasus, claiming well over 100 lives and leaving more than 75,000 homeless, the Jewish community took action. JDC helped its network of Hesed ("compassion") social welfare centers throughout Russia as well as local Jews mobilize quickly to help both Jews and non-Jews stricken by the disaster. In addition to lending organizational expertise to the local governments and few existent NGOs, the Hesed network raised $20,000 to help the flood victims – an enormous sum in local terms, all the more so because many contributions were from people whose own lives are a daily struggle. This response by the Jews of the northern Caucasus, of rising above their own suffering to relieve the greater suffering of others, helped to improve their often tense relations with their non-Jewish neighbors.

According to Stanley, JDC Country Director for Central Asia and the Caucasus region, non-Jewish communities have benefited from the social and communal infrastructure created by JDC even when the programs have targeted Jewish clients. "There has been a ripple effect," he explains. "JDC creates programs that are then copied and expanded for the general population," which, he notes, ultimately benefits everyone and improves relations between the Jewish communities and their neighbors. "In all cases, JDC professionals are available to guide and to train leaders from the general community, so JDC and the Jewish community have become resources."

The President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, echoed this sentiment recently as he warmly received the delegation for the opening of the Jewish Home in Baku. The Head of State described the opening as a "very important event in the social life of Azerbaijan," and expressed confidence that the Center aimed not only to ensure Jewish involvement within Azerbaijani society, but would also play an important role in encouraging representatives of other ethnic groups, nationalities, and religions living in the country to become involved. Azerbaijan has, in fact, been a peaceful home to thousands of Jews for over 1,000 years. President Aliyev emphasized that people of all the nationalities and religions in Azerbaijan live "as members of one family."

It was in this spirit, less than one month after the bombing outside the Israeli Embassy in Uzebekistan, amidst increasing insurgent activity in Iraq, and mere weeks before Chechen militants held school children hostage to tragic end in nearby Beslan, that the Jewish Home in Baku was inaugurated. In the presence of government and organization representatives, a Mezuzah was affixed to the doorpost and the accompanying blessings were recited. The landmark ceremony was followed by a festive music concert for 400 people, organized by the community youth.