2007-08 Roslyn Z. Wolf Cleveland Fellow Creates Young Jewish Community in the Old Country

The tables of 24-year-old, California-native Aliyah’s apartment were set, the lights dim, music played. "It’s not every day that I am able to host a traditional Chanukat Bayit (house dedication) complete with Havdallah ceremony, mezuzah posting, and discussions about the future of the home," said the animated young leader. The Chanukat Bayit she organized with her roommate literally inaugurated their Minsk apartment as the new local meeting place for Jewish youth. Her inspiration came from the international Moishe House model of "grassroots community centers that cater towards the twenty-something post-college Jewish population." Now, Minsk’s first-ever Moishe House—the 24th of its kind in the world—is Aliyah’s legacy in a burgeoning community.

It was Aliyah’s ingenuity and experience, including a joint academic degree from Columbia University/The Jewish Theological Seminary and leadership role in the Taglit Birthright Israel program, that earned her the 2007-08 Roslyn Z. Wolf Cleveland-JDC Fellowship—an opportunity to spend a year abroad working in an overseas Jewish community. Her destination: Minsk, Belarus.

Home to some 40,000 Jews, mostly of Ashkenazi background, Minsk is experiencing a renaissance of Jewish communal life. Over the course of her stay, which ends in September, Aliyah has helped enrich this changing community through classes, holiday celebrations, and the self-started Moishe House Minsk.

Within two months of her arrival in the Belarusian capital, Aliyah had started the buzz about engaging her peers in Jewish life. In the subsequent months, she opened the doors of her home to the Jewish future of Minsk, hosting celebrations including a "Zionist Halloween" and women’s Rosh Chodesh gatherings where, Aliyah explains, "We sat together in our living room, ate dinner, discussed what it means to each of us to be a Jewish woman, learned about this monthly celebration and its meaning as a woman's holiday, and shared our hopes for personal character improvement in the coming month." The group has also taken trips to trendy Minsk locales, such as The Ice Palace.

While these types of social, religious activities are common in western Jewish communities, they are rare in the countries of the former Soviet Union (FSU). The product of some 70 years of Communism and the religious repression that ensued, most young Jewish people in the region today have been raised with little or any awareness of their heritage. "I first found out I was Jewish when…" is a common story line that makes the birth of a Moishe House in Minsk so extraordinary.

"The fact that so many people are formulating their first opinions and notions of Judaism here reminds me of my huge responsibility!" confessed Aliyah. "It has been very important to me to make Moishe House a warm and inclusive Jewish environment that welcomes questions of all kinds."

Aliyah’s enthusiastic injection of all Moishe House celebrations even moved beyond the walls of her apartment and into the city’s Jewish hub—the JDC-supported Minsk Jewish Campus (MEOD), where Aliyah has been giving pre-schoolers in the Mazel Tov program English lessons and also teaching them about Jewish holidays.

In April, Aliyah helped introduce the Minsk Jewish community to their first Mimouna, a North African, Sephardic custom Aliyah describes as "a party held on the evening when Pesach is finished and Jews get to trade in their bread of affliction for chametz-o-licious treats." She further explained, "The Mimouna celebrates the great luck that the people of Israel had in the Exodus from Egypt. In the Torah it is written that seven days after the people of Israel left Egypt, they arrived at the Sea of Reeds and the Sea was parted. Mimouna, falling seven days after Pesach, celebrates that great and lucky event." The program included a dance group from Hillel, a young Jewish Belarusian singer, an interactive presentation on Mimouna and Jewish traditions around the world, and devouring of moufletta (crepe with honey and butter).

Celebrating an ancient holiday whose roots are planted in the soil of countries almost 2,000 miles away reinforces the notion that even in a city where some 600,000 Jews were killed during the Holocaust, the spirit of the global Jewish people, rekindled with the younger generation, is still very much alive, well, and interconnected.

"I am honored to have been a part of creating a foundation [the home] for young leaders in Belarus to discover and bond with their Jewish heritage and their community," shared Aliyah. "It has been an experience of a lifetime."

July 2008