On Purim and Every Day, Jews Discover Identity in Kazakhstan

With great enthusiasm, nine-year-old Slavik recounts the story of Purim. "It is when the Jews get saved from an evil man called Haman by a beautiful princess named Esther," he says.

What is remarkable about this recap is the fact that a year ago, Slavik did not know what Purim was. In fact, Slavik did not know much at all about Judaism; neither did his mother, Oksana.

Both Slavik and Oksana are learning about their Jewish roots through JDC’s Children’s Center in Shymkent, an industrial city in remote southwest Kazakhstan. "The Center has changed our lives in so many ways," she says.

Like so many parents of children who receive welfare assistance from the IFCJ-JDC Partnership for Children in the FSU, Oksana is extremely grateful. The monthly food packages, winter clothing, and other material support are critical for her son’s healthful development. "There is just so much a parent with my limited means can provide," she explains. Oksana’s parents, on their limited income of $100 a month, help to support her and her son.

But it is the connection to their Jewish traditions and to the Jewish community made through JDC’s Children’s Center programs and activities that have made the most meaningful impact on Oksana and Slavik.

Oksana points to what Slavik has learned about Jewish traditions and customs over the last year: performing in a Purim play, making decorations for Hanukkah, celebrating Jewish holidays such as Passover and Rosh Hashanah. Distinguished traditions like reciting blessings over challah and wine on Shabbat, unfamiliar until recently, are now a part of the family’s daily discourse.

"Slavik comes back from the center and he can’t wait to tell me what he has learned. He is teaching me about a Jewish identity that I never had," says Oskana.

Oksana recounts a childhood that sounds familiar among her generation in the former Soviet Union—a generation whose parents, if they even they even told their children they were Jewish, largely instructed them never to disclose that fact. This is a generation of Jews who, like Oskana, at best may have grown up with an inkling that they were Jewish but never really knew what being Jewish meant.

While it is with a certain sadness and regret that Oksana talks about "being deprived of her identity" while growing up, it is a tone of wonderment that echoes in her voice when she talks about life for Jews in the former Soviet Union today.

"When Slavik goes to school, he now boasts to the other children that he is Jewish, talking about all the things he learned at the Center. Can you imagine me doing that when I was his age?" she asks.

"The Center is teaching Slavik who he is, but they are also awakening me as to who I am as well."

March 20008