Revived Memories of Traditions

Though Nammovna Krupina Praskovya’s memory, at the age of 92, is not the best, there are certain things she remembers well.

"I remember my grandmother baking a special bread, and then lighting candles together with me for Shabbat.  She also taught me Yiddish."

Today, though she no longer bakes challah, food packages delivered by the local JDC-sponsored Hesed welfare center provide Nama with basic ingredients like sunflower oil, noodles and rice and beans, so that she can cook for herself.  The Hesed also sends hot meals for the days she is not up to cooking. 

A Hesed home-care worker helps care for Nama, who lives alone in a one-room, third-floor apartment. "She sometimes prepares special food so I can eat it with my false teeth.  She makes food that old babushkas like me can eat."

In addition to the visits of a home-care worker, the Hesed provides other opportunities for companionship.  "Occasionally, the Hesed van picks me up at my home and takes me to a Warm Home or to the soup kitchen downtown for lunch.  There I have a chance to catch up with my friends."

Now suffering from liver cancer, Nama receives from the Hesed medicines that she otherwise would not be able to afford on her meager monthly pension of $14.

 "I couldn’t survive without the Hesed," says Nama. 

But the Hesed cares not only for Nama’s survival. It provides for her spirit and her love of traditions celebrated long ago. "On holidays I receive special foods like walnuts, apples and honey for Rosh Hashana and matza for Passover."

For Nama, new memories are now being added to the memory of her grandmother's long ago Shabbat tradition.  The efforts of the Hesed are once again making Jewish holidays special for Nama, and for many more Jewish elderly throughout the former Soviet Union.