Leadership Far from Home

For 30 years, Elise worked quietly among the stacks of the Irkutsk city library.  But when, in the early 1990s, JDC sent a set of Jewish books to Irkutsk, she and a fellow librarian had an idea.  At their own initiative, they persuaded the city to let them turn JDC’s 50 books into an entire section of the library dedicated to Jewish subjects. 

Elise is still pushing ahead.  She lectures on Jewish life at the city’s small Hesed, or welfare center, and she is working on a "Living Jewish History" that can appeal to as many of Irkutsk’s 4,000 Jews as possible. "When I realized how much Jews have contributed to our city and this country, I wanted all Jews to know about it," she said.  "Our history was kept secret for too long."