Let's Talk About Love: Young Jewish Duo Promote Groundbreaking Communication Seminars in Siberia

"We don’t want our Hillel to become an ordinary, standard youth club using only other people's ideas and programs," Omsk youth activists Olga and Katya told a forum of youth leaders at the Krasnoyarsk JDC. The girls told about a special project they had created in their community: "Let’s Talk about Love", a successful weekend event that encouraged local Jewish youth to learn more about each other and speak openly of their feelings and relationships.

This kind of creative programming is indicative of the ingenuity of young Jewish club leaders in Siberia and the Russian Far East. Olga and Katya also headed up a second seminar, "Fears in Our Life", consisting of discussions on human fears and coping mechanisms, including psychology, medicine, Judaism, and poetry of Israeli writers. Participants explored life challenges and ideals through games, conflict role-playing, and conversation. A beautiful, traditional dance by candlelight closed the event.

"Sometimes you don’t have guts to discuss your own problems with other people even if you know that it would help," says Olga. "But the atmosphere of these seminars makes us trust each other, and we discuss problems about which we were afraid even to think."

Vlad, one of the seminar participants, was particularly affected by the "Ribbon of Life" activity. "It is a game where you move along a paper ribbon by small steps and you have to make plans for the future at this moment. Suddenly somebody tears the ribbon from under your feet and you realize that you stopped somewhere at 19 years old. Since the seminar, I live each day as if it were the last day of my life."

Vladimir was also touched by the program. "Each person has certain moments in his life when it seems that he is alone with his problems. I was lucky to have my guys from the Jewish community youth club beside me in one of such moments," he says. "That is why the seminar was so important to me. And not only to me, I’m sure."

Given the success of its first few educational seminars, the Omsk youth club recently held discussions about the importance of compromise, and myths perpetuated about Jews, in a course entitled: Anti-Semitism: Past. Present. Future?

In its ongoing effort to create a friendly, enthusiastic and responsible young Jewish community, the Omsk youth club is breaking molds and chartering new territory. One recent venture is a joint initiative with the Krasnoyarsk Jewish youth club to develop a Seminar-on-Wheels project, whereby events that prove successful in Omsk will be brought to Krasnoyarsk, thus uniting Jewish youth from these cities and cultivating creative cultural programming throughout Siberia.