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Ofek Book Festival: "Books... Keep Me Alive"
Each year, tens of thousands of Jews of all ages in the former Soviet Union celebrate Jewish learning during JDC's Ofek ("horizon") book festival. Throughout the month of December, this vast and diverse region – from the smallest towns of Belarus to Russia's cosmopolitan capital city, Moscow – hosts the fair in its local schools, theaters, JCCs, and Hesed social welfare centers. Libraries-on-Wheels are employed to reach homebound individuals and those communities in the periphery. The festival, which honors Jewish enrichment, is vivified with entertainment such as Jewish music and dance performances, Klezmer concerts, art exhibits and puppet shows for the youngest generation. Now entirely run by the local communities, Ofek is a showcase for Jewish culture and draws many unaffiliated Jews, often reconnecting them with their heritage.
Books and scholarly pursuits have been greatly valued by the Jewish culture throughout its history. For centuries, in Diaspora civilizations such as Babylonia and in communities as diverse as Spain and Vilna, innumerable volumes were written by Jews or about Jewish thought. Not surprisingly, then, nearly all of the JDC's Hesed social welfare centers and JCCs throughout the FSU have well-used libraries that make accessible literary and religious works. Reflecting on the book exhibitions and various creative workshops offered this year during the Ofek fair, one Hesed client in Uzbekistan said, "Books are so vital to our people. They have kept us alive!" For Sofiya, a Hesed client in Zaporozhye, East Ukraine, reading has been a salvation. Age 72, Sofiya lives alone in a tattered one-room apartment and, due to deteriorating health, relies on regular visits from Hesed staff and a homecare worker to break the isolation. She receives food packages, medicines, winter relief and other services that help her to live with a dignity her measly pension could not afford her. "Hesed is my connection to the outside world. Like a sparkle of sun bringing light into my room, it brought me hope," she says of her introduction to the JDC-sponsored social welfare center seven years ago. "The day I was found by Hesed became my second birthday. I would come to the Day Center very often because it was a place where I could feel that I was still alive." Feeling alive can be a feat for someone who has seen so much death. Born in 1932, Sofiya lost her father to the famine in early childhood. She and her mother fled from the Germans and were evacuated to the Stalingrad region. After numerous relocations during the war, she and her mother finally settled in Zaporozhye, where she worked for decades as a librarian and still lives today. "That's why I have so many books here. I love reading…it's my relief," she says, poised on the sofa. Today, above Sofiya's old bed, is a black-and-white photo of a child: her only son, who died of severe disease at age six. The only other fixture in her apartment is multiple stacks of books, to which she refers regularly. "Right now I am reading about women in Jewish history," she says, gesturing towards a volume in her hand. Asked about the importance of Ofek, Sofiya sweetly suggests that all people should take advantage of the festival and immerse themselves in books in order to "keep growing – even in old age." |
