Passover Prep in Motion Across the FSU

In Ukraine and Siberia … in Moldova and Kyrgyzstan … across the former Soviet Union (FSU) many of the poorest Jewish children and their families are set to take part in Passover seders this year, supported by the IFCJ–JDC Partnership for Children in the Former Soviet Union.

At such a significant moment in the Hebrew calendar, the Partnership truly feeds body and spirit as it does year-round for more than 27,000 destitute Jewish children and their families. Passover highlights will include children’s seders in Siberia and Georgia, while in the Caucasus region kids will test their knowledge of Pesach traditions with a holiday trivia quiz. And families at risk in Kyrgyzstan will watch children perform a dramatic rendition of the ever-popular “Chad Gadya” during the seder at Bishkek’s local community center.

IFCJ founder and president Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein sees Passover as a priceless opportunity for the Partnership to reinforce the work it does year-round to reengage Jews in the FSU—particularly, the young—to their Jewish heritage while addressing the severe poverty in which many Jews in the FSU live: “A Jewish experience such as this one is an enormous contribution towards the strengthening of Jewish roots and the essence of Jewish life among these youth and their families.”