The first time I heard my parents talking about something Jewish I asked my mother, ‘What’s that?'” recalls Sasha Bereslaskaya. Her mother responded, “Nationality, but you mustn’t tell anybody about that.”
Today, Bereslaskaya, an 18-year-old Russian woman who studies at the University of Electronics and Mathematics in Moscow, no longer has to keep quiet about her Jewish heritage. But like many in her generation of Russian Jews she inherited little knowledge of Judaism from her parents. Four years ago, she joined Yachad, a women’s choir that was geting started at Moscow Hillel. In Yachad, Bereslaskaya discovered a vehicle to express her Jewish identity–and became a part of a revival of Jewish culture in the former Soviet Union (FSU).
Yachad tours throughout the FSU breathing new life into Jewish culture that had been suppressed for several generations of Communist rule. They’re learning the songs of their ancestors and reclaiming them for their generation. “One of the most important purposes of knowing Jewish melodies is to show they’re not only old songs,” says Masha Samoilova, Yachad’s 34-year-old director.
The choir incorporates Jewish music that spans different languages and genres into its repertoire. “We sing in Yiddish, Hebrew, English, Russian, Ukrainian,” says Samoilova. “If we find Ladino songs we’ll add them.” The young women have been fast learners and Yachad has already produced two albums, Od Yavo Hayom, Hebrew for “still the day will come”, and the self-titled Yachad, Hebrew for “together.”
This past fall, 11 of Yachad’s 16 members took a whirlwind tour of Florida, New York, and Washington, DC. The trip was paid for by Sharon Ungerleider, a member of Hillel’s International Board, who first encountered Yachad on a Hillel mission to the FSU. She was impressed. “It’s as if they were the soul and the beauty of Russia all combined into one package,” she says. Ungerleider wanted American audiences to see how Yachad’s members are “finding a path back to their ancestors and, while doing that, reinventing a new Judaism that they give to their parents and grandparents.”
At a reception in Washington, DC, the beautiful young women of Yachad wowed a crowd of Hillel donors and Jewish luminaries. Dressed in shimmering gold tunics and black pants, the young women of Yachad offered up spirited interpretations of traditional and contemporary Jewish songs.
The ease and proficiency with which Yachad performed its repertoire made it hard to believe that many, if not most, of its members grew up with little connection to their Jewish heritage. Bereslaskaya says that when the women sing traditional songs at home, they find themselves in the peculiar position of reintroducing the music to their parents. “It’s strange,” she says, “parents heard something from their grandparents and now they hear the same from us.”
That Yachad even exists is a revolutionary development in a country where as recently as the 1980s students who attempted to organize Jewish activities were harassed and, on occasion, jailed by the Soviet government. And Yachad is but one example of how Hillel is creating opportunities for young Jews to reconnect with their heritage in the FSU.
Since 1994, Hillel has opened 26 centers across the FSU serving thousands of young Jews. According to the women of Yachad, some students will travel four hours by train to attend Moscow Hillel’s programs. For students like Bereslaskaya, who are interested in their Jewish heritage but not in joining the hundreds of thousands of Russian Jews who have immigrated to Israel, “It’s the perfect alternative.”
At Moscow Hillel there are classes on the meaning and practice of Shabbat and other Jewish holidays, opportunities to learn Hebrew, and groups for singing, Jewish cooking, Israeli dance, and handicrafts. Hillel’s holiday services are extremely well attended–last Rosh Hashanna was hosted at the Moscow City Hall and attended by well over 1,500 people. “We made the City [Hall] a synagogue,” boasts Ekaterina Zakharian, a 24-year-old member of Yachad and student at the Russian Academy of Education.
Other Hillel-sponsored activities cater to the unique needs of young Jews in the FSU. In a program called “Generation Gap,” senior citizens and young Russian Jews talk about what it means to be Jewish. Students who participate in the Pesach Project learn how to conduct a Seder and then share the knowledge with smaller Jewish communities throughout the FSU. According to the women of Yachad, one of the most popular activities is learning to knit a kippah. “A lot of girls are involved in the project because every boy asks, ‘Will you knit a kippah for me?'” says Ekaterina Bolotova, a 25-year-old student at the Jewish University of Moscow.
During its US tour, Yachad visited a couple of American Hillels. “It was very interesting for us to see American Hillel because we heard about it so much and we knew our Hillel is a reflection of the American Hillel,” says Samoilova. “But our Hillel is different. The atmosphere is not the same as our Hillel.” At the University of Maryland Hillel the girls were very impressed by the size and the resources that are available to the American Jewish students. In contrast, Samoilova says the Moscow Hillel building is “a small apartment” housing “a lot of clubs and a lot of classes.”
Maryland Hillel may seem impressive to the women of Yachad, but the impact they are making on their Jewish community is truly remarkable. Yachad is acting as a force for change, replacing the furtiveness and fear of the Communist era with a celebration of Jewish heritage. And the response they receive is emotional. When Yachad performs in the FSU, there are always members of the older generation in tears. “My granny cried when she heard the song ‘Od Yavo Hayom…'” recalls Bolotova. “And she said it’s difficult, but shalom will come.”
