JTA - 04.22.2003

In Moldova, JDC supplies funds
to help feed Jewish children well 

By Lev Krichevsky

KISHINEV, Moldova (JTA) — Feeding the elderly has been the core of Jewish welfare activities in many post-Soviet countries. 

Now, in Moldova at least, it’s time to feed the children.

Two years ago, a survey of Moldovan Jewry found that 4 percent of children here go to bed hungry and one child in five lives below the poverty line. 

A new program run by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee in this former Soviet republic aims to address the problem.

The JDC launched the Let My Children Grow program with a $250,000 grant from private U.S. sources. The beneficiaries are Jewish children under 16 from low-income families, who receive food packages.

“After we launched the program, it turned out that our criteria were too tough,” said Vera Krizhak, director of the JDC’s branch in Moldova. “More than 70 percent of children live in difficult conditions.” 

The pace of post-communist economic reforms in Moldova has trailed that in other former Soviet republics.

The debt-ridden economy of this largely agricultural country, which lacks substantial natural resources and its own energy sources, leaves few opportunities for the 4.5 million inhabitants. 

Unable to revive its industrial potential after the collapse of communism in 1991, Moldova consistently has been rated the poorest nation in Europe by leading international agencies. One-quarter of the nation’s work force is employed abroad — the only chance for many people to survive. 

Some Moldovans, including some of the country’s 20,000 Jews, have taken advantage of the rise of private entrepreneurship in recent years, but the majority struggles to survive on salaries and pensions that are modest even by Eastern European standards. 

Moldova is the only country in the former Soviet Union that has a large-scale Jewish welfare program for children. 

Among those who have benefited is Yulia Litivinova, age 12. 

She lives with her grandmother, who has taken care of her since she was born. Her mother left Yulia at the maternity ward when the infant was diagnosed with cerebral palsy at birth. 

The grandmother and granddaughter — who is homebound — live on state pensions that together total $23. More than half of the money goes for medicine. 

“We haven’t seen so many fruits in a year as we have today in one month,” since the JDC began bringing food packages, the grandmother said. “I’m not mentioning such luxuries as chicken. I was used to going on one chicken for a month.” 

The aid is the same amount that elderly Jewish citizens have been getting from the JDC for more than a decade.

The monthly aid package is worth $12, but JDC’s Krizhak said that $30 to $35 are needed to satisfy even the most basic needs.

Semyon Rapoport, a Jewish community leader in the town of Orgeyev, about 50 miles from Kishinev, said his community began helping 30 children when funds first became available in September. 

“A half-year later we were helping 200 children, who receive food packages twice a month,” Rapoport said. “To meet the demand, we now have to reduce the size of an individual package to keep the number of recipients steady.” 

Some Jewish activists criticize program criteria that allow service to some individuals who are not technically Jewish. But JDC officials say it is up to local communities to decide who should be included. 

Krizhak said she believes in a liberal approach.

“We help those whom the local community considers Jewish,” she said. 

Most recipients come from mixed families, reflecting a high rate of assimilation and intermarriage. 

JDC officials say the value of the program goes beyond the idea of helping needy Jewish families. 

“We hope this program will also serve the goal of getting the parents involved,” said Vladimir Kvitko, JDC’s regional coordinator. “This is the age group the Jewish community has otherwise always had trouble reaching out to.”

The program currently serves 2,050 children across Moldova, and Krizhak said local Jewish businessmen and women gradually are getting involved. A group of local businesspeople recently agreed to start supporting six families who are receiving aid. 

In fact, JDC officials have noticed that local Jews are more likely to support programs for children than for the elderly. 

But JDC officials say it’s too early to say whether the local community is prepared to start “owning” the program. In the meantime, the JDC hopes to extend the year-long grant for another year. 

“I can’t even think what a disappointment this would be if we ever have to announce that the program has been closed,” said Svetlana Matveeva, the children’s program coordinator for Kishinev.

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President speaks out for Jews
in Moldova, known for deadly pogrom 

By Lev Krichevsky

KISHINEV, Moldova (JTA) — In Jewish memory, the city of Kishinev is closely linked to a terrible pogrom.

But the pogrom, whose 100th anniversary was marked earlier this month, is only a part of the city’s Jewish past and present.

Forty-nine Jews were killed and more than 500 injured on April 6-7, 1903 — the first day of Easter — when angry mobs ran through some of the city’s poorest quarters. 

The violence was prompted by false rumors of a Christian child allegedly killed by Jews for ritual purposes.

It took authorities two days to order the military to stop the violence, creating the impression that the pogrom was organized by the Russian regime that ran the area at the time. 

The pogrom shocked the international community and caused American Jews to rally in support of their brethren in Russia. It also sparked increased Jewish immigration to the United States and Palestine.

Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin spoke on April 7 to dozens of Moldovan Jews and foreign guests who came to the Skulyanka Park in Kishinev to commemorate the pogrom’s victims, many of whom were buried in the old Jewish cemetery that once existed here. 

“To us this is a very important lesson,” Voronin said at the memorial meeting, which included the unveiling of a monument to the victims.

“Although it happened during a different regime, still it happened on our soil, and it is crucial to come to an understanding of why this became possible,” he said. 

Semyon Shoikhet, a local architect and president of the association, designed the modest monument — a granite cube and a wall next to it with inscriptions in Romanian, Russian, Yiddish and Hebrew.

The 1903 pogrom wasn’t the only tragedy local Jews faced in the last century. Another wave of pogroms in Kishinev and other towns of Bessarabia, as Moldova was known throughout much of its history, took hundreds of Jewish lives during the Russian Revolution of 1905. 

During the Holocaust, close to 100,000 Jews of Moldova — a Romanian province between the two world wars that was incorporated into the Soviet Union in 1939 — were killed in ghettos and concentration camps by the Nazis and their Romanian allies, often aided by local collaborators. 

But the 1903 pogrom still symbolizes Jewish suffering in Moldova. 

Local Jews can show guests a section in the old Kishinev Jewish cemetery where some victims were buried. 

Next to the human victims, there is a grave containing dozens of Torah scrolls that were desecrated. Jewish customs require that ruined Torah scrolls be buried.

Some locals believe non-Jewish citizens hardly know anything about the pogrom. 

“When you ask people if they know what the Kishinev pogrom is, chances are they know nothing,” says Lyubov Shurmanova, a librarian at the Manger Jewish Library run by the community. “Perhaps now that our president has spoken about it, more people will know.” 

In fact, Moldova’s leadership has never been more outspoken in its support of the Jewish community than earlier this month, when Voronin delivered two speeches in front of Jewish audiences, unconditionally condemning anti-Semitism and promising his support in the fight against xenophobia. 

The nation of 4.5 million people has lurched from crisis to crisis since it became independent in 1991. 

Recently rated the poorest European nation by some international institutions, the country has seen violence and a short civil war in 1992-1993 that led to the de facto separation of its eastern part, known as Transnistria.

The economy has stagnated over the past decade because of a lack of natural resources and foreign investment.

The Jewish community numbers about 20,000, down from more than 80,000 a decade ago, due to massive immigration to Israel and other countries. 

The community operates an array of educational, religious, cultural and welfare institutions. Yet some Jewish activists argue that the community keeps a low profile. 

“Jews don’t want to get involved in politics here,” said Robert Zapadinsky, one of the pioneers of the post-Soviet Jewish revival in Moldova, who now is publisher of the country’s largest independent Russian-language weekly. 

The strong show of state support during the pogrom’s commemoration was quite unusual for Moldova. Some feel this was done to win political and business support from Jews who are important members of the business community.

One Jewish business leader told JTA that Jews control as much as one-third of Moldova’s economy. 

Among the places of interest to visiting Jews, locals list some Jewish-owned businesses that are operated by former Moldovans who now live in Israel. Among these are a grand shopping mall called Eilat and a bar called Carmel.

Zapadinsky, who is one of Voronin’s most outspoken critics, said authorities need to prove they understand what it means to fight anti-Semitism and increase tolerance.

“When there is real anti-Semitism today — such as cemetery vandalism — these occurrences are being routinely blamed on hooligans,” he said. “No one ever explains why these hooligans never touch Christian cemeteries.”