JTA - 08.29.2003

 

Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Jewish Agency deepens involvement
in both Jewish day and Hebrew schools

By Lev Krichevsky

MOSCOW, Aug. 28 (JTA) -- For the first time in post-Soviet history, the Jewish Agency for Israel will help operate Jewish schools in the former Soviet Union.

Earlier this month, the Jewish Agency announced that it had reached an agreement with Israel's Ministry of Education to work in most Jewish day schools and Hebrew schools in the region. The program will begin on Monday, Sept. 1.

The move comes amid deep budget cuts in the Israeli government, which has provided Jewish curricula and staff to a growing number of Jewish institutions in the former Soviet Union since the fall of communism.

More than half of the Jewish Agency's money comes from the North American Jewish federation system.

According to a Jewish Agency news release, the new arrangement will affect 21,000 students studying in 223 schools -- 180 Hebrew schools and 43 day schools in which 90 teacher emissaries from Israel are employed.

Until now, the agency's educational work in the region focused only on informal education -- dozens of ulpans, or Hebrew-language courses, for prospective immigrants to Israel, as well as youth and family clubs and summer camps.

Following the fall of communism in 1991, two Israeli agencies -- the Ministry of Education and the Prime Minister's Liaison Office -- divided the responsibility for establishing of the Jewish day and supplementary schools in various parts of the former Soviet Union.

The program the two agencies operated in most of the Jewish day schools across the FSU is known as Heftziba, the Hebrew acronym for Formal Jewish Zionist Education in the Former Soviet Union.

The budget for the Jewish Agency's operations in the former Soviet Union has remained relatively stable over the last several years despite the fact that from this region, aliyah -- the agency's primary mandate -- has experienced a dramatic drop of 30 percent to 40 percent annually compared with emigration to Israel during the late 1990s.

The situation forced Jewish Agency officials to seriously rethink the agency's mission in the region and to step up its efforts in the educational sphere.

Some sources in Russia familiar with the situation say it resulted in the Jewish Agency's longtime efforts to gain control over the Jewish day schools in the region.

Not so, said Yehuda Weinraub, a spokesman for the Jewish Agency, who said the Ministry of Education initiated the talks that led to the agreement.

Officials with the Jewish Agency in Russia give the figure of the operational annual budget for the program they the agency will take part in at $5.6 million.

The Education Ministry will continue to pay the salaries of the 90 teaching emissaries employed in the Heftziba program at schools in the former Soviet Union. All other expenses, including the salaries of local employees, books, teacher training and professional development will be covered equally by the Jewish Agency and the Education Ministry.

"The Jewish Agency has very clear priorities in its educational policy, and we will be trying hard to put them into practice," Dima Zicer, director of Beit Agnon, the Moscow-based JAFI Educational Center for Jewish and Israeli Culture. "We want to bring more Israeli Jewish culture to schools."

Jewish Agency officials say the agency's experience in the field of informal education in the region will help it cope successfully with the task of broadening Jewish identity among Jewish students and their families in the region.

Russian Jewish leaders and educators expressed cautious optimism about the new arrangements, saying they would welcome some serious changes in the Jewish and Israeli component in day schools.

"While the Jewish Agency has been denied access to Jewish schools for 12 years, I would expect this new arrangement to bring serious changes to our schools," said Grigory Lipman, principal of Moscow Jewish Day School No. 1311 and co-chairman of the Association of Jewish School Principals of the Former Soviet Union.

He said his biggest concern was the lack of standardized curricula and textbooks on Jewish history, tradition and Hebrew -- the primary subjects that are taught in most Russian schools by Israeli teachers.

Lipman said the Israeli Ministry of Education had not provided the schools with the required material, nor had it allowed the schools to develop their own books and methods.

"There are still more questions than answers about the new arrangements," he said. "I hope the change will be for the better."

ld

Ha'aretz

By Eliahu Salpeter

The slowdown in immigration from Russia has led to the formation of new, stronger Jewish communities by those who have remained. The institutionalization of religion has allowed the Chabad Lubavitch Hasidic movement to increase its activities as have Conservative and Reform organizations. The ousting of tycoons Boris Berezovsky and Vladimir Gusinsky has weakened the image of Jewish dominance in politics. Only the authorities' response to racist expressions has not changed.

Five main factors mold the status of Russian Jewry today, including their relations with their gentile neighbors and their ties with the government. A few of the factors have undergone very significant changes since Russian President Vladimir Putin replaced his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, in 1999. Other factors have changed less, or not at all.

There has been no real change in the attitude of the authorities throughout Russia to verbal or physical expressions of anti-Semitism. Despite Putin's unchallenged status in Moscow and the central institutions of the federal government, the czarist phrase "God is in heaven - the czar is a long way off" still holds. The local rulers and senior officials in many of the states of the federation behave like little kings in their own fiefdoms. There are some who try to cope with racist phenomena and with attacks on foreigners. Others, apparently the majority, ignore the situation (intentionally or otherwise) and sometimes even aid elements supporting the extremists. Thus, for example, in a few regions the armed Cossack movements are practically recognized officially by the authorities. There is more than a little anarchy in law enforcement, and the Jews are often its victims. This happens against the background of a missing tradition of respecting basic civil rights, which could set limits to racist phenomena.

The best thing about the post-Communist era for the Jews was the opening of the gates of emigration. More than a million came to Israel, and many others went to Western countries. This of course changed the face of the communities they left. Recently emigration has slowed significantly and this has accelerated the process of the reconsolidation of Jewry in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).

"All the Jews" are no longer sitting on their suitcases or trying to decide whether to go or stay. It also looks as if anyone who wanted to come to Israel did so before the economic crisis in Israel. Those who decided to stay (and who wish to remain Jewish) are now hard at work creating a framework that will ensure their ethnic future, aided by worldwide Jewish organizations and the Jewish Agency. Throughout the CIS there are many Jewish schools, which also teach Hebrew; there are adult classes for Judaic studies and Jewish cultural events; and there are both secular and religious national organizations.

The connection with family members who came to Israel is certainly contributing to the Jewish identity of those left behind, but, on the other hand, the marked drop in the number of local Jews is liable to increase intermarriage. The third factor is the institutionalization of religion by the authorities, which added Judaism to the (few) religions that enjoy "recognized" status. This has helped Chabad in particular and it sends vast sums of money for the expansion of its activities. One of the expressions of the strong status of this movement is the strange fact that the state agreed to recognize two Ashkenazi chief rabbis, one who has been serving since the Soviet era and another one, from Chabad, whom the authorities have decided to favor.

The Interfax Russian news agency last week reported that "the Russian Congress of Religious Organizations and Jewish Communities" had formulated "a cultural ideology regarding the key aspects of life in our times." The declaration notes, in conservative tones, the preference of motherhood and homemaking as women's roles. It also speaks of political, cultural and social equality for women, but opposes "the trend to diminish the importance of her role as wife and mother." Concerning abortions, the declaration states that "the Bible's determination that human life is sacred from the outset contradicts the right to freedom of choice regarding the fate of the fetus."

This ideology forbids rabbis from membership in political parties and from participating in elections. Jews are to obey the state authorities and pray for their welfare. "May God bless the president, the head of the state and all Russian citizens," concludes the declaration.

Conservative and Reform Judaism are also making inroads in Russia. The Reform movement is currently putting a major organizational effort into outlying towns. The World Union for Progressive Judaism (Reform) has founded a new movement in Russia and now operates an Institute for Modern Judaic Studies in Moscow. The institute course lasts a year and its graduates become teachers of Hebrew and Judaic studies in non-Orthodox communities. According to the New York newspaper The Forward, Reform sources say that if they had the funding that Chabad has, they would be able to set up the largest network of communities and Jewish schools in Russia. The Forward also notes that Chabad sources concur that the Reform movement has "great drawing power among most of Russian Jewry," as close to 70 percent of them have mixed marriages.

Russian Jewry's status has also been affected, indirectly but still substantially, by Putin's "political wing-clipping" of tycoons in the past two years, kingpins who had made their fortunes during the accelerated privatization in the Yeltsin era. Two of the most prominent of these men, Boris Berezovsky and Vladimir Gusinsky, had also acquired important sections of Russian radio, television and print media, gaining tremendous political influence. After covert and overt confrontation with Putin, the two were forced to sell some of their communications holdings and leave Russia.

This was not an expression of anti-Semitism on Putin's part but rather the implementation of a principle the new president had laid down -that riches and economic power be separate from political power.

Cries of "the Jews control Russian capital" and "the Jews control the Russian press" were heard more and more frequently and caused discomfort among Jews both inside Russia and beyond its borders, particularly because of Berezovsky's high profile (even though he had converted to Christianity he was still viewed as a Jew) and that of Gusinsky, who was also serving as chairman of the Russian Jewish Congress.

The ousting of these two eased Jewish fears and put an end to the open involvement of oligarchs in Russian politics. Jews continue to be active in politics but as politicians (and not as businessmen). Sometimes they belong to Putin's "cheering section" which helps him with public opinion in the West, mainly among American Jewry. Putin rewards his supporters by putting in an appearance at important Jewish events.

The ousting of the Jewish oligarchs from politics and the media does not mean that Jews are no longer in the upper echelons of economic circles. The Washington Post figures that eight "clans" control 85 percent of the capital in the 64 largest private companies in Russia. Other American publications claim that three of these "families" are connected with Jewish oligarchs, including Mikhail Khodorkovskij, head of the largest oil company, and Mikhail Friedman, a banker who also has substantial holdings in the steel industry. Most of these businessmen are in Putin's "tea club" and are often invited to the Kremlin for economic policy discussions.

The last factor that affects the status of the Jews is the Russian populace's growing hostility toward Muslims from the CIS, due to the war in Chechnya. This hostility intensified in recent weeks due to the disastrous Moscow theater hostage affair. Putin takes pains to emphasize that Islam is not synonymous with terrorism, but sometimes has difficulty holding his tongue. He told a French journalist, for example, that there is now a war between Christianity and Islam. It is reasonable to assume that some of the blows meted out by thugs to Muslim passers-by in Russian towns were intended for Jewish passers-by.

"It used to be the Jews," lamented a Moscow imam to a Washington Post journalist. "Now they have all gone to Israel. Instead of the Jews, now the politicians incite the masses against the Muslims. We are the new Jews."