The Forward - 12.27.02

 

The Forward

Reform Movement Seeks Inroads Along Russia's Backroads

 

By Lina Rozovskaya
 
MOSCOW — Olga Seryogina remembers that she "totally horrified the head of the Orthodox community of our town" when she offered the traditional Sabbath blessing over the wine.

"What is that girl whispering over wine on Shabbat?" Seryogina remembers him saying, as she performed her duties as the unofficial "rabbi" of the town of Tambov. "And then we made a deal: I bless the wine, he blesses the bread."

"I am not a rabbi. I am not qualified to be one," Seryogina added. "But there is no rabbi in our town. So I am sort of a Ms.-Know-Everything" about Jewish traditions.

It is the kind of compromise that may only be possible — and is certainly necessary — in Russian towns like Tambov, some 670 miles southeast of Moscow, where Jewish communal ties are so tenuous that estimates of the Jewish population range from 1,500 to 4,000. And it is in far-flung towns like these that the Reform movement is hoping to make inroads in a country where Orthodox authorities have held a monopoly on most Jewish religious functions.

Olga is one of 15 students currently training for careers in Jewish communal service in the Reform movement's Institute for Modern Jewish Studies in Moscow. Founded on the initiative of the World Union for Progressive Judaism and affiliated with The Union of Religious Organizations for Progressive Judaism in Russia, the institute offers a one-year program in Jewish tradition, religion and Hebrew, sending the students to work in their respective communities during the second year of studies.

The institute has proved an alternative to similar Orthodox-run institutions, especially among young women; nine of the students are female. And it is teaching a brand of liberal Judaism that at least some polls say is appealing to a highly assimilated Russian Jewish majority.

The institute also reflects a reality of Russian Jewish identity: that many Russians who identify themselves as Jews are not Jews according to Halacha — that is, born of a Jewish mother or converted under rabbinic auspices. In fact, the majority of students at the institute, like Olga, are not halachic Jews and convert after they complete their studies.

The ideas of Reform, or Progressive, Judaism, sprouted among refuseniks in Moscow during the early 1970s, according to Rabbi Zynovy Kogan, today head of the Congress of Jewish Religious Organizations and Communities in Russia. An "underground" group met in a Kogan's apartment during the 1980s and in 1989 the first Reform organization in Russia obtained state registration. Today, 54 non-Orthodox Jewish religious organizations are officially registered across Russia, Kogan said.

Nevertheless, the most influential Jewish community in Russia is the chasidic movement Chabad-Lubavitch, whose head, Rabbi Berel Lazar, is endorsed by the Kremlin as the country's chief rabbi. Chabad has built up a vast network of regional branches and conducts social and charity work throughout Russia.

According to the spokesman for the Chabad-led Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia, Borukh Gorin, the federation has 165 officially registered communities, while the other Jewish organizations have about 100 all together. Not all of the Chabad-affiliated communities are religious. 

Gorin credited Chabad's influence to its rabbis' willingness to travel to remote Russian towns to provide Jewish services. 

And yet some point to studies, such as one conducted by the independent Jewish Research Center in 1997, that indicate that Reform is preferred over other branches of Judaism by the majority of Russian Jews. The director of the center, Vladimir Shapiro, said its survey found that 23% of respondents said they were most attracted to Reform, compared to 10% who preferred Orthodox or Chabad, and 4% who said they favored Conservative Judaism. The remainder gave another answer, did not sympathize with any religious group or declined to answer.

Shapiro said Reform topped the chart because the majority of Russian Jews shared liberal views both in politics and religion. "If the Reform had the same financial potential as the Lubavitch, who have the most resources of all Jewish groups in Russia today, they would be able to create a similar social network and it would surely attract many more people," Shapiro said.

Even Gorin of Chabad acknowledged the attraction of Reform for the Russian Jewish majority, saying Reform offers more options for what he estimated were as many as 70% of Russian Jews who live in interfaith families.

The women at the Institute for Modern Jewish Studies are especially drawn to Reform's egalitarian principles. "Reform is more flexible. It is younger. And it offers more opportunities for self-realization. Especially for women," said Miriam Elman. Elman, 29, who aspires to become a rabbi, came to study at the institute after working in her Jewish community in Belarus for five years.

Miriam's classmate Lena Blinchevskaya, 25, also said she had tried out other branches of Judaism before she chose Reform. "I went to see the chasidic Jews, the Orthodox. But what I like about the Reform is that women can be equal to men. In the synagogue we aren't just allowed to be on the same floor with men, we are really all together," she said.

Nineteen-year-old Tanya Nikitina, a cheerful blue-eyed blonde, took a sabbatical from St. Petersburg State University, where she is studying Arabic, to enroll full time at the institute. She said her only Jewish forebear was a great-grandfather. Nikitina said she chose to convert to Judaism as she "grew up in the Jewish environment" and wanted to become accepted as a Jew. "People often ask me about my Jewish roots and sometimes they make me feel embarrassed," she said. "First I had a big complex, now it is fading away. Here at the institute I feel at home and equal to others," she explained.

Olga Seryogina, whose grandfather was Jewish, said as a child she learned about her Jewish identity from family jokes and being instructed not to use her mother's middle name, which was clearly Jewish, in public.

Today, for Seryogina the word "Jewish" has become more than solely an ethnic term. "The notion of Jewishness is still empty for most people," she said. "Today they have a chance to fill it with meaning."