A Tale of Two Cities

The story of Jews in the Former Soviet Union is one of pogroms, desecration, persecution, murder and emigration. In 1941, Jews comprised half of the population of Odessa and a similar percentage of Chisinau (Kishinev in Russian). Today it is 3% in Odessa.

Over 100,000 Odessan Jews died at the hands of the Nazis. Stalin restricted the return of many who had left. In the mass emigration of the 1970s and 1990s to Israel and the West, large numbers left. Jewish life under communist rule was restricted and subjugated. Whilst some underground activity went on throughout the Soviet Union, many Jews simply stopped practising, stopped disclosing their Jewish identity, stopped acknowledging their Jewish heritage. Today, the Jewish population of Odessa stands at around 30,000 and that of Chisinau between 15 and 20,000 . The true figure may be much larger than that due to some children never being told that they were Jewish in the Soviet era, never growing up to reclaim their legacy.

We first visit Odessa with its tales of Haskala (enlightenment), prominent Jewish thinkers, Zionist leaders and the like. We visit an Orthodox synagogue and see pictures of how it had functioned as a gym during the Soviet period. The upper gallery has been obliterated and turned into an upper floor by the insertion of a complete floor. This renovation can not be rectified as the pillars have been altered so that they will no longer sustain the previous structure. The sanctuary therefore now operates on a single storey with a partition behind which the women sit. There is a thriving attendance here.

My focus, however, was on an organisation called Migdal (Hebrew for “tower”).  This is the most uplifting and life affirming Jewish Community Centre you could imagine. It is no tower! However, we are assured that it is an eminently appropriate name as the community have laid the foundation stones of the proverbial tower and are continuing to build upwards. Its building is small and somewhat in need of repair but it has so many programmes running there that the director, Kira, refuses to innumerate them.

Kira, the director of "Migdal" and her interpreter

She introduces herself via an interpreter and gives us a flavour of the place. On the walls are works of art, history exhibitions, pictures, photos and colourful expositions of various sorts. Then we are treated to the most wonderful show of talent. First the teenagers who put on a little dramatic display, followed by the cutest little children doing a wonderful dance and show. The teenagers return and then the little ones again. There is also a singing trio who, we are told, have travelled internationally to sing. Not sure what “international” means in this context but they are good. All this is followed by the “youngsters”, as she introduces them – the Holocaust and Ghetto survivors who dance for us. What is wonderful is that all sectors of the community are acknowledged, welcomed and included. Would that all societies were run in this way.

The performance of the little kids

Teenagers dancing

Trio of singers

The "youngsters" - Holocaust and Ghetto survivors show us their dancing skills

Next we go upstairs. We view a cross-generational painting class going on, a class of little children and a music room as well as several other rooms such as a library and other activity-specific rooms.

Painting class

Music Room

A children's class

This is a place of invigoration, of Jewish rebirth, of Jewish life, hope and spirit. From the ashes, 20 years ago, of an underground community, struggling to gain access to literature of Jewish interest, clambering for any snippet of Jewish culture, we are witnessing the phoenix arising, a fledgling community emerging. This is truly inspirational and genuinely a delight to be a part of, if only for this very fleeting moment.

The next day, we depart for Chisinau. The experience we have there couldn’t be further from the uplifting, life affirming experience we had in Odessa. We know that we will be visiting families. That is all we know about what awaits us.

The bus pulls up outside the Jewish Community Centre and we are immediately split up. Half of the group enters the Centre whilst the other half are split into carloads and taken in groups of 5 to visit social welfare cases. Nothing could have adequately prepared me for what I faced next.

After a long drive with a social worker in the front and our translator, five of us head off in a minibus to a poor neighbourhood of Kishinev. We arrive at a run down block of flats,  enter a particularly dingy and decrepit entrance and walk up the crumbling stairs in a dark and dank stairwell.

Immediately on gaining entry, we are confronted with the most oppressive and overwhelming smell that pervades the apartment. It is filthy, piles of junk everywhere, no discernible beds or furniture – just piles of stuff and that invasive smell pervading my olfactory senses to the exclusion of all else. I feel my chest tightening and I have to check myself from reaching for my asthma spray so as not to offend. There is a cat roaming around and evidence of cat excreta all around (although, not in the room where we are taken to meet the mother, Galina). The room we are in has a very old TV set in the corner which, we are told, no longer works. In the centre of the room is another very old TV set (the kind with knobs and dials from the early 70s) which is left on but silent, with a black-and-white image flickering constantly while we talk. There is an Oriental rug on the wall which she tells us was brought in by her husband when he was alive. The apartment is quite simply an exponent of abject poverty and squalor of mammoth proportions.

This room had two large sacks of raw potatoes on the floor (see on the bottom left of the photo) which had spilled out with the result that there were potatoes all over the floor.

The “family” we have come to visit are an elderly lady in her late 80s who lives with her daughter in her early 60s. The daughter is profoundly schizophrenic and is the only carer of the old lady. It is clear from the state of the apartment and the demeanour of the daughter that not much caring is taking place here. In a welfare state, the daughter would have residential psychiatric care and Galina would be cared for in a home for the elderly. No such facility is available in this fledgling country with very little material wealth.

The toilet with no door and no light

The only opportunity to wash in the apartment was this bathroom. The only light was from the flash on my camera

Galina, her face obliterated by me, with the oriental rug on the wall behind her and a useless TV set to her left. Nowhere is there anywhere to sit and we conduct our conversation standing up.

The social worker (who is employed by Chesed, a Jewish welfare charity, and not by the state) takes the daughter off to chat with her and we remain in the room with Galina, asking her questions and trying to glean a little of her life.

She had five brothers, all of whom were enlisted to fight in the Great Patriotic War (WW II). One is repatriated when he receives a head wound and never regains his health. The other four are all killed in the fighting. She seems to have come originally from Belarus, spent some time in Siberia but somehow lands up in Kishinev, where she has resided for 27 years. After a brief marriage, the daughter returns to live with her mother where she has been ever since. She used to work as a music teacher until becoming schizophrenic, and now is incapable of working.

The pair live on the meagre state pension that Galina receives which provides about half of their living expenses. The Joint Distribution Committee supplements this income and brings in meals three times a week, as they do for countless Jewish families across the vast expanse of the FSU. The old lady talks of being afraid of going out because the youngsters in the area are anti-Semitic. It is hard to know how much of this is paranoia borne of old-age, and how much  is the racist and anti-Semitic attitude we hear is endemic in her country or whether this is genuine anti-Semitism borne of jealousy that she is receiving help that is not available to non-Jews. The truth is that about 35% of people living in FSU countries are living below the bread line. The Jews are more fortunate than their non-Jewish compatriots because they have access to a source of support. No doubt there are many people living on her estate in the same conditions but with no access to the support that Galina receives.

Next, we are taken to the community centre. It feels cynical after the experience we have just had. It is pristine and white. The tour is slick. We are shown round various committee rooms. There is a course being taught in many of these rooms. Single women are being given the skills to become economically active and to improve their lot. Different aspects of skills for work are being taught in each room. We are shown classrooms and activity rooms and are eventually taken down to the basement where there is a local Jewish museum and we are treated to a little dramatic display by some of the children in costume.

A small show presented by youngsters in the museum

Signs throughout the building are in Russian, Moldovan and in English. They clearly receive a lot of American visitors on fact-finding “missions” trying to determine where to donate money. It feels like what we are shown is in fact designed for the benefactor tourists from America.

There is no doubt that this charity is entirely necessary. The work that goes on, both in the homes of the needy and in the community development exercise of the centres, are absolutely central to the reinvigoration of the Jewish communities of the towns and cities across the FSU.

I can’t help wondering if the two aspects can’t be combined - the activities in the community centres and the welfare. Individuals benefit enormously from the support and social capital that is derived from their visits to the centres. Perhaps a group of volunteers could be set up to visit the likes of Galina and her daughter to spruce up her apartment and improve her living conditions. Such a team would benefit from the social capital inherent in the teamwork and from the work experience; the recipients would benefit enormously from the improvement in their living conditions.

I realise that what I have taken away - the impressions, the snapshots and the notions - represent just the briefest of forays into a very complex situation. I am but a helicopter, hovering briefly over the scene before moving on. What I express, therefore, can only be regarded as my personal impressions and no more. I do not pretend to have any depth of understanding of the complex parameters that all of these scenes operate under. I am just happy to know that Jewish life is returning where once it withered.