Passover in the Ukraine

I returned earlier this week from my trip to the Ukraine during Passover, to help participate in Passover Seders in Jewish communities there. My experience was absolutely incredible. I was traveling with my friends Jamie and Anna, a married couple from California. Ukraine is the world's fifth largest Jewish community in the world (following Israel, the U.S., Russia, and France - about 300,000 to 500,000 Jews) but it suffers from a lack of professional rabbinic and cantorial leadership. There are only two progressive (non-Orthodox) ordained rabbis in the entire country. Trips like ours allow the Ukrainian Jews to meet other Jewish people from elsewhere in the world and the trip says to them, "You're not alone."

Jamie is a cantorial student and he fortunately decided to bring his guitar because all three communities where we participated in the seders wanted us to help provide music. I was surprised as to how much we'd be singing across the Ukraine.

We arrived at the airport in Kiev and met our translator Tanya and then proceeded to Lutsk, a city in far-western Ukraine that was a Polish city for most of its history. On our second day in Ukraine we traveled 150km to the northeast to a small village where Jamie's great grandfather emigrated from before World War II. We met with the "mayor" of the village who told us about the Jewish community of the village and directed us to an old Jewish cemetery. After quite some time searching in the forest, we came upon the cemetery, overgrown and badly damaged by looters through the ages. It was a sad thought thinking that likely no one would ever repair that cemetery and eventually, it would totally disappear.

We met the Jewish community leaders back in Lutsk and discovered a vibrant community with passionate paid and volunteer staff who provide a plethora of social programs to that community's small Jewish population. We spent a day preparing our singing act for our seder in Lutsk and then performed.

We lost Tanya and gained Victoria when we arrived in Lviv, a city of 700,000 but merely a few thousand Jews. Lviv was once known as the Jerusalem of Europe and nearly a third of the city's population was Jewish before World War II. There, we did not find such an energized community. Like Lutsk, the Jewish community in Lviv obtained a pre-Nazi synagogue for their use about 6-7 years ago but unlike Lutsk, Lviv has not renovated nor have they even provided electricity to the building.

We didn't need to practice our repertoire in Lviv - we were old hacks already. We saw some of the city, including the impressive memorial for the Lviv ghetto and the road that took the Jews of Lviv to concentration and death camps. The bright light of Lviv was the Jewish pre-school with about a dozen Jewish children who are learning Hebrew and Judaism form a group of dedicated teachers. They performed a Passover seder/play for us and for their parents. It was incredibly adorable.

We had to start the seder in Lviv at 4 p.m. because without electricity, the former synagogue-turned Jewish community center and synagogue would be too dark much later in the evening. From Lviv we took an overnight train to the capital and most populous city (approximately 3.3 million) of Kiev (leaving Lviv at 10 p.m. and arriving at 7:30 a.m.). The three of us were in a four-person sleeping room and were very cramped but it was a fun experience and we all slept pretty well, all things considered. I wouldn't recommend the bathroom on the train, however.

We arrived in Kiev and met up with the other groups of students from throughout the country and heard of their stories. Some interesting things came to light. We realized that the vast majority of the young Jewish people in Ukraine that we met did want to make Aliyah (immigrate) to Israel but remained because extended family (especially parents) wouldn't make the move. We also learned that older Ukrainians, even those who are Jewish, miss Communist rule and despite the ban on Judaism, would like to see those days return to the country.

We met with the rabbi of Kiev and talked about our experiences and had a very nice Friday night Shabbat service among their small congregation. We heard many new melodies for familiar prayers. On Saturday night, the Kiev community hosted their large Passover seder our hotel and, as with the Lutsk seder, there was dancing and music between the third and fourth cups of wine. The seders in some cities are really very large parties to celebrate Jewish identity and awakening after decades under Soviet rule. In Kiev and Lutsk, it was amazing to see such dynamic communities that are only about 6-7 years old as no one could even think about practicing their Judaism until after Ukrainian independence in late 1991. After that, it took years to start learning and to start coalescing into a real community. It was wonderful to see communities growing and developing.

On Sunday we visited Babi Yar, the site of the massacre of over 100,000 Jews just outside of Kiev during the Holocaust. We recited the Mourner's Kaddish there for all the victims and made our way back to Jerusalem.

The "official" Soviet Babi Yar memorial statue. Dramatic figures appear to be falling into the ravine.

The new children's memorial at Babi Yar to the more than 40,000 children murdered there.

The memorial at Lviv to the ghetto and final route out of town for the Jews of Lviv.

Kiev's gorgeous architecture. Lviv is also a beautiful city.

A Kiev church.

Workers unite. As statue in Kiev.

The political situation was tense while we were in Ukraine after the President dissolved Parliament and the Prime Minister attempted to belay that order. The red flags are the Communist Party.