Russian Youngsters Celebrate their Bar/Batmitzvah in
Israel
by Simon Griver
“This past month has been the best and most exciting month of my life,” said
Vitaly Klieger, 13. Klieger was one of 21 Russian Jewish teenagers who
spent a month in Israel during the summer participating in the Bar Mitzvah
Program, a joint initiative of the Israel Forum, the Jewish Agency and the
Conservative movement.
During the first three weeks of the program the Russian youngsters
participated, along with 300 Israeli teenagers, in the Conservative
Movement’s Ramah/Noam
summer camp at the Hodayot Youth Village, near
Tiberias. In the final week they toured Israel accompanied by one of their
parents. The culmination of the program was a Bar Mitzvah ceremony for the
Russian youngsters in the Galilee settlement of Tzipori.
Klieger’s mother Rosalia was even more effusive than her son. “I keep having
to pinch myself to make sure this has all not been a dream,” she said.
“Everything has combined to make this a wonderful experience. The warmth
and the welcome of the people, the beauty of the countryside and the holiness
of the land. I am going back to Russia feeling truly redeemed.”
Yael Shapira, the professional coordinator of the program for the Israel
Forum, a group of volunteers who have created direct Jewish contact at a
person-to-person level between Israel and Diaspora Jewry, stressed the high
caliber of youngster who were selected for the program.
“We traveled to Moscow last year to interview candidates for the program,”
she explained. “Of the 60 that were selected for interviews we chose the most
appropriate 30. We picked those who had high motivation and good language
skills in Hebrew and English so that they would be better placed to
communicate in Israel. Even then we knew in advance that we would only
have a budget to bring the 21 who performed best in class.”
For Leonid Vilensky, 13, who like all the Russian youngsters, lives in the
Moscow area, the main highlight of the visit, other than the Bar Mitzvah
itself, was being able to make Israeli friends.
“I made four good friends,” said Vilensky. “I have their names and addresses
and I will be writing to all of them. When I am old enough I would like to
come and live in Israel. I most liked Haifa where I have relatives.”
His father Michael, 36, a communications engineer also feels very drawn to
Israel and would like to make aliyah. “But I am very concerned about
whether I could find a good job here.”
For Svetlana Gelfer, 12, the highlight of her month in Israel was her Bat
Mitzvah ceremony. “I feel a great sense of responsibility,” she said. “I owe
so much to so many people.”
Gelfer was joined by her father Alexander for the last week of the program
and was accompanies for the entire time by her older brother Dima, 18, who
was the group’s counselor.
“The biggest pleasure I got from the program,” he observed, “was to see how
well the Israeli and Russian kids got along. They did not always have the
language in common to articulate their friendship but there was a marvelous
amount of goodwill.”
Dov Scharfstein, deputy director of the Jewish Agency’s Department of
Immigration and Absorption, in addressing the youngsters during a closing
ceremony for the month-long program, recalled his own Bar Mitzvah in the
Soviet Union.
“In the Soviet Union in the 1950’s we had to conduct my Bar Mitzvah in
secret,” he recollected. “But even so the ceremony involved the same
commitment to my parents, to Judaism and the Jewish people.”
Knesset Member Yuri Stern of the Israel Ve’Aliyah party was impressed by
the motivation shown by the young Jewish Muscovites. “This is one of the
best programs for young teenagers from the former Soviet Union that I have
seen,” he observed. “The program really provides the participants with a
connection with Jewish tradition and the Jewish people.”
Five of the teenage Russian Jewish youngsters were participating in the
program for the second successive year, having had their barmitzvah in Israel
last summer.
Yuri Brouch, 14, who attends the Conservative Movement’s Hebrew Day
School in Moscow, could not believe his good fortune when he was told that
he would be returning to Israel for a second time.
“Israel already feels like home,” he said. “I have some very close friends and
it was great to meet up again. Life in Moscow is OK but there is a lot of
anti-Semitism. The Russian boys in a nearby school are always calling us
dirty Zhids and beating up on us. In contrast in Israel everybody is so warm.
We are not looked upon as foreigners. It is as if we are Israelis even though
we are not from here. That’s why I feel at home. We are made to feel at
home.”
Other links
The Masorti Movement in Israel
