The
basic policy of the JDC, which at this time was beginning
to expand its activity in the countries of the CIS, was
not to invest money in “bricks and mortar” but
rather in “people and programs.” This approach
was appropriate in regard to the Soviet Union, where the
right of private property was not guaranteed. However, when
the restitution of synagogues became possible in the CIS,
the JDC decided to change tactic and support this process.
One of the main goals of JDC activity in the CIS has been
to assist in the revival of Jewish life, partially via the
establishment of community centers. At this time the social,
cultural, and religious centers that sprung up one after
the other had to either rent premises or be satisfied with
cramped and inappropriate quarters allocated for their activities
by local authorities. Rent was expensive and placed a heavy
burden on the budgets of the still weak communities. Furthermore,
it made no sense to seriously renovate rented premises since
the owners could at any moment refuse to extend the rentals.
In such circumstances, the restitution of synagogue buildings
offered a real solution to the problem by providing Jewish
organizations with their own spacious premises in the center
of the city and, thus, significantly, hasten the process
of community-building.
In 1991, following a decision by Michael Schneider, executive
vice-president of the JDC, in consultation with Asher Ostrin,
the JDC’s CIS director, a program of support was inaugurated
for restitution activity in the CIS. At the JDC’s
New York headquarters the program was supervised first by
Gideon Taylor and, from 1999, by Herbert Block. In Jerusalem,
in the Russian division, this program was coordinated first
by Diana Shimoni, followed by Jeremy Shine, Jonathan Rudnik,
and again by Diana Shimoni; since 1997, it has been coordinated
by Michael Beizer. The latter participated in the program
from its inception as a consultant. In the CIS itself the
program has been implemented by the JDC’s regional
offices, with the assistance of local specialists: the lawyers:
Vladimir Maslov (Odessa), Aleksei Durasov (Ekaterinburg),
and Elvira Lubavina (Nizhnii Novgorod): the construction
engineers and architects: Mikhail Stavnitser (Kiev), Anatolii
Shveld (Zaporozhie), Natalya Bass (Samara), Zinoviii Pozin
(Minsk), Moisei Danielashvili (Tbilisi), Zoya Kagarmanova
(Ekaterinburg), Dmitrii Lubavin (Nizhnii Novgorod), and
the historian of architecture Iulii Lifshits (Kiev). Many
other engineers, architects, lawyers, and historians served
as occasional consultants to the restitution program. The
launching of the restitution program signaled a 180-degree
change in the policy of the JDC, which would now spend money
on “bricks” also.
In view of the facts, that information about Jewish prayer
houses and synagogues had never been complete and that many
of them had been either located in rented premises or did
not survive, at best one might have hoped that there remained
in the former Soviet Union perhaps one thousand synagogue
buildings that could be located and whose past ownership
by Jewish communities be legally proven. Of course, the
return of these synagogues would be useful only if their
condition was not too dilapidated and local Jewish communities
had resources to maintain and use them. Apparently, less
than half of the surviving synagogues satisfied these requirements,
especially since they were often located in small towns
of the former “Pale of Settlement” where hardly
any Jews remained.
Within
the framework of the restitution program, first Michael
Beizer and then the communities themselves began to collect
archival and other historical materials relating to confiscated
Jewish communal property, particularly synagogues. At the
same time, an investigation was carried out to learn whether
these buildings had survived and to determine the current
addresses of those that did exist. By the end of 1993, 52
existing synagogues that qualified for possible restitution
were located.
However, the finding of such properties was not sufficient.
Something else was needed: the local Jewish leaders had
to be prepared to fight for them. Here one encountered the
fear of confronting the authorities that was deeply entrenched
in former Soviet citizens. Furthermore, only religious organizations
could claim the return of synagogues and, in such organizations
initially there was a lack of charismatic figures capable
of leading restitution activity.
The JDC had to convince community leaders of the possibility
of success. It also had to teach them about the procedures
for regaining the property, while simultaneously providing
them with archival, legal, and engineering aid at every
step of the process. The JDC also undertook to help communities
with financing the repair and reconstruction of returned
synagogues. In time other sources of financing also appeared.
Since, as noted above, by law synagogue buildings could
be returned only to religious associations, in order to
gain synagogue premises secular Jewish groups had to set
up Jewish religious communities even if there were few religious
Jews in their areas.
If the registration of a community was not carried out properly,
the community might have to pay a heavy price for it. This
happened in Gomel, where the authorities exploited mistakes
in the registration of the community to force the community
to buy the building that had been returned to it eight years
previously. In this case, since the community lacked the
necessary funds, the JDC bore the expenses.
As
a result of restitution activity in Russia, in 1991 synagogues
were returned in Moscow (on Bolshaya Bronnaya St.), Nizhnii
Novgorod, Penza, Irkutsk (the ground floor of an already
operating synagogue was returned); in 1992 – in Chelyabinsk,
Omsk, and Samara; in 1993 – in Perm and Tyumen. In
Ukraine in 1991 synagogues were returned to Jewish communities
in Dragobych, Kirovograd, Nikolaev, and Vinnitsa; in 1992
– in Ivano-Frankovsk, and Nikolaev (a second synagogue),
Odessa (on Malaya Arnautskaya St.), Shepetovka and Zhitomir;
in 1993 – in Belgorod Dnestrovsky and Odessa (a second
synagogue, on Osipova St.)
In spite of the non-binding formulation of the law in Belarus,
several former synagogues were handed back to Jewish communities.
In 1992 a former synagogue was returned in Gomel. In December
1993, the executive committee of Grodno ordered that the
large building of a synagogue be transferred for the use
of the local Jewish religious association (it was handed
over on January 1, 1994), while earlier, in September 1993,
the Pinsk city executive committee made a similar decision
in regard to a one-storey building in a former suburb of
Pinsk, Karlin, where the earliest Belorussian Hasidism had
originated. In the capital of Belarus, Minsk, in 1994 the
Jewish Religious Association of the Republic received a
separate complex of three buildings on Dauman St., which
had not been Jewish property. This was in exchange for a
small decrepit building of a synagogue that had existed
on Kropotkin St., and for relinquishing claims to two other
surviving synagogue buildings in the city. Subsequently,
in 1998, the building of the synagogue on Kropotkin St.
was handed over to the local Habad community.