When hundreds of Jews arrived at the Odessa Philharmonic Hall last week to attend a concert in honor of Israel’s 45th anniversary, the local chapter of Jews for Jesus showed up too.
Standing in the shadow of the once-famous Brodsky Synagogue, members of the American-based missionary group handed out hundreds of pamphlets and brochures to those attending the concert, in what is becoming a regular occurrence in the city.
No one is quite sure why Jews for Jesus has targeted Odessa, a port city on the Black Sea with a population of 1.2 million. Though their presence in other cities in the former Soviet Union is negligible, their literature has appeared here regularly over the past year.
Apparently, Odessa, which has a Jewish population of approximately 60,000 and a colorful Jewish past, is one of the group’s top priorities.
Funded by money from America, the local Jews for Jesus chapter has been able to publish dozens of pamphlets, brochures and books in Russian to hand out to the local population. Many of the chapter’s members are Americans who have been sent to the Soviet successor states to continue their missionary work.
The organization refuses to answer questions about its activities in Odessa, so it is difficult to estimate the extent or success of its work.
Though Odessa Rabbi Ishaya Gisser joked that with the amount of money they spend for each Jew they convert, “the Jews for Jesus do pretty bad business in Odessa,” the sheer mass of propaganda has had some effect.
In an effort to combat the missionary activity, the rabbi wrote a book for people in the community exposing the aims of the organization.
In striking contrast to the well-funded Jews for Jesus, the local Jewish community is suffering from severe financial difficulties.
A LACK OF SYNAGOGUES
Though Odessa was home to 47 synagogues at the turn of the century, the sole synagogue not confiscated and closed by the Communist government collapsed last July. As it stands now, the Jewish community of Odessa is without a place to hold regular services.
Two years ago, the local government returned one synagogue to the Community of Jewish Culture. Last year, a Jewish community center was opened in the building, which also houses the Israel Center, the local Jewish school and a hall where services are held on Shabbat.
A second synagogue was returned to the Jewish community last year. After being used as a warehouse for 70 years, the building is in need of massive repairs before it can be used as a synagogue again.
Though work has begun on the building, the lack of resources in the community to pay for the renovation has delayed the completion of the job, and only the gutted shell of the former synagogue remains standing.
The government has so far refused to discuss returning either the Brodsky Synagogue, which now houses the city archives, or the Glav-naya Synagogue, now a sports club.
Though the Jewish community of Odessa today faces severe problems, the city has a rich Jewish history. Before World War II, nearly one in three residents of Odessa was Jewish. The Holocaust and emigration reduced the Jewish population from over a quarter of a million to 60,000.
Long regarded as a free-thinking city, Odessa was the site of the first Jewish secular school in the Russian Empire and the birthplace of the first Hebrew newspaper, Hamelitz.
At the turn of the century, many leading Jewish figures lived here, including the Zionist thinker Ahad Ha’am, the Hebrew poet Chaim Nachman Bialik and the historian Simon Dubnow. The Yiddish writer Mendele Mocher S’forim is buried in the city’s Jewish cemetery.
Today, the Jewish community is slowly rebuilding after 70 years of forced assimilation by the Soviet government.
But throughout the city, Americans and Russians, wearing their trademark blue sweatshirts with “Jews for Jesus” written in white Hebrew, English and Russian lettering, are handing out literature and continuing their missionary work against the Jewish population.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
