Far from Moscow (part 3 of 4): Jewish Life Stirs Again in Russian Countryside

The first Jewish community center in 70 years has opened in the town of Yaroslavl, deep in the Russian countryside.

More than 100 people have come to celebrate, dressed in their best clothes despite the mud and slush outside.

Old and young members crowd the hall and cheer as a ribbon is cut, a plaque unveiled and mezuzah nailed into the doorpost.

Children sing in Hebrew, Yiddish and Russian, performing in front of Israeli and Russian flags. The audience claps loudly and sings along.

The mayor of Yaroslavl presents the community with $1,000 to help renovate the building that was once a synagogue. The synagogue was confiscated during Communist times and only recently returned to the community.

Were this taking place in a major Jewish area, it would be no surprise. But Yaroslavl is a four-hour drive northeast from Moscow in what was once the heartland of czarist Russia, far from the Pale of Settlement, where Jews were allowed to live.

Yaroslavl is one of the ancient towns that form a circle between Moscow and St. Petersburg, known as Russia’s Golden Ring and considered the cradle of Russian culture. For a short period in the 18th century, Yaroslavl was Russia’s capital.

Golden spirals of the many Russian Orthodox churches shimmer in the sun.

Many of the cities, considered military areas, were until very recently closed to foreigners.

Evidence of Russia’s economic breakdown is everywhere. A towel factory that can no longer pay its workers gives them towels instead. Workers line the roads trying to sell their towels. Another factory recently paid its workers with car engines.

Seventy years of communism tried to erase Jewish life, but even here there is a revival.

Jews are believed to have first settled in this area in the 13th century, emigrating from Poland and Ukraine. But there were only very small numbers of Jews until the late 19th century, when the communities grew and established schools and synagogues.

A number of large-scale pogroms took place in Yaroslavl at the turn of this century, forcing many of the Jews to flee.

About 3,000 Jews live in Yaroslavl today.

“The number of Jews here is growing,” says Yakov Shnaidman, a 31-year-old businessman and head of the Jewish community of Yaroslavl.

“Since 1989, 250 people have gone to Israel. But most are staying, and more Jews are identifying with the Jewish community.”

A welfare society, a youth club, a Sunday school with 60 children and a Hebrew class have begun.

“I want people to know that in Russia there is Jewish life, people are meeting. There is a rebirth and we are growing very fast,” says Shnaidman.

“I heard about the Sunday school, and I sent my children,” says Slave Hykin, a local businessman and a supporter of the new community center.

“I didn’t know anything about being a Jew. When I was a child, I wasn’t taught anything. My grandparents were afraid to tell us. Now my children are learning, and I am becoming a Jew through them.”

In the neighboring town of Kostroma, where the Lubavitch rabbi was exiled in 1927 for doing “anti-Soviet work,” there was no organized Jewish community until last year.

Here modernity lives side by side with the past. Colorfully painted wooden gingerbread houses sit next door to hastily erected, enormous Stalinist buildings. Three layers of electric tram wires crisscross the picturesque streets.

In May 1994, several Jews in Kostroma came together and voted to restart the community — to register officially and look for a place to meet. Now they believe that there may be, 1,000 Jews in the town.

“Jews here were separated not only from world Jewry, but also from Russian Jewry,” says Yosef Dachevsky, an artist and one of the founders of the new community.

“But everyone carried it inside of themselves. For 20 years, I lived next to some of these people, and only now am I finding out that they are also Jewish. Now, thanks to God, we have unified somehow, and today we feel we have something in common with world Jewry. It is a very nice feeling.”

In the center of town stands an exquisite wooden building which used to be the synagogue. Next door is a smaller house where the rabbi once lived and taught his pupils. Built more than 100 years ago when the community was quite wealthy, the synagogue was confiscated in 1930.

“Two rabbis worked here then, and Jewish life was very active,” says Andrey Osherov, 28, a pharmacist and head of the community of Kostroma. “Some of the people here still remember that time.”

In October, the community went to the local authorities and asked for a room in the former synagogue to use as a community center. They are now renting two rooms on the second floor. The rest of the building remains offices for local businesses, but they hope that the entire synagogue will soon be returned to them.

“Jews have been living here since the beginning of the 19th century,” says Osherov. “Kostroma was outside of the Pale of Settlement so there were not many Jews here. But the ones here were the creme de la creme. Only doctors and lawyers were allowed to live here.”

“People will leave for Israel,” says Osherov. “But for every one who leaves, two appear. Until now, Jews did not want people to know that they are Jewish.

“If the government changes, we do not know what will happen. We may have to leave in 24 hours. But despite this, we must build our community. We have to lead Jewish lives.”

Today, in their two small rooms on the second floor of their once great synagogue, the Jewish community of Kostroma is beginning a community center, starting to teach Hebrew and opening a Sunday school for 15 children.

They, along with communities throughout this region, are receiving support and funding from the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.

Although his knowledge of Hebrew is quite limited, Osherov is also the only Hebrew teacher.

“I study in the morning, and then in the afternoon, I teach the children what I’ve learned,” Osherov says.

Some fear that the revival of Jewish life may provoke anti-Semitism, but Osherov refuses to let this deter him.

“There is a Russian saying,” he says with a quick smile. “If you are afraid of wolves, don’t go in the forest.”