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Erik Alesin, Yulia Safian, Nikki, Jason Porth and Ania Safian help Rabbi
Aft conduct a family program.
Rabbi Returns From
Teaching In Soviet Union
SUSAN GRANT
Staff Writer
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FRIDAY, JANUARY 11, 1991
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itting in his office at
the Agency for Jewish
Education thousands
of miles away from Vilnius,
Lithuania, Rabbi Bruce Aft
still hears Ania's voice ask-
ing him "to remember me,
remember us."
Ania. There are other
names too. Zelig. Emma. All
forever stuck in his memory.
It's been more than a week
since his return to his
Southfield home from a two-
week trip to the Soviet
Union. But as Rabbi Aft gets
back into the weekly routine
of being Midrasha College of
Jewish Studies director and
Jewish Community High
School principal, he can't
forget the students he met in
Riga, Latvia and Vilnius.
Rabbi Aft was one of three
Americans sent to Riga and
Vilnius from Dec. 16 to Dec.
30 as part of B'nai B'rith
International's effort to
reach out to Jewish com-
munities in the Soviet
Union. He was joined by
Jason Porth, 17, a North
Farmington High School
senior and national B'nai
B'rith Youth Organization
vice-president, and Peter
Stark, a Jewish educator
from Boston. The trip was
paid partially by the
Maurice C. Zeiger Lodge of
B'nai B'rith and the Jewish
Welfare Federation of
Metropolitan Detroit.
In Riga and Vilnius, Rabbi
Aft co-conducted a four-day
B'nai B'rith youth camp
designed to teach 40 teens,
ages 12 to 15, about
Judaism. This is the second
time B'nai B'rith Interna-
tional has provided educa-
tional activities within the
Soviet Union. Last summer,
the organization held camps
in Leningrad and Birobid-
zhan near the border with
China.
first it was a challenge
trying to teach Judaism to
Soviet teens using non-
Jewish translators who
knew little about the re-
ligion, he said. But once
those hurdles were over-
come, the students, espe-
cially those in Vilnius,
seemed eager to learn about
Jewish holidays, life cycle
events and Israel, he said.
They also wanted to know
how Jews live outside the
Soviet Union, Rabbi Aft
said. He was surprised to
learn that many students
had never heard former
Soviet refusnik Natan
Sharansky.
Religious plurality within
Judaism was also a foreign
concept to some students,
Rabbi Aft said. Many had
heard Orthodox rabbis speak
about Judaism and couldn't
understand how Rabbi Aft
could make kiddush with
non-kosher wine or still be a
religious Jew without a
yarmulke.
Rabbi Aft, Mr. Stark and
Jason did more than just
talk to teens. They spent a
few evenings with younger
children and their parents
organizing family programs
on Judaism.
Family programs are rare
in the Soviet Union, so the
trio wasn't sure it would
work, Rabbi Aft said. But
when one man said he had
never seen so many children
so happy, Rabbi Aft knew it
was successful.