Re-Discovery

Russian Jews in America search for their religious identity.

RACHEL POMERANCE

Jewish Telegraphic Agency

This is the first installment in a three part JTA series on
Russian Jews in America.

New York

O

apart, from the rest of organized Jewish life.
Of course, the community's Jewish identity is
diverse, with a small percentage of observant Jews and
a sizable minority exploring the religion long denied
them. In recent years, for example, several synagogues
serving primarily Russian-speaking Jews have sprouted
around the country.
According to Sam Kliger, coordinator of the
American Jewish Committee's department of Russian
Jewish community affairs, Russian American Jews who
have lived here for more than nine years are more likely
to attend synagogue on Shabbat and holidays, donate
to Jewish causes, especially a synagogue, and show
interest in Judaism and Jewish life than those who have
been here less time.

with the movement.
While many Russian Jews attend High Holiday serv-
ices, they generally practice a brand of Judaism from an
era prohibiting it, piecing together fragments of secular
Jewish knowledge to constitute practice and identity.
Take Svetlana Boym's family. At the family's Passover
seders, her mother sometimes reads stories by Isaac
Babel instead of the Haggadah.
"My mother wanted to keep the tradition, but she
doesn't have a proper Jewish education, so she felt that
reading the works of the beloved Russian Jewish writer
will be appropriate for the holiday;" says the Harvard
professor of Slavic studies.
Russian Jewish holidays essentially are social events,
festooned with Russian fare like caviar and smoked
fish, says Stanley Trepetin, 35, an MIT graduate stu-
dent, who grew up in Brooklyn. "Rarely do you ever
have prayers," he says.

n the weeks his Baba Sofa could afford it,
Bentsion Boverman rode the streetcar from
college into Odessa's busiest market to buy
his grandmother a live chicken for Shabbat.
Pickings were slim by the time he reached the Privoz
market those Friday afternoons at the dawn of the
1970s. He'd shell out about 25 rubles — roughly 20
Russian Identity
percent of the average monthly Soviet salary at the
Retaining their Russian identity is a priority
time — and stuff the bird into his leather satchel.
for many who immigrated in the 1990s, says
Because live chickens in streetcars were
Pnina Levermore, executive director for the
frowned upon, he carried the fowl by foot to the
kosher slaughterer a mile away, then watched his American Jewish groups that received Ru ssian Bay Area Council for Jewish Rescue and
Renewal, in San Francisco. It's not so much a
grandmother turn it into chicken soup in the
immigrants focused primarily on social,
family kitchen.
security blanket but something "which defined
them back there, which kind of makes them
"It was a shlep!" Boverman says with a laugh in not religious absorption.
feel planted here," she says.
a telephone interview from Boston, where he is
That steeps the community in its own brand
chief financial officer of an engineering software
A Turning Point
company.
of Jewish culture — often detached from religion.
"They'll raise their kids never setting foot in a tem-
It was also the osmosis through'which Boverman,
Since two-thirds of the Russian-speaking Jewish popu-
ple, but God forbid you want to marry someone not
now 54, and thousands of other Russian American
lation in America came here in the 1990s, the commu-
Jewish," says Victoria Weesies, 38, who emigrated to
Jews attained their Jewish identity under Soviet rule.
nity is now reaching that critical turning point, Kliger
Now, more than a quarter of a century after the first
says. But they face steep challenges, say to Russian Jews Orange County, Calif., in 1975.
The community's youth, more Americanized and
wave of Soviet Jews arrived in America and some 13
and those who work with the community.
with more opportunities than their parents had to pur-
years after the mass exodus that followed the collapse
Among them are a dearth of affordable Jewish edu-
sue Judaism, represent a more religious segment of
of communism, the Jewish identity of Jews from the
cation, institutions and Russian-born religious leader-
Russian Jewish society, most say.
former Soviet Union is far more complex.
ship, as well as a residual Soviet mentality that keeps
Ironically, however, some think that these young
Like Boverman, who landed in West Hartford,
religion at bay.
people,
lacking their parents' fear of being Jewish, will
Conn., in 1977, most Soviet Jews picked up pieces of
For example, paying for synagogue membership was
lose their Jewish identity altogether.
Judaism from their grandparents. The elder generation
a turn-off for many newcomers, given that Soviet-era
Because Russian Jews see Jewish identity as ethnic,
offered them a smattering of Hebrew or Yiddishkeit
services were free. They were reluctant to join Jewish
they bequeath their children a Judaism with "nothing
(Jewishness), but most of their Judaism was squelched
organizations that reminded them of the Soviet
really attached to it," says Andre Krug, director of serv-
by the Communist state.
bureaucracy. Also, the American Jewish groups that
The rest of their Jewish education came by way of
received them focused primarily on social, not religious ices for New Americans at the Jewish Community
Centers of Greater Philadelphia.
anti-Semitism and state policy: the peers who bullied
absorption.
For those working to cultivate Jewish identity among
them, the teachers who failed them and the stamps of
In liberating refuseniks — Jews denied the right to
Russian American Jews, they craft strategies to appeal
"Jewish" on their passports.
emigrate under the Soviet system — the motto was
to their specific concerns. For example, Krug has
Mostly because of that oppression, the Soviet Jews
"Let my people go," not "Let my people know," says
drawn many to Jewish events by focusing on culture
who immigrated to America are deeply identified as
Rabbi Aryeh Katzin, dean of Sinai Academy, a Russian
and rejecting fees for services.
Jewish.
Jewish yeshivah in Brooklyn and editor of the newspa-
Rabbi Marc Schneier of the Hampton Synagogue in
But their Judaism takes a different form from main-
per Evrei sky Mir; Russian for the Jewish world.
Long
Island, N.Y., which has seen the trickling in of
stream American Judaism, where the synagogue is the
In addition, Russian Jews retained a culture that
Russian Jewish congregants, aims to respond to the
center of observance and communal life, and people
looked down upon religion.
immigrants' desire to fit in with American culture.
are mostly open about their Judaism, whether or not
Still, as Kliger says, the longer Jews from the former
"Our challenge is to show the greater Russian Jewish
they practice Jewish rituals.
Soviet Union are here, the more Americanized they
community that you can be a successful and very ful-
Ask a Russian American Jew to describe his Jewish
become and the more likely they are to adopt religious
filled American, and at the same time you can be a
identity and he typically will talk in secular terms —
practice and an overt Jewish identity.
practicing Jew," he says.
describing a culture borne of persecution or an abiding
Among the Russian Jews here who have adopted
While Russian American Jews seem "almost devoid
love for Israel, where perhaps half the family now lives.
religion, many have found a home in the Chabad-
of religious observance," Rabbi Katzin says, they are
But after years of immigration and growth — the
Lubavitch movement. Its appeal, they say, stems from
slowly returning to their Jewish roots.
number is now estimated at some 650,000 — Jews
its welcoming attitude — coupled with free activities.
A rabbi from an assimilated family, Katzin says the
from the former Soviet Union are becoming increas-
Rabbi Shmuel Notik, who heads Chabad's outreach
"flame of a Jew" persists, despite the "cultural geno-
ingly interested in religion and organized Jewish life.
to Russian Jews in Illinois, estimates that as many as
cide" of Jewish life in Russia. "One explanation," he
That sometimes happens together, but more often
150,000 Russian Jews across the country are affiliated
says, is "Am Yisrael chai [the Nation of Israel lives]." ❑

4/ 9
2004

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