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World

Pilgrimages

In Kazakhstan, Jews span miles to create community.

Michael J. Jordan
Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Dina Itkina is director of the Jewish community center in Astana.

Just as the size of Kazakhstan has long
been a challenge, so, too, has the task of
bringing Jews together.
Unlike unique, historic Jewish commu-
nities across the former Soviet Union —
like the shtetl Jews of Ukraine, the Litvaks
of Lithuania, the Bukharans of Uzbekistan
or the Mountain Jews of Azerbaijan — the
Jews of Kazakhstan are almost entirely
transplants from elsewhere. Rarely was it
voluntary.
Beginning in the 1930s, Jews were among
the millions whom Joseph Stalin shipped
into Kazakhstan, the key southern link
in his dreaded network of concentration
camps known as "the Gulag:' Many oth-
ers were deported here as "internal exiles','
restricted to living within certain villages.
Another wave of Jews arrived in the
second-largest Soviet republic during
World War II. They were evacuated from
the western front, and places like Ukraine
and Belarus, as the Nazis methodically
cleansed the countryside of Jews.
Torn from their family and community
— and with repression palpable — many
Jews assimilated and intermarried in high
numbers, like elsewhere in the Soviet
Union.
Since Kazakhstan's independence in
1991, some 75,000 Jews have immigrated
to Israel, Russia, Germany and beyond.
Another 30,000 may be hiding their
Jewishness or simply are too far away
to be reached, says Alexander Baron,
the president of Mitsva, the Association
of Jewish National Organizations in
Kazakhstan.
"We're still meeting people who are
afraid of Stalin's regime,' says Baron,
based in Almaty.

With another harsh winter just starting,
the delivery of food and medical relief to
the poor and elderly promises months of
logistical headaches.
Even the Israeli ambassador to
Kazakhstan, Ran Ichay, says that bound by
his budget he must monitor if and when
to travel. Prohibited from train travel for
security reasons, Ichay says he must pur-
chase two tickets on the relatively pricey
domestic flights — for himself and his
bodyguard.
With face time this precious, Kazakh
Jewish organizations must make cold-eyed

JDC Offices
Reaching the remote areas is particularly
difficult during winter. Astana, in fact,
ranks among the world's coldest capitals.
Even in March, when spring breaks in
Almaty, Astana endures sub-freezing
temperatures, bitter winds and sidewalks
blanketed with ice.
Train travel is generally reliable —
highlighted by the 12-hour Astana-Almaty
express that folks here curiously nickname
"the Spanish train" — but the rails are
primarily between large cities.
Everywhere else, the rutted, mostly
single-lane roads are prone to long bouts

Astana, Kazakhstan

F

or Dina Itkina, the number of
times she has trekked hundreds
of miles for a Jewish event are too
many to count. But one time stands out
in the mind of this young Jewish activist
— a journey to neighboring Uzbekistan.
Seven years ago, at the age of 17, Itkina
began with a 30-hour train trip from her
hometown, Kokchetav, south across the
plains to Kazakhstan's largest city, Almaty.
There she met two dozen other young
Jewish leaders from around the country,
including a pair who had spent more than
two days aboard a train from the western
Caspian Sea coast.
Together they piled into another train
for the 12-hour overnighter to the south-
ern city of Shymkent. Then came a one-
hour bus trip to the border, an hour walk
across the border and another hour ride to
Tashkent, the Uzbek capital.
After three days of conference, there was
the grueling return home.
"And nobody cried;' says a laughing
Itkina, now 24 and director of the Jewish
community center in this capital city.
"You have to live here to feel the distances.
But this event was a new experience, new
emotions, new friends. And a lot of fun."
It's not only Jewish youth who are
immersed in Kazakhstan's culture of
overnight train travel, tolerating odys-
seys that might deter all but the hardiest
Westerners.
This is the way of life in Kazakhstan,
a country comparable in size to Western
Europe, four times the size of Texas. Its
population of 15 million is clustered
across vast, mostly empty swaths of
inhospitable desert and prairie known as
steppes.
Jews comprise 15,000-20,000 of the
population, about half in the 13 largest
urban centers.

Long Distances
The geographic challenge to reach them
all, and unite Jews here with a notion of
a cohesive community, touches virtually
every aspect of Jewish life today: welfare,
religion, education, holidays, celebra-
tions, camps, seminars and conferences.

A18

January 1 . 2009

calculations.
"It's like in a business: You want the
maximum from your investment," says the
chief rabbi of Kazakhstan, Yeshaya Cohen,
37, a Chabad-Lubavitcher based in Almaty
the past 14 years.
"It's difficult because you want to be there
for every Jew," says Cohen, one of five rabbis
in the country.
"You make a seder in one city, then
another city wants a seder, too. So you have
to pick and choose. And sometimes the
interest in a city of 1,000 Jews isn't as strong
as in a town with two Jews:"