obituaries Kiev Online Website reconnects young Jews — one post at a time. Continued from page 53 in the former Soviet Union and one of the most highly assimilated. According to 2008 figures from the Jewish Agency, 80 percent of Jewish new- lyweds in the former Soviet Union married a non-Jew, a figure dramatically higher than the rate in the United States. The vast majority of Ukraine's 360,000 Jews are non-observant; and only a small frac- tion is affiliated with the organized Jewish community, which many young Jews find obsolete and rife with internal discord. Social networks, Kozlovskiy says, have the potential to keep Jews, intermarried and not, connected to Jewish life. "If we don't reach out to the unaffiliated, they will assimilate and will be lost to the Jewish people Kozlovskiy said. "The fact that our website isn't affiliated with any denomination or Jewish institution has allowed us to be a portal for any Jew" Jewishnet functions much like any other social networking platform, allow- ing users to post news stories, share tips, ask questions, connect with old friends and promote events. But mindful of the limitations of many web-based networking sites, organizers of Jewishnet have taken steps to provide users with opportunities for real-life engagement with the Jewish community. A platform called Juice, which is run partly through Jewishnet, invites young Jews — many of them young and unaffili- ated — to meetings with community lead- ers, Jewish businessmen and journalists. Reports of the events often are published on Jewishnet, and users can submit ques- tions online in advance that are asked by moderators during the actual event. One of the first Juice talks brought dozens of young Jews last November to a talk with three rabbis, including the chief rabbi of Ukraine, Yaakov Bleich. The goal, according to Juice co-organizer Inna Yampolskaya, was to build bridges between young Jewish professionals and the establishment from which many feel FROM THE FAMILIES WE SERVE "You offered us so many options that helped us resolve many of the planning issues we had to deal with. I really appreciated your attention to details. Everything was so personalized." We appreciate the feedback we receive from our community. THE IRA KAUFMAN CHAPEL Bringing Together Family, Faith & Community 18325 W. 9 Mile Rd Southfield, MI 48075 • 248.569.0020 • IraKaufman.com 54 August 8 • 2013 .1N Obituaries Juice Internet co-organizers Inna Yampolskaya and Igor Kozlovskiy, Ukrainian Chief Rabbi Yaakov Bleich and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee's Lilya Vendrova at a Juice event in Kiev, November 2012 estranged. Those in attendance proceeded to grill the rabbis with questions, asking why synagogue seats are sold and why phi- lanthropists fund projects in Israel when there are so many unaddressed challenges at home. Some questions were submitted anonymously online because participants felt uncomfortable posing them publicly. "It was a unique experience because it was the first time participants could ask a rabbi anything they wanted:' said Yampolskaya, one of Juice's volunteer orga- nizers. "Transparency is new in Ukraine, where everything, including Jewish life, used to work top to bottom, not the other way around." Liliya Vendrova, an employee of the Joint Distribution Committee's Kiev office, uses the site to find news and make con- tacts for events she organizes. The site also has enabled Russian- speaking Jews who live abroad to keep abreast of developments at home. But it also functions in reverse, permitting users to connect with wider developments in the Jewish world. "Many people their age are not interest- ed in participating in organized Jewish life, and they are reaching out to those people Bleich said. "One of the reasons that this is succeeding is the authenticity." ❑