Pesach Project: "At Home" in Kiev

While most Jews spend Pesach (Passover) with their families, I had the opportunity to spend Pesach in Kiev, Ukraine, courtesy of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) as part of the JDC-Hillel Pesach Project.

I traveled as a representative for JDC and was in charge of coordinating the activities of four groups of university students from across the world, who had come to share Pesach with Jews living in Kiev and the surrounding towns and villages. Together with the students, I had the opportunity to participate in eleven seders over a span of four days. You might ask how this is possible; seders after all are held on only two days (and, how many matza-balls can one eat anyway?), but our mission was to bring Pesach to as many individuals and families as possible.

During the week we were in Ukraine, my four groups brought Pesach to about 2000 people in four different regions in and around Kiev. Some of the seders we conducted were in communal dining rooms while others were organized as part of home visits to bedridden elderly - all just to share a taste of Pesach with fellow Jews.

At seders large and small, we came together to share our Jewish customs, values, and traditions through songs, dance and stories; together we strove to bring back the Yiddishkeit that had nearly been wiped out by seventy years of Communist rule. I had many moving experiences during my week in Ukraine and I would like to share a few of them here.

Distant from Israel and my family and situated in a post-Communist country, I felt like a foreigner as Pesach approached. That changed when we arrived at our first seder. I immediately noticed the table set for Pesach and the aroma of Pesach cooking wafting through the air- these were the same smells I knew from home - the smell of Pesach! Despite all the differences of our histories and geographic locations, these familiar smells reminded me that we are one people and I suddenly felt no longer like a stranger. I was in Kiev, but in this Jewish family's house, I was at "home."

In addition to seders, we visited elderly in their homes, where we sang songs, danced and exchanged personal stories. Our first home visit, which was one of many we had scheduled for that day, was with Sveta and Vitalik. As our 40 minutes of allotted time began time wind down, Sveta was dismayed to see us preparing to leave. She pleaded with us to remain. The songs we had sung with her had not been enough to satisfy her, and she asked us to extend our visit. She had heard of the word "seder" and had a vague idea of what it meant, but had never partaken in one herself. So thirsty for knowledge of the traditions of which they had been robbed throughout their lifetime, she wanted to take our visit as an opportunity to hold her first seder. We succeeded in postponing the other home visits and eagerly agreed to stay.

While she was begging us to stay, Vitalik, also set on having a "proper" seder, was already maneuvering the table into the middle of the living room. Sveta had prepared food from a recipe book she had borrowed from the local Jewish library. Within seconds, the living room was transformed and the table set with 10 bowls of matza-ball soup. We began to conduct the seder with them, teaching them along the way, enabling them to conduct their own seder next year. Sveta told us how embarrassed she was to be learning traditions from us instead of passing them on. In a poignant moment, we realized the impact of what been lost over three generations.

During the course of the seder, one of the Montreal students presented a Matza cover to the couple as a gift. Sveta accepted it joyfully and expressed how meaningful it was to her by telling us that it would be passed down to her daughter and her granddaughter. We were moved by the realization that we had just created a family heirloom. The Matza cover would be passed down through the generations and along with it the memory of the family's first seder: a symbol of Jewish renewal after a lifetime of religious persecution.

Also during the seder, one of the Kiev students recited word for word the blessing over the holiday candles with Sveta and one of the Israeli students recited Kiddush word for word with Vitalik. Anxious to learn more and to be able to share her knowledge with her children, Sveta kept asking us to teach her more about Jewish traditions. So we carefully wrote out the blessing for the Sabbath candles in Russian transliteration and told her that it is to be said every Friday before sundown. The hand of a student from Kiev (shown here) wrote out the words, with a pen came from Israel, on paper from Montreal.

As I captured this moment on film, I saw another goal of the Pesach Project realized - the joining together of Jews around the world. We sang the "Ma Nishtana" and "Avadim Hayinu," explained the different parts of the seder, told the Passover story, and rejoiced together in our freedom.

In addition to forming new friendships with the Jews in the FSU, the groups of students themselves formed strong bonds. They realized that through learning about one another's Jewish community, they could enhance their own. As they spoke about maintaining their relationships across the oceans, it became evident that this was a true partnership of young lay leaders in the making.

As the end of the Pesach Project approached, we realized that we had received as much as we had given to Sveta, Vitalik, and the hundreds of other Jews we had met. We imparted knowledge which they could use to conduct seders on their own with their families. In turn, each of us went home enriched in a variety of ways. Some with a renewed appreciation of Jewish traditions, some with a renewed understanding of how important freedom of religion is, and some with the realization that they had witnessed a critical moment in Jewish history.

Though it was hard to be away from my own family's seder and I really missed my Zayda's charoset, I will never forget the eleven seders that I was fortunate to spend with my extended Jewish family throughout Ukraine.

Having marched in the Soviet Jewry marches as a child and having listened to the stories of those who traveled to the FSU to keep Judaism alive, it was a thrill to witness the miracle of Jewish renewal. I feel privileged to have taken part in a Jewish dream that we have all worked to realize.

Written by Rhea, JDC staff member.