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Youth Leaders Connect Elderly Ukrainian Woman with her Childhood
Orysia, 81, leads a difficult life in Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine. She lives in a shabby apartment with her 43-year old daughter Nina who became severely ill after a childhood trauma at the age of 5, who is homebound and unable to function independently. One of the first Hesed clients, Orysia and her daughter both receive full assistance from the program, including medical benefits, nutritional assistance, and winter relief.
Born and raised in Dnepropetrovsk, Orysia grew up in a home across the street from one of the 38 synagogues in the city. At the start of the war in 1941 her family fled to Uzbekistan, where she, at the age of 16, had the responsibility to find bread for her starving family. After the fall of the Nazi occupation in 1945, she and her family returned to her hometown where she later married her husband Teofil; they remained devoted husband and wife until his death 47 years later. One balmy summer day, Orysia received a surprise social call from a group of young people who came to her apartment to visit and celebrate Shabbat. Orysia shared her life story the group, participants in METSUDA Jewish Youth Leadership Program, and recalled her fond childhood memories of living in a religious family, lighting Shabbat candles together and the beautiful mezuzah which used to hang on the doorway of her home. METSUDA is a JDC-sponsored program which attracts many gifted young leaders in the Jewish community to a seminar held four times a year, during which they learn leadership and management skills, as well as Jewish traditions. The young adults learn how to use their skills in the community and to take an active role in the Jewish world. They work in conjunction with Hesed in order to organize activities and do volunteer work for the elderly. Following the visit, the program members revived a little warmth and Jewish spirit from Orysia's childhood; they hung a lovely new mezuzah outside her door. Orysia then invited them to spend the Kabbalat Shabbat with her and Nina. The volunteers were treated with a special concert from Orysia, who serenaded them with her favorite Yiddish songs from childhood, a part of her Jewish heritage she would never have been able to express during the days of Soviet domination. Her singing is the only thing that brightens her daughter's face. The visit from METSUDA volunteers lifted Orysia's spirit and recaptured a lost part of her Jewish upbringing. Orysia gave her visitors a sense of her history and struggle, and reminded them of why they had volunteered and what it means to be Jewish. Voices of the young and old came together to sing and celebrate Shabbat. November 2006 |
