When it comes to representing Jewish healing, there can be no more potent symbol than a bowl of chicken soup.
Add to that a loving face and a corona of leaves, and you’ve got the ingredients of a heartfelt, healing work of art.
The image, created by graphic artist Yelena Karanovich, adorns this year’s area posters for Jewish Healing Month. For Karanovich, it also symbolizes the fulfillment of a dream — to leave the Ukraine for the United States and live openly as a Jew.
“I was called a kike since I was 5. The expectation was always that we were going to be harassed,” the Alameda resident said. “Sometimes I was ashamed of my parents’ name. My mentality changed drastically when I came to this country.”
Born in the town of Kharkov, Karanovich immigrated to the United States in 1989 when she was 26 years old. It had been 10 years since her parents first declared themselves refuseniks and filed for emigration. Like other refuseniks, the Karanoviches were branded traitors to the state.
“My parents told me that we could end up in a labor camp,” Karanovich said. “For 10 years, I had this fear that the [police] car would come to get me.”
Soon after their application, the war with Afghanistan broke out and political relations with the West froze. The family was left in limbo. “Reapply after six months,” Karanovich and her parents were frequently told.
In the meantime, she said, “my parents were let go from their jobs, our phone was tapped. We had to live a double life. My employers didn’t know I was waiting for immigration.”
However, she said, “when we applied for immigration we felt like human beings for the first time.” Frequent letters and parcels from Western Jewish organizations helped because “we knew that someone cared. Every letter we got was another touch of hope.”
Finally, their petition was granted and the Karanovich family moved to Oakland. Settled there, Karanovich began working as an accountant though her passion was for graphic art.
Rabbi Miriam Senturia, one of the organizers of Jewish Healing Month, recalls meeting Karanovich at a chavurah.
“She’d recently arrived here, and we hit it off immediately,” said Senturia of Ruach Ami: Bay Area Jewish Healing Center. “She was a single mom, doing crummy jobs to get by. We both love dancing, so we’d go dancing together.”
When Ruach Ami held a design contest for last year’s Jewish Healing Month, Senturia invited Karanovich to submit work. Karanovich had recently completed a course in computer-aided design at Oakland’s Laney College and had found a job in layout and design at the Alameda-based Antique Journal.
“She did a lovely poster. It was exciting because she’d just gotten work doing graphic design,” Senturia said. “Finally, she was involved in something more suited to her talents.”
For Karanovich, designing the poster offered an opportunity to give back to the Jewish community. “I was very enthusiastic about making that poster. I think it’s a beautiful cause,” she said.
This year, using the Illustrator program on her computer, Karanovich repeated her efforts. The new design gave her a chance to deepen her personal vision of healing.
“The color blue is associated with Israel. You have the warmth of a bowl, and leaves as a common motif of life,” she said.
“I can’t talk about art in a sophisticated way, but I know that I like her work,” said Senturia, who added of her friend that “it’s been wonderful to watch her blossom.”
Now married and the mother of two, Karanovich said that she is “not religious in a traditional sense, but I respect my Jewish heritage.”
Looking back on her history from the perspective of a successful emigre, she waxed philosophical.
“It was a good school of life,” she said. “It taught me to appreciate what I have.”