In addition to the blue jeans and T-shirts that most foreign visitors pick up on trips to the Bay Area, Reform leaders from the former Soviet Union are “going back with an extra suitcase of information,” according to Anna Luzhnova, of Kiev, Ukraine.
During their 10-day visit, they attended a bat mitzvah, visited a number of local synagogues and drove to the Reform movement’s Camp Newman in Santa Rosa.
The group of eight was also amazed by the affluence, touched by the hospitality — including the fact that some hosts took off work to chauffeur them — and surprised by the power of liberal Judaism in the United States.
After all, Reform Judaism is still in its infant stages in the former Soviet Union, where practicing Judaism was banned until the regime fell in 1991.
According to Alexander Kagan, a native of Belarus who is now the coordinator of Former Soviet Union Netzer (Reform youth) in Jerusalem, there are now 60 centers with Reform activities in four areas of the former Soviet Union: Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and the Baltic region.
“Five years ago we had one seminar for one area and one camp, for 50 participants; that’s all,” said Kagan, who came from Israel to accompany the group. Noting that last year the group ran six summer camps and one winter camp, he said, “Our activity in last year is really a great indication of our serious growth.”
Kagan visits his former home often. “Our main goals are to strengthen Jewish identity and to reinforce the option of liberal religion. We don’t force anyone to be strongly religious, but we give people the choice that they want,” he said.
“We don’t force people to make aliyah,” added Alexandra Kimmelman, a 23-year-old who goes by Sasha. Kimmelman works with the Netzer movement in Russia. She met last week at the office of j. along with Kagan and Luzhnova, a 22-year-old teacher who works with Netzer in Kiev.
The three were here because of a visit to the Bay Area last year by Nelly Shulman, the first Russian-born woman to be ordained a Reform rabbi. During that trip, she couldn’t help but think how useful it would be for a group of her colleagues to come as well.
Linda Levenson, a member of Congregation Shir Hadash in Los Gatos, kept in touch with Shulman. Levenson spoke to people with lots of unused frequent flier miles and got them to donate the miles to provide airline tickets. So Shulman and seven of her colleagues recently wrapped up 10 days in the Bay Area, learning about progressive Judaism, American-style.
Luzhnova said that once Jews in the former Soviet Union learn about Reform Judaism, they find that it really appeals to them.
“We have a powerful youth movement because people bring their friends,” Luzhnova said. “People stay in our community because they feel it’s their own place.”
“If the youth come home and begin to explain to their parents what they learned in the youth movement and their parents listen, sometimes their parents become interested. It takes time, but they come,” said Kimmelman.
Steve Bauman, the chair of the North American council of the World Union for Progressive Judaism as well as the chair of the former Soviet Union committee, said he was involved with the Russian group because of his passion for Jewish continuity.
“The third largest population of Jews in the world is in the former Soviet Union,” he said. “And opposed to some number of years ago, when everyone was worried about them, now everyone’s forgotten about them because they’re free, but they’re really not.”
Bauman, a past president of Congregation Beth Am in Los Altos Hills, said he chose this route of activism because “I want to see our people survive. What better way is there than to go back to where my grandparents and great-grandparents came from, and make sure these young people can build their own communities?”