A Ukraine native will be the first Conservative rabbi to serve in the former Soviet republic.
Reuven Stamov, 38, originally from Crimea, will be the 82nd rabbi ordained by the Schechter Rabbinical Seminary in Jerusalem on Friday, Feb. 3.
Stamov, with his wife and their two daughters, will return to Ukraine from Israel. He made aliyah in 2003 with his wife, whom he met at a Midreshet Yerushalayim Jewish community school where he was teaching. Soon after, he began rabbinical studies at the Schechter seminary.
Stamov completed his master’s degree in mechanical engineering in Ukraine when he was 23, but he could not find work in his field and instead took a job as a guide in a local Jewish youth club.
He later worked at the Ramah-Ukraine summer camps sponsored by Schechter’s Midreshet Yerushalayim Jewish enrichment programs for Jews in the former Soviet Union. — jta