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Message: <br /><br /> If you are having trouble reading this email, you may view this article online at: http://www.jweekly.com/26769/full/26769/ukrainians-bring-judaism-back-into-their-homes/ <br /><br /> <b>Ukrainians bring Judaism back into their homes</b> <br /> Friday, August 12, 2005 | by <p>lev krichevsky </p> <br /><br /><p><b>dnepropetrovsk, ukraine |</b>  The decision to send children to Jewish schools sometimes causes problems for Jewish families in the former Soviet Union.<br /><br /> “Our family isn’t traditional, and the only Jewish school we have here is a religious one,” says Anna, a Jewish community worker in Dnepropetrovsk, echoing a common concern of many Jews here who feel a cultural link to Judaism but not a religious one.<br /><br /> Anna, who asked that her last name not be used, had to make a difficult decision a few years ago over whether to send her then-6-year-old daughter to the local Jewish school.<br /><br /> “Yes, the kids in school are secular, but I’m not sure to what extent we as parents are ready to accept everything kids receive in this school,” she says.<br /><br /> In the end, Anna decided not to send her child to a Jewish school because she was uncomfortable with the level of Judaism the school taught.<br /><br /> Anna’s dilemma is not the only one that Jewish schools can pose for parents in the former Soviet Union.<br /><br /> For other parents, the issue becomes changing their own lifestyles to adapt to what their children are learning in school. Some seem ready — if a bit reluctant — to do so.<br /><br /> “One day my son came back from school and said from now on he would eat only kosher food,” says the mother of a student from St. Petersburg.<br /><br /> “Of course I was shocked. We never had anything like this in our family. Even my grandfather, who was born in the 19th century, never did anything Jewish — not to mention eating kosher.”<br /><br /> The mother, who asked not to be identified, says she is preoccupied with practical questions such as where to get her son kosher food, which isn’t readily available in the former Soviet Union, even in larger communities like St. Petersburg.<br /><br /> “Twice a month I go to the synagogue to buy a chicken for him,” the woman says.<br /><br /> “My son has changed a lot in this school. I can’t say I’m unhappy, but what if one day he decides to become a rabbi or something like that?”<br /><br /> Other parents whose children adopt some level of Jewish observance while attending Jewish school are more ready to accept the change.<br /><br /> “My parents looked with interest at what was happening to me,” says Eliyahu Fidel, a graduate of Pri Yitzhak, a St. Petersburg Jewish boys’ school, who now lives on his own. “They’re not helping me, but they’re not against it.”<br /><br /> “The school has come to our homes. I wear a kippah at home,” says Andrei Yegorov, a Pri Yitzhak student who like many others in religious schools here received a Jewish name — Natan — once he was circumcised as a student.</p> <p> </p>

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