of The Chronicle staff
Anna Smolina of Kazan, Tatarstan, in the former Soviet Union, visited the Milwaukee Jewish community last week. And though it was her first trip to Milwaukee, she did not come here as a complete stranger.
Smolina, the director of Kazan’s Jewish Community Center, is a colleague and friend of Harry & Rose Samson Family JCC president Jay R. Roth, whom she met last September in Haifa, Israel.
“The JCC Association, our parent organization, asked some of us [experienced executive directors] to mentor [directors of JCCs in the former Soviet Union] about a year and a half ago,” Roth said, “and they brought us together at the World Confederation of Jewish Community Centers convention,” last fall.
“We liked each other from the first view, which is a saying we have in Russian,” Smolina said through interpreter and American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) representative Bella Zaritsky, who accompanied her to Milwaukee, in an interview at the Albert & Ann Deshur JCC Rainbow Day Camp, last Friday.
“Now,” Roth said, “I write to Anna at least once a week.”
A Jerusalem resident since she made aliyah in 1991, Zaritsky is part of that relationship. The Kiev native serves as JDC’s liason to Kazan’s Jewish community and acts not only as Smolina’s interpreter but also her connection to the world Jewish community and cultural go-between, Roth said.
She assists Smolina in JDC’s ongoing mission of assisting the poor and elderly and its recently emphasized mission of supporting Jewish renewal and building Jewish community in the former Soviet Union.
Renewal and survivors
Roth and Smolina’s bond is one connection between Milwaukee and Kazan. But also, Kazan receives funds from JDC, which is one of two major overseas partners of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation and other North American Jewish federations.
For Smolina, visiting Milwaukee’s Jewish community is part of her work toward Jewish renewal and community building, said Roth. This was also a way for Smolina to see Milwaukee’s JCC in action.
But the differences between the communities (and therefore the JCCs) are great. In her community of 12,000, about 1,500 elderly poor people receive food, medicine, home care, and winter relief (warm clothing and heat). Most of them are Nazi victims, who take priority when benefits are distributed.
Another 1,500 elderly poor receive less support because there are more who need help than there are funds available. In addition, they are tracked so they can get assistance when needed.
That support is provided by the JCC, through the JDC-funded chesed (welfare) programs.
The Kazan JCC has an SOS program, Roth explained. “If someone needs surgery, urgent repairs due to a house fire or has a sick kid, help is provided. And that goes for all of the Jewish community.”
Roth learned about Kazan from a trip there last December (see Jan. 6 Chronicle) and plans to return in September. They plan to discuss two ideas for developing “people-to-people” connections between their respective communities.
They are thinking of bringing three or four teens from Kazan to the Steve and Shari Sadek Family Camp Interlaken and also of establishing communication between kindergartens in the two communities.
After a week of touring Milwaukee’s senior facilities, schools, agencies, camps, and synagogues as well as extensive meetings with JCC staff, Smolina appeared thoughtful.
“Our meeting with Jay gives us an opportunity to explore options which are good for them and good for us,” Smolina said. “And our main goal is for Jewish people not to forget their roots.”
“Our Jewish outreach may have some things they can use. She has to think how they can be used in the Kazan environment,” Roth said.
Deep-rooted community
Smolina’s personal history parallels and offers a peek into the history of her community. Her maternal grandfather, she said, was a rabbi and though her father was a communist, she and her sister grew up learning secretly about Jewish religious traditions and practice from their mother and grandmother.
During perestroika, the restructuring of the Soviet system that began in the mid 1980s and eventually led to the system’s downfall, the government began to open up.
In 1989, the Jewish community came out of hiding and officially registered itself. A local businessman, Yurie Pliner, assuming a lay leadership role, raised funds for a Jewish community center, JCC Chesed Moshe, which opened in 1997.
He appointed Smolina as chesed director and the center began to receive one-time grants from the JDC. In 2000, the JDC assigned Zaritsky to assist the community in Kazan.
The community now boasts two Jewish day schools, a seven-year-old, 450-student communal school offering religious and secular courses for children aged 7 to 17, and a Lubavitch school which opened a year ago. There is a minyan at the JCC twice daily.
Smolina, whose sister is also a Jewish community professional in another city, is clearly passionate about her work. While posing for a photo in front of the JCC Rainbow Day Camp agam (pond), she spoke in English: “I am Jew!” she shouted smiling and striking a theatrical pose.
Loading ...