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Ukrainian and American Students Share the Passover Story
April 20, 2001Comments (0) | Add | E-mail this to a friendSome had never heard the tale. For others, it was a faint childhood memory. Whether they were six or 60 the Passover story came alive for Jews in the former Soviet Union when Hillel students and young Federation lay Leaders visited visits and town throughout the region leading seders and connecting with isolated Jews.
A group of 26 Hillel student leaders studying at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem shared, food, song and their Judaism with the Jews of the Ukraine through the fifth annual Hillel JDC Pesach Project, a partnership between the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) and Hillel funded by the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation, the May and Samuel Rudin Family Foundation, the United Jewish Communities Student Department and the JDC.
Students led a minimum of six seders and went on at least five home visits to the elderly and infirm. They felt that "the impact the Jews of the former Soviet Union had on us was more than we had on them," said University of Pennsylvania junior Liz Rutzick.
The group, joined by another 26 Ukrainian Jewish students acting as teachers and interpreters, traveled in five groups to cities, shtetls, homes, apartments and community centers. The "seder-mobile" as Rutzick coined it, would perform parts of the seder with some who had recently discovered that they were Jewish, and others who had experienced five years of seders thanks to the Pesach Project.
Pennsylvania State University junior Deena Barseleh ran a seder in a home where crucifixes adorned the walls, because the family was just excited to be able to express spirituality after Communism, she said.
"I was looking at it, and leading a seder, and realized that people need to reach out. Listening to these stories, I know that this was one of the most meaningful things I will do in my life," said Barseleh.
University of Washington student Michael Berkenwald visited Kametz Podolsk, the village where his grandmother was born. "I could see what her people are like and realize what a significant population lives here," explained Berkenwald. "As I left, they didn't want my address, they wanted my grandmother's so they could write to her and tell her how the village has changed."
Ukrainian and American students were provided with matzoh and food from Hesed, an organization that serves Jewish elderly, and a Russian-Hebrew Passover Haggadah. In preparation for the trip, the American students took special classes at Hebrew University and participated in a leadership course.
In addition to the Jerusalem-based group, students and lay leaders from Hillels and Federations in Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Toronto, Washington, D.C., Boston, Palm Beach, Cleveland, Atlanta and New York traveled to the former Soviet Union for similar projects.
 Many students came away feeling fortunate. "Seeing this place, and knowing that I could have been here, hearing what they went through, I feel so lucky," said University of Wisconsin Madison junior Micah Bycel. "I can celebrate my Judaism freely, and now they can too."
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