D’var Torah: Kerch update (Ruti Amal)
Written by Writings & Sermons by others — 30 October 2018
My name is Ruti and together with Lynn and Mike Levy in September we visited the Kerch Progressive Jewish community twinned with Alyth for the last 18 years.
For those of us who, like me, are not very sure where any place is on a map unless we visited it, Kerch is a coastal city in Crimea, and Crimea is a peninsula handing above Turkey across the Black Sea. Now, an amazing fact about Jewish presence in Kerch is that it goes back to the 1st century Before Common Era, meaning that Jews were in Kerch 1000 years before they came to Britain.
Unfortunately, during the Second World War, this ancient community was decimated. 6 500 thousand Jews were murdered in Kerch. And those who survived kept a low profile. I don’t need to tell you what it was like to practice your Judaism or express Jewishness in the Soviet Union. Losing your job was very possible, and for the particularly persistent individuals prison was not an impossibility.
However after the fall of the Soviet Union a naval officer, a Jew called Boris Kapustin, who wanted to settle in Kerch for his retirement, walked into the mayor’s office in 1997 and asked ‘Are there any Jews in the city?’, the mayor said ‘Maybe a dozen.’ Boris did not believe him and published an ad in the local newspapers inviting Jews to get together. 50 people turned up for the first meeting. This is how the community started. It is the only Jewish religious community and synagogue in Kerch to this day. Before the war there were 6 synagogues, Nazis destroyed all of them but one, Soviets used the building as a music school and a labour exchange, and now the Kerch Progressive Jewish community is in this building.
There are 380 members in Kerch community, many are Holocaust survivors, who are elderly and, alas, often very poor.
It is not easy to lead Jewish life in Kerch. When we called the community to wish them Chag Sameach for Pesach, to our question how Pesach preparations are going, the response was ‘Oh, good, one of our members just drove off to Simpheropol to load his car with mazah to bring it back to the community.’ We are talking about 4.5 hours drive one way, and the roads there are not the highways of Western Europe. On another occasion, to our question what to bring with us as presents, the answer was ‘Could you bring a least one lulav, as we have to use a fake one – there is no way for us to source the real thing.’
Alyth have been twinned with Kerch community for more than 18 years and in a very personal way. Members of Alyth have made 34 visits over those years to Kerch. Apart from the visit we have been helping the community in 3 ways: with food for the poor, with medication for the sick and supporting Jewish life for everyone, financially and practically. The Sefer Torah and lots of Judaica in Kerch are gifts from Alyth.
And it was all going well and developing well until Russian takeover of Crimea, which left the peninsula in a legal international limbo. The only progressive rabbi of Crimea had to flee with his family because he was an active anti-Russian take-over activist. The Reform Movement from Ukraine, based in Kiev, which has been working with Kerch community all these years can no longer provide rabbinical support as visits are illegal from Ukraine.
And you may be aware that there are sanctions imposed on Russia by most Western democracies. Let me tell you what these sanctions mean for Crimea and Kerch. If you go there, you won’t be covered by health or travel insurance. You won’t receive Embassy support if something happens to you. You cannot transfer money either directly or indirectly, including for humanitarian aid. And if you have Crimea in your documents, you can’t get visas for many countries.
And now, let me paraphrase a famous quote form our weekly Torah portion, when Abraham challenged G-d: “Far be it from You to do a thing such as this…to punish the innocent with the wicked so that the innocent should be like the wicked. Far be it from You! Will the Judge of the entire earth not perform justice?”
Alyth Kerch committee did not have direct access to the highest authority to raise the question why should Kerch Jewish community be cut off from both humanitarian aid and people connection from Alyth. Nor did we have access to the governments. However, with great tenacity on the part of Geoff Short and Mike Fine, with support from Noleen Cohen and our Rabbis, we got permission to transfer one tranche of humanitarian aid to Kerch a few months ago. Mike and Lynn Levy visited the community three times since sanctions were introduced, and I joined them on the latest trip.
It was very moving, inspiring and humbling to meet people who were thanking Alyth for their insulin, for food parcels, and simply for knowing and feeling that there are people who care. This made me once again feel very proud to be a member of Alyth. On behalf of Kerch community I’d like to thank everyone who contributed in any way: with money, with time, with ideas and even with thoughts.
But we also found a community that is struggling. Absence of rabbinic support, reduced funding from other sources , and impossibility for Alyth people to visit to support Jewish life in Kerch – all this is taking its toll. The challenge for us is to find the ways to continue our relationship with our twin community.
To quote from Bereshit Torah portion ‘Are we our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers?’ This is the question to us, who live in the comfort of North-West London, where the least of our concerns is where to get matzah for Pesach or lulav for Sukkot.
Let us think about this question …. If your answer is ‘yes’, we are our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers, and if you’d like to help, please get in touch with me or rabbi Mark.
And let us all count our blessings!
Shabbat Shalom!