They were amongst hundreds of students traveling across the globe—some to places like Connecticut, California and England, but others to more remote locations like Chile and Russia. The Chabad-Lubavitch students, who recently completed three years of post-high school learning, were tasked with assisting local schools and nurturing the Jewish community in their given locations for a year, and sometimes two.
The six students who were assigned to S. Petersburg, Russia, in 1994 originally came from Texas, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Canada, France and New York, and were all students at the Lubavitch School in Morristown, N.J.
They came to assist Rabbi Mendel and Sara Pewzner, the Chabad emissaries who had arrived in the city two years earlier. Awaiting the young students was a challenge—to bring Judaism to the city’s youth.
They arrived shortly before the holiday of Chanukah.
The culture shock as they exited the airport, where a decrepit bus waited for them, was no deterrent.The culture shock as they exited the airport, where a decrepit bus waited for them, was no deterrent. Their enthusiasm could not be dampened.
They purchased language tapes to help them learn Russian, and regularly went to language classes. For food, they ate lots of turkey—including turkey soup—because that is what was shipped from Moscow, their source for kosher food, along with potatoes and eggs.
They slowly learned the ropes. They began studying with locals attending the Lubavitch school, and made daily visits to the nearby Jewish school. They began a Sunday school to teach kids about their Judaism, established a Jewish teen club, and made house visits to any Jew that they heard about.
All this was done while they studied tirelessly for their rabbinical ordinations.
The Foreigners Make Holiday in Russia
Upon arrival, they decided to organize a concert to celebrate Chanukah. Its purpose: to bring together as many Jews as possible to celebrate and learn.
Under Communist rule, which had ended only three years previously, generations of Jews did not receive any Jewish education. Many of them became totally lost and assimilated. The younger generation, who did not remember the days before Communism, proved to be the most difficult to attract. But this was the boys’ goal: to bring not only those affiliated with the Jewish community, but also those who had no connection to Judaism and the Jewish community.
They embarked upon a huge advertising campaign. They had ads made in Russian, printed fliers and signs, and spread them across the entire city. It was not an easy task to execute in a country where Jews were not accustomed to any public demonstration of Jewishness—and they had only a week to prepare and advertise the event.
It was not an easy task to execute in a country where Jews were not accustomed to any public demonstration of Jewishness . . .The concert was a huge success, with more than 5,000 participants filling the concert hall, and more standing around. The students were pleasantly surprised to see that many of the younger generation arrived with their children. The six students made their rounds and tried to reach out to the many parents, inviting them to keep in touch with the Jewish community and to send their kids to Jewish programs.
Immediately, the students began visiting the many contacts they collected, inviting them to events and enrolling their kids in youth programs. The number of youth slowly grew as the year progressed.
Next they organized a Purim event in the Grand Choral Synagogue, a magnificent edifice that was completed in 1893, but under Communist rule had been neglected. There, too, thousands joined the festivities.
Passover, however, was the most known holiday in Russia; through thick and thin many kept the holiday, even under Communism. The special thin matzah bread was often available in the larger cities, despite the governmental ban against religion.
This heightened the rabbinical students’ expectations, and they made plans for a model matzah bakery. The bakery would give a chance for kids to make their own matzah and learn about the holiday. They reckoned that after the great successes they had for previous holiday events, they could attract crowds of at least 500 kids during each model bakery event. Not wanting anyone to miss out, they rented a huge hall and prepared rolling pins for all the kids that would arrive.
Renting a hall turned out to be a huge bureaucratic ordeal, and obtaining 500 rolling pins turned out to be even harder. At last, they went to a hardware store and asked them for wooden dowels, but the owner refused the students’ request. At the end, and with the help of some local Russian persuasion, they finally got them.
They prepared a mock Passover meal, a Seder. They went out and obtained romaine lettuce, a rarity in Russia, and other staples they needed.
A Colossal Failure
The day finally arrived, and the students entertained the kids from the Jewish schools and their Sunday Hebrew school. As the kids left, they were hoping for a few minutes to rest their arms until the next surge of crowd would come pouring in.
As the hours passed, the students became frustrated, and some planned on closing the doors early. They began assessing the cause of the failure.Their waiting turned into longer than expected. An hour passed, and then another. Not one visitor! What did they do wrong? Did they not advertise well? Was it the wording? Was it the design?
As the hours passed, the students became frustrated, and some planned on closing the doors early. They began assessing the cause of the failure.
At 4:30, a mother came in with her two children. The students gave them the grand treatment; they got the full matzah-baking course and elaborate, entertaining instructions on how to conduct the special Passover feast.
As always, at the end, they took the family’s information and bade them farewell.
At 5:00, they closed the doors and went home. They desperately tried to pinpoint the reason for the terrible failure, but never could.
Jewish Children with Christian Education
Pinchus Turk, one of the students, was down over the flopped program. But that night he called the mother who did come, to make an appointment to meet her family at their home.
As it turned out, they did not live in S. Petersburg, but rather in a small town outside of the city. Under Communism, she informed Pinchus, she did not receive a Jewish education, though she did remember her parents holding a Passover meal and that they had the matzah bread at their home. The week before, during her weekly visit to the city to do her shopping, she had noticed signs about the model matzah bakery and decided to bring her two boys. They came so late, she said, because she had to arrange a ride to come to the event.
Pinchus told her that they would not have a chance to visit her before Passover, but that there was a camp for children over Passover in Moscow. She readily agreed to send her children to the camp to experience a genuine Passover.
Following Passover, Pinchus and a fellow student headed out to visit the family.
Entering the home, they were surprised to see that the family had four children, three boys and a girl, a rarity in a country where most families had no more than two kids.
The muscular father emerged from his room, followed by his children, and began speaking rapidly about ChristianityThe mother somehow found kosher biscuits in a store, and offered them to the boys along with cold water. The conversation began with the mother asking the students for parenting tips, as the boys were all from large families. She and the kids took great interest in all the Jewish topics the students were discussing.
At one point, the mother asked to introduce her husband. She sent one of the children to call him. They respectfully knocked on his door and told him that there were American rabbis who had ccme to visit.
The muscular father emerged from his room, followed by his children, and began speaking rapidly about Christianity. The students were bewildered; here was a family so interested in their Judaism, and their father could not stop talking about Christianity.
Speaking to him respectfully, they learned that the father, who was Jewish, felt the need to teach his children about G‑d. Their family name came from the word “teacher,” he explained, and he always tried to educate his children about G‑d.
With no other religious school in town, out of ignorance, he sent his kids to a Christian school. With that, the family learned about the Christian faith.
The father boasted that all of his children have Jewish names. His daughter was named Sarah, after the first matriarch of the Jewish nation; his son, Shalom, was named for his desire that the Jewish nation know only peace; Lemuel, a name of a king found in the Scriptures; and Babi Yar, named in memory of the more than 100,000 Jews who were massacred in that forest by the Germans during the Holocaust in 1941.
The father was extremely enthusiastic about any Jewish education the boys could give his kids. The kids joined Sunday Hebrew school, and would come for an occasional Shabbat to stay with the students.
At the end of the year, the students bid farewell to all of their students and headed back to New York, leaving all their contacts’ information with the local Chabad emissaries.
Passover in Offenbach, Germany
The rabbinical students all married. One of them, Rabbi Mendel Gurewitz, moved together with his wife, Rivkah, to Offenbach, Germany, where they established a Chabad House in 1998.
For the rabbi, the busiest times are just before holidays. He travels to surrounding cities to meet Jews, teach about the upcoming holidays, and organize children’s programs. Many of the programs are very similar to those that the students organized in S. Petersburg, including model matzah bakeries that also taught how a Seder is conducted. He also arranges for rabbinical students to come from overseas to conduct communal Passover meals in nearby cities.
Things were no different in 2001, when a group of students arrived. He greeted them warmly at the airport, brought them to their lodging, briefly explained some details, and told them that someone from the community would take care of their needs. He then returned to his pre-Passover activities.
At one point in the conversation, he couldn’t help but turn to the boy. “Please tell me,” he asked him, “where are you from? I recognize you.”After the first two days of the Passover holiday, after things had calmed down a bit and the students returned to Offenbach from the outlying cities, Gurewitz had a yearly custom to spend time with the students and speak to them.
This year, he was struck by one boy whom he felt he strongly recognized. At one point in the conversation, he couldn’t help but turn to the boy. “Please tell me,” he asked him, “where are you from? I recognize you.”
“My name is Babi Yar, and I am originally from S. Petersburg.”
Postscript: Many of the students from the S. Petersburg group attended Babi Yar’s wedding in Brooklyn, New York, two years ago.
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