Shavei Israel reaches out to uncharted Subbotnik Jewish communities in Russia
Lesson in Russia
Shavei Israel’s main outreach to the Subbotnik Jewish community in Russia has been in the small town of Visoky. But there are many more Subbotnik Jews throughout southern Russia. Shavei Israel has now launched a new initiative to meet some of these lesser-known communities.
Dr. Velvl Chernin is Shavei Israel’s coordinator for the Subbotnik Jewish community. Together with historian Eldad Fedorchuk, the director of the International Center for Jewish Education and Field Studies, the two visited Rodnikovskaya, where a quarter of the town’s 7,000 residents are either Subbotnik Jews or their descendants. Within this population is a particularly active group of 30 Subbotnik Jews who turned to Shavei Israel with an urgent request that a teacher be sent from Israel.
Chernin returned to Israel after the initial visit, but Fedorchuk is staying for another monthin Rodnikovskaya, where he is filling the role of teacher. Among the classes he has prepared are lessons on the daily and holiday prayer cycle, the basics of blessings, and the laws of Shabbat. Fedorchuk was in Rodnikovskaya for Shavuot where he organized the community’s celebration of the holiday including the traditional reading from the Megilat Ruth (the scroll of Ruth).
Esther Surikova, Shavei Israel’s coordinator for Russia and Eastern Europe, reports that there is much to be done…and learned from Shavei Israel’s new outreach program. “During their trip, Velvl and Eldad discovered that the number of Subbotnik Jews in the area is very large, but that the level of assimilation is rather high. Some of the community in Rodnikovskaya are also relatives of the people in Visoky.” During their visit, Chernin and Fedorchuk visited a local cemetery and a second community in the nearby town of Khanskaya.
Fedorchuk’s background is ideal for his new Shavei role in Russia. Born in Moscow, he has degrees from the Hebrew University in Moscow (no connection with the Hebrew University in Jerusalem), the Institute for Slavic Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences, and the Center for Jewish-Christian Relations (the latter based in Cambridge). He has taught at a number of Russian and European universities and was on the staff of Sefer – the Center for University Teaching of Jewish Civilization, which provides Jewish educational frameworks to academic institutions across the former Soviet Union and Baltic states, and is funded in part by the Avi Chai Foundation. Fedorchuk has headed a number of epigraphic, archaeological and ethnographic expeditions studying Jewish heritage in Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Lithuania, Belarus, Russia and Georgia, and has published widely on the subject.
Following Fedorchuk’s return later this month, a decision will be made on whether to continue – or expand – his outreach to Rodnikovskaya and the surrounding areas. In the meantime, we have some pictures from his current trip:
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