EDITOR’S NOTE: The following is the fifth and final in a series of articles from a piece written by Lynn Kronzek and commissioned by the City of West Hollywood that provides a snapshot circa 2000 of the city’s population of Jews from the former Soviet Union. It is illustrated with photographs taken in West Hollywood by Steven Gold, a professor in the Department of Sociology at Michigan State University. Note that some of those mentioned have died or otherwise moved on.
West Hollywood resident Larisa Zadoyen, thirty-something, works at the American Jewish University, Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies, which she describes as a “very fortunate accident.” Reflecting on her generation’s experience in the USSR, Zadoyen says: “We were basically 99.9 % assimilated. Not that many kept their Jewishness. My family knew the traditions, held Passover seders, but I had never been in synagogue before coming to the U.S…. My friends liked to read about religions generally. You must believe in something, and the Communist Party is not it,” she quipped. “Between 15-16 (years of age), we recognized we were different. Anti-Semitism was not direct at that time; you could not feel it, but only 3% of Jewish students– officially– could go to the universities. Parents did things (to circumvent the quota system). They divorced and married people of other ethnic groups,” so that the children could claim those nationalities and more easily seek admission.
The Chabad shul has become a port of entry for what my informants termed “believers.” Though strictly observant (Orthodox), the sponsoring Lubavicher Hasidim are known worldwide for vigorous outreach to the broader Jewish community. Chabad also speaks the language of its worshipers, which is particularly useful in West Hollywood, where many members of the older generation have difficulty with English. In addition, the traditional Orthodox liturgy is familiar to those yet unacquainted with Conservative, Reform, or Reconstructionist Judaism.
Chabad established a program for Soviet Jews here in 1972. Los Angeles claimed only three families then, Rabbi NaftaliEstulin told me, and the Chabad staff personally greeted new arrivals at the airport. Although his constituents now number into the thousands, Estulin proclaims a straightforward goal: He “tries to give them (Jewishly) what the Soviet took away”, the minimum standard “that every American Jew has.” He starts with a mezuzah.
Mary (Nelya) Perelman, is a retired English teacher from Moldova who volunteers her skills as a translator. (Meticulous about the use of English, she carries a computer dictionary with her). Perelman confesses to a “mixed marriage.” Her husband likes to go to Chabad, but she personally prefers Temple Israel of Hollywood, right over the “border.” Like Mary Perelman, many erstwhile Chabad worshipers tend to scatter once their language skills improve.
Indeed, the often tenuous connection to Judaism may be defined by generational experiences, personal background, even an appreciation for the music that elevates some synagogue services to a high aesthetic standard. From an American-Jewish perspective, these ties are incredibly varied — and vague.
The communal-religious participation of the new immigrants thus demands multiple points of access and an open-minded, but strongly encouraging, approach. Alia Feldman does this “bridge work” from her office at the Bureau of Jewish Education. She begins with the premise that although their knowledge may be limited, her constituents “do not come from total ignorance.” She indicates, for example, that most love to celebrate the Jewish holidays. BJE’s popular “Russian seder” therefore has become a huge draw. A 12-page newsletter, printed in the Russian alphabet, appears before each major holiday to inform Jews from the FSU of upcoming programs and services, and to enhance their understanding of traditions.
Generally, Feldman’s job is to link the Jews from the FSU with groups and activities that truly engage them. Sometimes she organizes according to age or special interest — high school clubs, singles groups — anything of appeal that “at the same time has a Jewish component.” One method is to adapt existing L.A. programming models to this new population. With funds from the Federation’s Council on Jewish Life, for example, annual grants are awarded to synagogues interested in reaching out to the Jews of the FSU. (Reform Temple Israel of Hollywood and Conservative Hollywood Temple Beth EI both have been past recipients, probably because of their proximity to the West Hollywood population center).
Of course, language remains a barrier. Feldman says that there are only a handful of non-Orthodox, Russian-speaking rabbis in the U.S. Therefore, she facilitates a guest pulpit program similar to the one at the Synagogue for the Performing Arts. From the Jewish Historical Society of Southern California, she borrows a tour format, beginning with Boyle Heights and highlighting the ethnic diversity of downtown, before taking participants to local synagogues. A weekend shabbaton, in the retreat style popularized by the Brandeis-Bardin Institute, offers intensive seminars prior to the high holidays. The goal is to create a new Jewish community: attendees come from all over L.A., and with food and children properly attended to, they can learn about Judaism in a care-free environment. The information exchange continues via “RussianLA.com” an electronic bulletin board that counts 2,000 subscribers.
There is evidence that all of these varied resettlement, social service, and cultural-religious activities are acclimating the immigrant population to both civic and religious life. A Soviet-trained music and elementary school teacher, West Hollywood resident Raisa Tauber arrived here eight years ago and wanted a distinctly Jewish outlet for her skills “because we never knew about Judaism in Russia, how to learn, how to celebrate.”
She went to the Jewish Family Services for job placement assistance, but actually found a job independently. A tiny ad in the Jewish Journal led her to B’nai Tikvah Nursery School and Kindergarten near LAX, where she taught for seven years. Teaching was Tauber’s path to Jewish education. She learned “by myself, through the school, through the synagogue.”
Affiliation was a more natural process for Alia Feldman, owing to “a family with deep Jewish roots”, including a cousin who is a Russian-speaking Conservative rabbi. Furthermore, her native Moldova entered the Soviet sphere in 1940, which allowed those “roots” to flourish above-ground for 20 or so years longer than elsewhere. Feldman first formally joined the local Jewish community by sending her children to Beth Am’s Pressman Academy on La Cienega Boulevard. Because of her English language skills, she was appointed to the Bureau of Jewish Education. Her career stemmed from volunteer leadership; an early assignment had been to solicit high holiday tickets for Jews from the FSU.
Helen Levin’s involvement hearkens to the old Jewish value of “giving back.” In addition to heading the Russian Community Center, she holds leadership/board positions with the Bureau of Jewish Education, the Valley Federation, and the L.A. County Consumer Affairs Commission. Some emigrants, particularly during the last decade or so, used their Jewish nationality as a passport out of the USSR. Significant numbers claimed that they wanted to settle in Israel; with changing public policy and processes, however, they instead opted for the U.S. Levin asserts that “if they do not go to Israel, they have the obligation” to express their heritage here. Her teenage daughter attends day school at Valley Beth Shalom.
Engaging the Next Generation in the Community
Indeed, while there are exemplars, most adult Jews from the FSU acknowledge that real Jewish communal involvement– ritual participation and leadership, board service, fundraising, even just membership– will fall to the next generation. And most people in and around West Hollywood agree that Rabbi Rubin Huttler has been an unsung hero in conveying yiddishkeit to children and youth from the FSU. Huttler serves as spiritual leader of Congregation Etz Jacob (1932), the oldest synagogue in the Fairfax district. Frustrated 20-some years ago that “no one was doing anything for the first wave” of Soviet Jewish immigrants, he tied together a package of services. The rabbi elicited “help from Fairfax Adult School for ESL (English as a Second Language) classes and involved Jewish Vocational Services in job placement. “Our synagogue housed the project,” he noted. Huttler admits that this operation has become “low- keyed” in the past few years– probably because similar services, translated a million different ways, have proliferated all over West Hollywood and the larger Jewish community.
The rabbi subsequently turned his attention to more spiritual matters. Perutz Etz Jacob Hebrew Academy, now 12 years old, “started as a school for immigrant children, the first year, mostly Persian.” Jewish day schools are very expensive, Huttler adds, and many offer no financial aid. Tuition is free for the first two years at Perutz Etz Jacob, with 80% scholarships thereafter. “Hundreds of kids went through our system … ” he emphasizes. About 40 of the current 140 students (29 %) are from the FSU. Huttler is very proud of all the college-bound graduates, including one young alumnus who’s getting married and wants a Jewish wedding ceremony. The rabbi will be officiating.
Etz Jacob also hosts about 10-15 bar mitzvahs annually for boys from the FSU. The intensive preparatory training is free. At the same time, Huttler “plugs away” at involving the parents. After Friday night davening (praying), eight or nine of the bar mitzvah boys may come with their folks and siblings for Shabbat dinner. Other families return to the synagogue out of gratitude: two can be regularly called upon to complete the daily minyan, prayer quorum. Huttler contacts them personally, as the need arises. It is an intimate, one-an-one process.
And over at the University of Judaism, Larisa and Mikhail Zadoyen, along with both sets of their parents, received their Jewish names for the first time– at their daughter’s bat mitzvah. Contemplating the event roughly one month beforehand, Larisa Zadoyen told me that for Yelena, Judaism is slowly “turning from a nationality to a religion … My daughter wants to present herself, call herself, a Jew from Russia. She doesn’t wish to lose the Russian traditions, but to adopt new approaches to the culture (Judaism) she never thought she’d belong to … ” So many (Russian) “writers, composers, musicians are Jews, but we still call it the Russian culture,” she explains. In addition to reading the Torah, Yelena Zadoyen designed and hand-crafted a ritual tallit for her bat mitzvah. The dominant theme is a keyboard.
This all sounds so democratic but what about all the older people in West Hollywood, who aren’t Russian, who’ve been pushed off the list for housing because they were cursed by being white folk, whose family might have settled in the USA prior to 1900. I’m bored by all this tree hugging nonsense by a city whose politicians are onboard for Pay to Play along with being au courant for politics. Why isn’t WEHO welcoming 100s or black Americans who were brought over here as slaves? Because for collectives like the Townscape Three, it doesn’t payoff at the ballot box.