New Archive:

February 2000 Issue, Volume 1

From Baku, With Love

By Tracy Makow

December 12, 1999 - 9:50 p.m. Kennedy Airport.
Here I am, about to board a plane to Baku, Azerbijian - an exotic enough sounding place whose location I was not exactly sure of when I signed on for this mission. The "mission" really is just that. A group of us from the National Young Leadership Cabinet (YLC) of the United Jewish Communities (UJC) is traveling to this far away place (located in a region known as the Caucuses, east of Armenia and north of Iran, a former republic of the former Soviet Union) to visit the Jewish community. We were to see first hand the work that the Jewish Agency for Israel (JAFI) and the Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) is doing -- work funded by the dollars we contribute and raise through our local United Jewish Appeal Federations. Having never been to the former Soviet Union or on a mission such as this before, I am not quite sure what to expect. I look over the group that consists of twenty members of Cabinet and three members of UJC staff. An eclectic group to be sure -- doctors, lawyers, real estate developers, business people, mothers, and fathers. The one thing we do all have in common is our love for and commitment to the Jewish community around the world. In the more-than-two years I have been on Cabinet, I have come to know my fellow members to be an endlessly interested, interesting, committed and, most of all, fun, group of 30- and 40-something adults.

December 13, 1999 - 10:30 p.m. The Baku Hyatt Hotel, Baku, Azerbijian.
After traveling for more than 13 hours we have arrived and, while bleary-eyed, are about to sit down to dinner and receive a briefing about the diverse Jewish community which exists here. The Jews of Azerbijian number somewhere between 30,000 and 60,000, many of whom descend from Jews who came to this region after the destruction of ancient Israel and the expulsion of Jews from Babylonia. These Jews have come to be known as Mountain Jews and make up about 90% of the Jews in Azerbijian. They are fiercely proud and committed and have stayed passionately Jewish despite all odds against it. The remaining roughly 10% of the Jews in Azerbijian are Ashkenazi (mostly immigrant from Russia and the Ukraine) and Georgian (immigrants from the Republic of Georgia).

December 14, 1999 - 10:00 a.m. Jewish Kindergarten, Baku, Azerbijian.
Here we are half way around the world in a Jewish kindergarten, watching a wonderful Hanukah pageant performed by a lively, beautiful group of four and five year olds, singing loudly and happily in Hebrew. It is incredible. The teachers are delightful young women who are from Azerbijian and have learned to speak Hebrew, trained as teachers through programs set up and run by JAFI. Representatives from the JDC and JAFI are with us and will travel with us throughout the three days we are here. These men and women are truly modern day miracle workers. They leave the comfort of their homes in Israel and come to places like Baku, in the Former Soviet Union with the funds we raise, to create an infrastructure of social and educational support. They provide the local community with everything from hot meals to health care, social interaction to Hebrew lessons, so Hillel groups and delightful kindergartens can prepare and put on marvelous shows like the one we watching right now. I look around at the faces of my fellow Cabinet members as they lower their cameras and video recorders to watch as these children so joyously express the wonder of the Hanukah miracle. It is amazing to watch and to be able to reach out and touch these fellow Jews who feel the impact of our charitable dollars every day of their lives. I did not know it then, but this was just the beginning of what would be a life-altering experience and an invaluable education of the real possibilities that exist for us to repair the world.

2:30 p.m. - Hesed Gershon Soup Kitchen, Baku Azerbijian.
Who would have thought it ­ a bar mitzvah, Mountain Jew style. That is where we were all morning, at a bar mitzvah at the Synagogue of the Mountain Jews. Watching two thirteen-year-old boys become Bar Mitzvah was amazing in its familiarity. The boys laid tefillin, put on tallit, and recited the prayers. And we, at the services conclusion, threw candy and shouted Mazel Tov, just like all Jews around the world do on such a joyous event. And the party afterwards was also heartwarmingly familiar. A buffet table groaning under the the pile of food on it and toast after toast of Mazel Tovs and L¹Chiams. (The fact that each toast was accompanied by a shot of Russian vodka may have been the only aspect of it that set this bar mitzvah apart from its American counterpart, but we were happy to participate in a local custom!) Exhilarated and a little giddier than when we arrived, we then depart the synagogue to come here to this beautiful, warm soup kitchen, operated by The Hesed Gershon Community Center, also funded by our charitable dollars. The "customers" at this soup kitchen are elderly and poor, but they are dignified and so happy to meet and thank us in person for the help and sustenance with which they are being provided. The collapse of the Soviet system has decimated a large part of the population of Azerbijian. Government pensions which these people spent a lifetime working for are either non-existent or so drastically reduced as to be wholly insufficient to sustain them. It is directly due to our contributions to UJC that this soup kitchen exists to provide these elderly people with hot meals in a comfortable and clean environment.

12:00 a.m. - Lobby of the Baku Hyatt Hotel, Baku, Azerbijian.
We are exhausted but far too exhilarated to sleep. We sit in groups around the hotel lobby, keeping the bar open and talking about what we saw today. After we left the soup kitchen we visited the synagogues of the Georgian and Ashkenazi Jewish communities and met with the leaders and activists of each. We met with and received briefings from the head of the JAFI delegation of the Caucuses and visited a JAFI Youth Club where a group of surprisingly familiar looking teenagers were meeting in a brightly decorated room on the top floor of an old, dank, very Soviet-era looking building. We visited several different JAFI Ulpan classes, all crowded with young people learning Hebrew at all different levels. And we broke up into small groups to visit the homes of the parents of teenagers who have made Aliyah to Israel. It was so touching to go into the home of a couple who had sent their only son to Israel, where he is currently serving in the Israeli Army, because they knew he had little to no opportunity in Azerbijian to rise above their meager means. The father had been an officer in the Soviet Army and even though he was not Jewish, he was so proud that his son was a soldier in the Israeli Army. We listened to the mother tell us stories about her son and she and her husband were thrilled when we took Polaroid pictures of them to send to Israel to their son.

December 15, 1999 - 11:00 p.m., Local Restaurant, Baku, Azerbijian.
The music is deafening and we are exhausted, but we cannot stop dancing the local dances we learned today. What a day! We traveled about two hours north of Baku to a town called Quba, which is the capital of the Mountain Jewish Community. The town is in a desolate area that feels like it is in the middle of nowhere. The community poured out to welcome us and we were again overwhelmed by their fervent commitment to and love of Judaism. We had a meeting with the mayor of Quba, who is Jewish. He described to us how the community stayed fiercely and proudly Jewish, despite the abuse of the Nazis and the tyranny of the Soviet regime. He told us that there is virtually no intermarriage in their community and described the currently healthy and productive relationship the community has with the government of Azerbijian. We then visited a local public school, where JAFI has somehow convinced the government to allow the Agency to bring in teachers to teach the first and second grade students, Jewish and non-Jewish alike, Hebrew. We met a young Israeli, fresh out of the army, who has come to Quba to live for a few months to help with the work that JAFI is doing there. We were welcomed into their synagogue and visited the building that will soon be the local Jewish Community Center. We were then treated to lunch at a local restaurant, complete with a live band and much local singing and dancing which we enthusiastically joined in on. There was a constant flow of vodka and L'Chaims, and by the time we left, hours later, we felt like we had made a town full of new friends.

December 17, 1999 - 5:00 a.m., Airport, Baku, Azerbijian.
Incredible as it seems, our visit to Azerbijian is over and we stand in endless lines in a smoke filled, primitive airport waiting to begin our long trip home. Our last day in Azerbijian was just as incredible as the first two. We visited the lively, beautiful Hesed Gershon Jewish Community Center built and run with the funds we raise and met the local community leaders who have been trained by the JDC to administer the abundance of programs that are run by the Center. We visited the homes of local people who are elderly, ill and housebound and who depend entirely on the help provided by the programs funded by us and run by the JDC. The lovely woman I visited was a physician who had a very successful career, only to see the pension promised to her by the Soviet system disappear. She became ill, suffered a stroke, her husband (also a physician) passed away, and she told us that she was utterly alone in the world, except for us (all of us here in the United States who donate and raise money for our local Federations). She told us in no uncertain terms that she was still alive only because of our contributions, and not just the medical attention and hot meals and warm clothes, but because she is looked after with dignity and respect which enables her to have to will to continue on. I suddenly realized, sitting there in her small, dark, dilapidated apartment, the opportunity that we are given by UJC. How often in our every day lives are we able to save a life? Well, through our donations to UJC we literally do just that. Of all the important facts, figures and lessons I learned in Azerbijian, the immeasurable impact that we have on the lives of countless individuals on a daily basis is the one that truly endures.

Where can your average Shlomo or Esther go to find "community?" (schmooze) Post your thought!

Professionally, Tracy is a founding member and the managing partner of Stewart Occhipinti & Makow, LLP, a commercial litigation law firm located in both New York and New Jersey."