Caring is a Universal Language
By Daniel Goldman
"Head, shoulders, knees and toes -- head, shoulders, knees and toes."
That was one of the Hebrew language drills I had decided run with my group one day at our camp site in Yevpatoria on the Black Sea. What a job - to teach kids whose language I did not understand a language they did not understand. The exaggerated gestures that accompanied my demonstration did the trick, and before long all the kids made the connection between the parts that I was pointing to and the Hebrew words I was teaching. I wondered if I sounded this way when I uttered my first Hebrew words. I wondered how soon these wonderful kids that I had come to care for so much would know the relative comforts of life in Israel. I wondered what their lives would be like without the help that we, in Metrowest, give to help them rebuild their own Jewish community.
We had arrived in Cherkassy at approximately 4:30 A.M. Fatigue didn't interfere with our surprise when we learned that when one checks into a hotel, one does not get a key. Instead, one is given a permission slip which is then given to a guard who is stationed on each floor. This was the woman we called our keymaster, and it was she who would inspect our "credentials" and who opened the door to allow us to enter our rooms.
At 9:00 A.M., we were picked up and taken to the Chesed Center, a home used for gatherings, containing Jewish/Russian newspapers and books as well as equipment for the disabled. Dovid took us to the passport office to revise our visas to allow travel to the Crimea. The giant statue of Lenin in the center of the public square stood as an imposing symbol of the massive extent to which the communist system had effected all of the people we encountered.
From there, we visited the Soup Kitchen. "Kapa, kapa, kapa, kapa," insisted the large-framed woman who appeared to be in charge. She patted her neck and thumped on her chest until we understood that she wanted us to taste her home-made vodka. It became clear that she had no intention of allowing us to leave until we complied. It was at the Soup Kitchen that we first met Tamila, one of the directors of the camp.
Here we were in the Ukraine, having traveled for 18 hours to our campsite from Cherkassy on a train that provided nothing more than raw wooden benches which folded down into beds. That was the only comfort provided for the 190 people who were going to the family camp sponsored by the United Jewish Federation of Metrowest on behalf of the Jewish communities of Cherkassy, Smila and Corcin. Instead of porters clad in neatly starched white uniforms, ours was bare-chested and grumbled a frustrated "nyet" to let us know that the windows in our stifling car were broken and would not open. As the temperature rose relentlessly during our journey, all of us -- Tracy, Ohad, Miri, Yael and I -- wordlessly wondered what he we had gotten ourselves into.
When we got off the train, we were all a little embarrassed at the comparison between the sheer size and volume of our own possessions and the meager amounts of luggage in the possession of the families. Suddenly, we were immersed in a world where we could take nothing for granted there was no hot water, strange food, primitive accommodations, and puzzled looks that confirmed we were strangers. This was a community that we did not understand. We were among Jews who lived their lives only a three hour flight from Tel Aviv, but we felt like we had landed on another planet.
At first, it appeared impossible to break through the language barrier, but step by step we moved forward. Through the use of translators, we began to develop a relationship with the adorable kids and their parents. At the end of our first Shabbat in camp, we searched the garbage for empty water bottles. We filled them with sand and placed them all around the beach. We then placed candles in each of them, and conducted one of the most beautiful Havdalah services ever held. By the next day, we were able to begin playing games with the children on the beach, and each day, the bonds grew stronger. We decorated hats, we sang, we danced, we made a "taboon" for pita bread, and made lanyards. For every "Nye Panimaya" ["I don't understand"] we found ways to communicate that were universal. There were smiles for the camera, games of checkers with the adults, and before very long there were expressions of worry that we weren't eating enough.
We learned about each other's lives.
We became particularly close with one of the parents whose name was Ella. She is an engineer and lives with her husband, daughter, and in-laws in the same room. She was fired from her job as a programmer in 1988 and is now just starting to look for work after spending the last eleven years raising her daughter. Ella told us that the unemployment rate is almost fifty percent in the Ukraine and that the average salary is approximately forty dollars per month. When we inquired if there was any type of government aid to their citizens, Ella laughed, saying in the Ukraine welfare recipients get five Grivna per child -- approximately one dollar and twenty-five cents. At the conclusion of camp we decided to give Ella some of the toys we had brought for the kids. She began to cry as we gave her the toys for her little daughter because she could not give us anything in return.
All of the people we met were individuals, much like ourselves. Parents with dreams for their children. Adults who worry for their aging parents. Children who wonder what the world is like outside of the Ukraine and wonder if they will ever get to see it. What they all seem to share, though, is the struggle to realize their own identities and goals in an environment in which the most basic resources are scarce and where most of one's energy is devoted to obtaining the most basic of life's needs- food, shelter, clothing, education and employment. What we learned was that, together, these families are trying to resurrect the Jewish community that was lost to them so many decades ago. In the process, they hope to enrich their own lives and the lives of their children with rituals, holidays, language, and values that are part of our tradition. They know that this will provide the strongest link between their Jewish community and other Jewish communities around the world.
Nearing the end of our visit, Yalich's mother cried when I gave her son one of my knitted kippot. She said that no one had ever given him something so special. Later, each family wrote a letter to the people of Metrowest. Tamila, one of the directors of the camp, read one letter and began to cry. We didn't comprehend a word she said, but we understood everything that she meant to say. And we created our own farewell messages to the families in Russian, which we managed to convey with great difficulty, to faces which no longer regarded us as strangers.
The last day, we all boarded the train for the 18 hour ride back to Cherkassy. We stood together at that train station, all of us looking for words that would convey our gratitude for the time that we shared together and our sadness in leaving. I hugged the kids I had grown so close to and wondered when we would meet again: the twins, Alex, and Dima, who had jumped around me with delight when I buried myself in the sand on the beach; Denise, who looked so much like ET that he posed for a picture while doing the symbol for "phone home"; Sergei, with whom I had spent so much time discussing the National Basketball Association, and who was wearing the same N.B.A. shirt that he wore every single day of camp; and Bella, the thirteen year old who called me crazy and became one of my closest friends. We promised them all that we would return.
There are times in life when it is necessary to almost "freeze frame" and watch as an audience watches a film. In the middle of a crowded train station in the middle of the Ukraine, a sixteen year old boy named Zhenya was crying on my shoulder while he embraced me. We had no words to exchange and we both struggled to find a way to express ourselves. Suddenly, he stood back and faced me. In perfect Hebrew, he said, "Rosh, Kteifayim, Berkaim, Ezbaot Raglaim" -- "Head, shoulders, knees and toes." That said it all.
For more information on the United Jewish Federation of Metrowest, clickHERE
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