Chabad of the Crimea
Mironova 24
Simferopol, Crimea 333001 Ukraine
Tel/fax: 380–652–240–231
e-mail chabad@cris.crimea.ua
Mironova 24
Simferopol, Crimea 333001 Ukraine
Tel/fax: 380–652–240–231
e-mail chabad@cris.crimea.ua
To my dear friends --
This always seems to happen. The summer and the holidays fly by, so packed with camp and work and projects, and suddenly it’s time that I must sit down and write a letter again, and I can't believe that so much time has flown by since the previous one, and that I haven't written already!
Camp was wonderful! Thank goodness, with a lot of hard work, and by offering a discount for early registration, (off the regular huge price of under $10 per kid per season!) most of the kids were signed up earlier than in previous years. (Usually they have this bad habit of waiting until the last few days to sign up.)
I am going to "cheat" a bit now, and tell you about my first day in camp by quoting from a letter I wrote to someone at that time. (Most days ran in a similar vein.) “It is now midnight, and my name is rubber ball, not Leah. Today was the first day of camp. I have been running back and forth, back and forth, with two drivers, simultaneously taking care of the girls’ and boys’ camps and being the mashgiach in the kitchen. (The kitchen is in the girls’ camp, and we shlep the food over to the boys’ camp, and then bring back all the empty containers.) There is a combined staff of 27 people, who all need me. Two boy translators showed up late, (one in the girls’ camp,) the girls’ tour guide changed her mind about working for us, two girl translators cancelled on us, (one without informing us,) the counselor from Kharkov whom I expected tomorrow is going to Moscow instead, there was no water in the camp kitchen, and the electricity went out twice for two hours each time (and the stoves are electric.) The boys forgot to take money to the pool to pay for swimming, and one of the translators seems to be too shy to translate, but in spite of everything, it was really a great first day! The kids are all happy. (Except for the girl whose shoe broke; though I imagine she’s happy already too. After seeing the broken shoe and her clothing, which looked like it was from my mother’s time, we sent her home with a new pair of shoes and a bag full of clothing.) The cook is happy too, because the kids all ate the food! I have a guest who had been a counselor in another camp who is leaving from my house at 2:00 a.m. (if she shows up on time – she is out playing billiards with her campers.) Two more of our counselors are due in from Israel at
around that time, so there’s one very unhappy driver who is up all night waiting at the airport again (he had to do this last week also.) Wow! I can’t believe that the bochurim are only here a week. I still have to put one more bed in each apartment, find two replacement translators, and try to deal with some people who are really “teaching” me how to be calm and diplomatic. Of course, Itchie is not here – he is in America, trying to raise the funds to pay for all this! Basically, the counselors are all great, and have all put a tremendous amount of work into preparing for camp. In between everything else, I spend time trying to type things into the computer without falling asleep over it, which unfortunately is what I was doing till a few minutes ago.”Besides all the great Jewish things our campers learned, our counselors learned a lot also. I think that after the experience of a summer here, they will always remember to appreciate what they have! For example, eight families on our block share one water line. One of them is the gypsy family that lives across from us. (Most of them are gypsies and Tartars.) They make illegal vodka, and use the water nonstop...which leaves the rest of us without water. I have learned to live with it (unhappily,)* and do laundry on those occasions when there is water. However, when there are ten counselors who also need the washing machine, it's another story -- especially before and after the "nine days,” when everybody needs it at once! For some inexplicable reason, although there is no water in the house at the times the neighbors are making vodka, there is water at the pump in the yard. So the counselors shlepped buckets of water back and forth to fill up the washing machine for each cycle! (In case maybe they were lacking in sufficient exercise.) The boys had a really beautiful apartment right in the middle of the town. It only had one drawback -- the water again -- the only time there was hot water in the apartment was on Shabbos and Sunday, so they had to boil their water in order to bathe -- except Fridays, when they all needed to shower at the same time, so they visited the bathhouse! One of the bochurim had to officiate at a woman's funeral while he was here, only to discover that the woman in charge of the morgue was dead drunk, and therefore the body was not ready -- which made it necessary for the translator to dress the dead woman. And then there was the time that the girl and boy counselors went touring separately in Yalta. They purposely left at separate times, and with different itineraries so as not to meet. The boys’ car broke down, and they ended up being towed all the way back to Simferopol (a good hour and a half) by being pulled behind the girls' van, the vehicles being tied together by a rope!
Now I am going to "cheat" again and quote from another letter which I wrote in the third week of camp:
“ 'Twas the day after Tisha B’Av and ...
1- While doing routine everyday things like escorting my kids to two camps, delivering breakfast to the boys’ camp, and making sure both camps had money for swimming and the park, I had to relieve one of the translators of her duties, since she thought they included smoking with the campers in the bathroom.
2- After too many products were being “used up,” I had to look in the bulging bags of our “trusted” workers who were stealing products. This was especially difficult to understand since after camp is finished, I usually give them most of the leftover unused products anyway. [Note: the cook was subsequently fired and I now have a lovely Jewish cook (poo, poo, poo!) whose daughter is learning in yeshiva.]
3- I had picked up money to make a payment on the (hopefully) new shul, when the bank manager threw some cold water on the idea. He wasn’t sure if all was well and kosher in Denmark; so I had to put the money back into the account (since I was afraid to keep such a sum in the house) and run around the block and up four floors to speak to a lawyer, finishing just before closing time. Tomorrow I need to draw up additional papers with a notary before we make the payment.
4- I came home. There were exhausted teenage boys lying all over the house. They looked like they wanted to be fed.
5- Eli and Yoel were the only guys still up and running, so Eli gave the shiur for me and not-quite-ten-year-old Yoel translated.
6- I gave Daniel (a boy who learns in yeshiva and only eats kosher) his dinner to take home, packed a doggy bag for (local counselor) Yaakov, sent home some leftovers from camp with (camp helper) Mendy, and gave Raya (a lovely woman who is inflicted with Parkinsons’ disease) the siddur she requested so she can read it late at night when she is in too much pain to sleep.
7- I was finally about to serve supper when the phone rang. “Get Leah quick!" came the frantic request. Two of the girl counselors had been alone in the apartment, when they heard a sudden loud pounding on the door. Someone was trying to break down the door. They had already had problems with potential intruders on Shabbos. In record time the bochurim flagged down a car from the street to go help them, and I called the police. The bochurim arrived first, on time to see a very irate neighbor attempting to climb in through the third story window. The neighbors outside were all screaming “nyet, nyet!” and the bochurim thought the girls had been attacked already, and they were too late! They sped up the stairs, but on the way they were nearly abducted into the apartment of the downstairs neighbors. They were “simply” complaining that the girls had let the water from their bathroom leak into theirs via the ceiling, and they had called the police to complain about that and the fact that the girls kept late hours! They wanted to show the bochurim the damage. They were furious that the girls hadn’t opened the door when they knew that they were at home, therefore they had attempted to enter by way of the tree! Then the police arrived – four brawny guys decked out in bulletproof vests with pistols and a submachine gun! Boruch Hashem nobody was hurt! They immediately started demanding passports from the foreigners –and in the rush, one of the boys had forgotten his. Meanwhile I was on the phone with them the entire time. The police were arguing with the counselors, who didn’t understand more than a few words of Russian between them. I asked to speak to the police in order to explain to them what was going on. After almost five minutes, one of them finally agreed to take the phone. I started explaining, but he wasn’t in a mood to listen, and started shouting at me instead, his words bursting forth as if from his machine gun. I asked him to please speak a little slower so I could understand, so he said (in Russian) “I – will – speak – slowly – okay?” Then he continued in the same rapid-fire manner as before, which the bochurim thought was hysterical, so they started to laugh, which didn’t make the policemen very happy campers! Over the phone I could hear the neighbors complaining, the baby from downstairs wailing, the girls demanding that everyone get out of their apartment, the police demanding passports and an explanation, and the bochurim trying in their limited Russian to explain things. I put the counselors on hold while I called Shoshana, one of our translators. By a miracle (I had been trying unsuccessfully to reach her for the last few hours regarding another matter,) I reached her on the first attempt, and she was able to straighten things out somewhat with the police, and get the apartment emptied out of all extraneous people. The neighbors are still demanding that if we don’t pay their estimation of the damages by ten o’clock tonight they will call the police again. And the police say that if there is one more call about our apartment they will have us evicted and they will take the landlady to the tax police. Apparently she is behind in paying them their few grivni.
8- Our group of local Jewish teenagers showed up again, but after a rundown of what they’d missed, (but don’t worry, you’ll be there next time something exiting happens…) they were off.
9- I finally served the by-then-cold-supper to the bochurim and my kids.
10- The bochurim left, I went out to the office to work, and waited till the girls were semi-finished with their laundry, at which point they took pity on me and left “early” – since by then I could no longer keep my eyes open.
11- G-d willing today will be better. Amen!
Of course the next day was better -- it almost had to be, right?”
2- After too many products were being “used up,” I had to look in the bulging bags of our “trusted” workers who were stealing products. This was especially difficult to understand since after camp is finished, I usually give them most of the leftover unused products anyway. [Note: the cook was subsequently fired and I now have a lovely Jewish cook (poo, poo, poo!) whose daughter is learning in yeshiva.]
3- I had picked up money to make a payment on the (hopefully) new shul, when the bank manager threw some cold water on the idea. He wasn’t sure if all was well and kosher in Denmark; so I had to put the money back into the account (since I was afraid to keep such a sum in the house) and run around the block and up four floors to speak to a lawyer, finishing just before closing time. Tomorrow I need to draw up additional papers with a notary before we make the payment.
4- I came home. There were exhausted teenage boys lying all over the house. They looked like they wanted to be fed.
5- Eli and Yoel were the only guys still up and running, so Eli gave the shiur for me and not-quite-ten-year-old Yoel translated.
6- I gave Daniel (a boy who learns in yeshiva and only eats kosher) his dinner to take home, packed a doggy bag for (local counselor) Yaakov, sent home some leftovers from camp with (camp helper) Mendy, and gave Raya (a lovely woman who is inflicted with Parkinsons’ disease) the siddur she requested so she can read it late at night when she is in too much pain to sleep.
7- I was finally about to serve supper when the phone rang. “Get Leah quick!" came the frantic request. Two of the girl counselors had been alone in the apartment, when they heard a sudden loud pounding on the door. Someone was trying to break down the door. They had already had problems with potential intruders on Shabbos. In record time the bochurim flagged down a car from the street to go help them, and I called the police. The bochurim arrived first, on time to see a very irate neighbor attempting to climb in through the third story window. The neighbors outside were all screaming “nyet, nyet!” and the bochurim thought the girls had been attacked already, and they were too late! They sped up the stairs, but on the way they were nearly abducted into the apartment of the downstairs neighbors. They were “simply” complaining that the girls had let the water from their bathroom leak into theirs via the ceiling, and they had called the police to complain about that and the fact that the girls kept late hours! They wanted to show the bochurim the damage. They were furious that the girls hadn’t opened the door when they knew that they were at home, therefore they had attempted to enter by way of the tree! Then the police arrived – four brawny guys decked out in bulletproof vests with pistols and a submachine gun! Boruch Hashem nobody was hurt! They immediately started demanding passports from the foreigners –and in the rush, one of the boys had forgotten his. Meanwhile I was on the phone with them the entire time. The police were arguing with the counselors, who didn’t understand more than a few words of Russian between them. I asked to speak to the police in order to explain to them what was going on. After almost five minutes, one of them finally agreed to take the phone. I started explaining, but he wasn’t in a mood to listen, and started shouting at me instead, his words bursting forth as if from his machine gun. I asked him to please speak a little slower so I could understand, so he said (in Russian) “I – will – speak – slowly – okay?” Then he continued in the same rapid-fire manner as before, which the bochurim thought was hysterical, so they started to laugh, which didn’t make the policemen very happy campers! Over the phone I could hear the neighbors complaining, the baby from downstairs wailing, the girls demanding that everyone get out of their apartment, the police demanding passports and an explanation, and the bochurim trying in their limited Russian to explain things. I put the counselors on hold while I called Shoshana, one of our translators. By a miracle (I had been trying unsuccessfully to reach her for the last few hours regarding another matter,) I reached her on the first attempt, and she was able to straighten things out somewhat with the police, and get the apartment emptied out of all extraneous people. The neighbors are still demanding that if we don’t pay their estimation of the damages by ten o’clock tonight they will call the police again. And the police say that if there is one more call about our apartment they will have us evicted and they will take the landlady to the tax police. Apparently she is behind in paying them their few grivni.
8- Our group of local Jewish teenagers showed up again, but after a rundown of what they’d missed, (but don’t worry, you’ll be there next time something exiting happens…) they were off.
9- I finally served the by-then-cold-supper to the bochurim and my kids.
10- The bochurim left, I went out to the office to work, and waited till the girls were semi-finished with their laundry, at which point they took pity on me and left “early” – since by then I could no longer keep my eyes open.
11- G-d willing today will be better. Amen!
Of course the next day was better -- it almost had to be, right?”
At the end of camp the campers each told what she remembered or liked the most. One said that she'd been in other Jewish camps before, but none of them compared to ours. Others told about the mitzvos they learned about in camp and were trying to keep at home. One girl, Esther, said she'd never be able to forget the Shabbos when she'd met her counselor in the street. The counselor had wished her "a guten Shabbos," and asked her where she was going. She replied that she was going to a wedding -- she didn't know the people who were getting married, but her mother had told her to go there to collect the coins that are traditionally thrown here at weddings. Her counselor reminded her that it was Shabbos, but she asked how could she disobey her mother? The counselor told her that keeping Shabbos is the right thing to do, and that if she would go home and keep Shabbos, she'd give her 5 grivni afterwards (which would make her mother happy as well.) So Esther went home and kept Shabbos and made 5 grivni on the deal!
The counselors did so many nice extra things for their campers. One thing that really impressed me was the following -- a counselor was concerned that her campers should be able to listen to Jewish music, so she spent several days running around town to find blank cassettes. Then she stayed up all night making a special 90 minute tape of Jewish music for each of her campers, in spite of the fact that she had already gone several nights without sleep!
Now, an excerpt from one last letter from the week following camp: “Today we made five brisim. Three boys were from the camp, and the other two were brothers -- "Gorskii Yevrei" ("Mountain Jews" or "Tati.") You learn something new everyday! They look like Sephardim. All five want to go to yeshiva, and also several of the girls from camp. The girls ended the season with a Shabbaton, and their singing was so beautiful it could move you to tears! Do you know the song "The Little Bird Is Calling"? The girls translated it into Russian and sang it. It was so beautiful! After Shabbos they couldn't stop crying for the next two hours, they were so upset that camp was over and their counselors were leaving. The kids and parents all said it was the best camp ever -- they've never seen another camp as good, and they’d been to Sochnut, YUSSR, Beitar, etc. They said that every year that their kids come to us their eyes get bigger and their smiles wider. One mother, whose daughter we are sending to yeshiva in England said "Thank you for removing my daughter from the gray dreariness that is our existence -- at least one person in our family will be able to be a real Jew." Another, who couldn't afford to pay for camp, because she is unemployed, and they literally live on bread and water, came over to me, practically falling over herself to thank me and offering to do anything she could to help. A teenager from another city, who dropped in on us several times, and joined the teenagers some evenings, said "her" camp (YUSSR) wasn't anything like this, she never saw anything like it, and can she please be a translator for us next time. Anyway, Boruch Hashem it was a very satisfying camp season, but we must proceed from here! Some of the counselors are going on to make programs in other cities in the Crimea this week, and they say that they very much want to make a winter camp! I desperately need to find some girls or bochurim who will come here on a year-round basis and make programs for these kids.”
* * * * * * *
Immediately after camp, we closed on our new building, which after extensive restoration will, G-d willing, become the Synagogue and Jewish Center of Simferopol.
I will just add a little more now, about the holidays. Eli is a bochur who spent Purim and Pesach here, and then came back to work in camp. Before camp he wrote to the Rebbe about activities in Simferopol. He put the letter randomly into a page of the Igros Kodesh, upon which was written the following answer. "Since the new shul most likely will not be ready by Tishrei, a place should be rented nearby, since the place where people daven for the yomim tovim is where they will daven all year." While the theater we'd been renting till then is in the general vicinity of the new building, it was an absolute icebox in the winter, and we'd have to look for another place anyway. After searching for several weeks and coming up against a blank wall, we were amazed to find a cooking school with an auditorium right down the block from the new building, and rented it for the yomim tovim. The first night of Rosh Hashana there were over 200 people -- standing room only, Boruch Hashem. And guess what? The old men from the old synagogue, who hadn't come for two years, all showed up! The rest of the time, there were less people, since yomtov fell out on working days this year, but there was very nice turnout. Over sixty people walked home with us and ate here the first night! (We had to put up additional tables in the corridor,) and we had full house for all the other meals as well. Three bochurim from Morristown came to help us for the holidays, and two of them went to Yevpatoria where there were 50 people attending services, and where it was also very nice.
Aside from the one in Yevpatoria, we built two sukkahs here in Simferopol – one at the house, and one on the new property. The first night, the guard there didn’t show up, so by the morning the fabric of the walls was all gone of course. Then the guards misunderstood and thought they should leave, so by the afternoon the wooden frame was also gone! Itchie arranged to meet the guards at the new property at 5:00. A neighbor, reeking of vodka, stumbled over and told him the following: "Raaaaabbi, you should have been here – at exactly 4:00 this huuuuge wind just came along and blew down the hut. Then it blew all the wood [minus the light schach from the roof of course] right into the Salghir River, and it all floated downstream! It was such an amazing sight!” Of course we had to rebuild the sukkah the next day, and we were able to celebrate there with a very nice Simchas Bais Hashoeva. About 75 people came, and enjoyed the Israeli style food and live band. The bochurim made a second party for teens in the sukkah the following night. Meanwhile the entire town heard us (being that the band was playing outside with amplifiers,) and heard about the great celebration. As a result, some local women from another organization asked me to speak at the inaugural meeting of their ladies’ club. Simchas Torah was even greater than usual, and not only were the regulars and the "golden oldies" there, but a whole crew from the Joint crowd came also and everyone had a blast.
Immediately after the holidays, the old men from the old shul approached us, saying that they want to make peace with us. Their leader has finally officially resigned**, they are publicly (in two newspapers) apologizing for their untrue statement that “Moshe Rabbeinu was married to a shiksa and therefore, why should we have to marry Jews.” They are disbanding their board**, and joining together with us to form one strong unified Jewish community. Just like the Rebbe’s answer, that “the place where people daven for the yomim tovim is where they will daven all year!”
Hopefully we will have lots more good news to share with you all in the near future! Till then, I will sign off -- hope to see you all soon in Yerushalayim!
Love,
Leah Lipszyc & Company
*In 2005, the water situation finally got so bad, that we put in an electric pump to increase our supply. Of course it has to be turned off on Shabbos, when we need it the most, but at least most of the week we have water.
**Unfortunately several years later, we found out that this was a farce, and he secretly kept up his own “religious” organization.
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