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The Power of Imagination

As we look out on the former Soviet Union today, it is hard to imagine that just a century ago this region was home to the vast Russian Empire and the largest Jewish community anywhere.

That world – with its shtetls, centers of Jewish learning and vibrant daily Jewish life – is now long gone.  So are those who destroyed it: the Tsars whose persecution drove our forebears westward; the Nazis who annihilated the trapped millions; the Communists who eradicated the bonds that tied Jew to Jew, and each to their heritage.

From pogrom to perestroika, decades of repression razed a great Jewry.  And after that cruel concatenation of destruction was spent, it was hard to imagine that a Jewish future could emerge from this harsh, barren region.

Yet we did imagine and we did believe.  And as we survey the former Soviet Union today, we see that Jewish future take shape before our eyes – a future that the Jews of the FSU are forming and that we, their fellow Jews, are helping them achieve.

But to see that future materialize, we must prevail over the present, just as we prevailed over the past.

We must help the FSU's Jews overcome the immense suffering of hundreds of thousands of Jewish elderly.

We must help their Jewish renaissance strengthen and grow – so that it can claim those still beyond its grasp and expand the caring and expression their communities provide.

And we must help them fulfill the values of shared responsibility that are the essence of Jewish life and of the self-sufficiency for which they and we so tirelessly strive.

Our imagination gave us the vision of Jewish life reborn in the FSU.  Our commitment will transform that vision into a Jewish future that is now within our reach.

Asher Ostrin

Director

JDC Activities in the

Former Soviet Union