Ulyanovsk does it again!

Yossi and Suri, amazing shluchim of Ulyanovsk, Russia have just finished renovating their shul building.

For more pictures read their blog and comment. You have no idea how much support you give them by just telling them to keep it up.

Their blog is at marozov.blogspot.com

Cultural day in Stavropol

When I was back in Russia, I used to chat on the phone all the time with Yossi Marozov, the incredible (and American) Shliach in Ulyanovsk. I loved our talks, since we bounced ideas off one another very good. He's also a doer, and has accomplished an incredible amount in the 3 years he's been out there.

He dreamed about making a personal calendar for the Jews of Ulyanovsk, with their classes and birthdays listed in there, pictures from the community... something people would proudly display in their homes... He imagined being able to publicly honor donors in the calendar, and not having to go to the back of the calendar to find local Shabbos times.

Well, he accomplished it, and even better and more impressive than I could have thought. Please go visit his blog (linked on the left) and tell him what an awesome job he did and is doing. Check out the calendar, it is spectacular.

This is a page from the calendar. I think it is beautiful. He also has complete pages devoted to: Sunday school, Mommy and me, Mezuza campaign, a chuppah he arranged, youth clubs, his overnight camp, his kosher store, his classes titled 'Judaism in the 21'st century', women's club, and their shul.
I recently received an email from a member of our community with some pictures from a recent Stavropol cultural festival. The community rallied together (avoiding Yefim's people) and put on something beautiful. Here is some public Klezmer...
The Jewish table at the fair. Aaaaaaaah, I miss them all!
A picture of just the kids...
And this is their Rosh Hashana experience, with cameras, and if you look closely on the left of the picture, apparently television too. Looks like they rented somewhere nice. they could use some guidance on what Rosh Hashana is all about.
And leading the services (at least without a mike) is Hillel Davidov with 13 year old Gavriel Zizov. Two people who were my friends and whom I greatly miss.

:(

I love frum Jews

When I was about 10 years old I witnessed something really cute. My brother Benny broke a glass in the kitchen. A couple of minutes later my mother came into the kitchen and saw the mess.

"Who did this?" She shouted.

"Me!" Benny admitted.

My mother, who was in a bad mood, gave Benny a 'frask' as they say in Kitah Gimmel.

Benny started howling and bawling. Between sobs, he squeaked out his complaint. "But... sniff sniff... in the Marvelous Midos Machine... sniff sniff... it says that if you say the truth then your mommy will be PROUD of you!"



What brought this memory to the surface of my brain?

Comment #7 of this article: http://collive.com/show_news.rtx?id=5478

For those of you too lazy to read the entire article, it discusses PETA coming to Crown Heights to protest Kapporos.

This guy launches into a full page tirade. To quote: "An animal must be treated kindly and with respect according to the Torah. The same Torah has told us to use parchment for Tefillin and Mezuzos and meat of animals for Korbonois."

Beautifully written, in my opinion.

But here is how he finishes his comment and I quote:

"Remember that Country Yossi (I think) song:"...I swing a chicken over my head....'cuz I'm a Jew, 'cuz I'm a Jew I do that too...AND I'VE GOT NOTHING TO APOLOGIZE TO YOU!!!!!...."

So Peta get out of town and learn some manners."




My favorite part is how the 'I've got nothing to apologize to you' part is in big letters.

:)

Still a Shliach

Erev Rosh Hashana I had school (and a sample screenplay storyline due).

I debated whether to go or not, and then, my yetzer Hara winning, went.

At the end of the class, a woman sitting behind me leaned over and says, "excuse me, but can I ask you a personal question?"

"Sure."

"I'm Jewish and i know a holiday is coming up. When is it?"

I told her all about Rosh Hashana, and yom kippur for good effect, and she promised to go to Shul. I invited her to a meal, but she'll be at her children...

Another Stavropol connection

This past Shabbos after the meal, we went downstairs to the Samama's to play some board games and let the kids beat each other up.

After the games, we sat on the front porch of our duplex, chatting. We noticed that garbage which had been strewn along our front walk by our mean downstairs neighbor (everyone has one of these) had been picked up nicely and put in a large black bag on the side of the stairs.

Apparently we also have a nice neighbor.

As we discussed this, the Samama's told us that in fact, we did. There was a Jewish woman living across the street on Vezina who is married to an Armenian. She has in past picked up garbage the garbage men missed on Friday.

As we spoke about her, she showed up. In a car. She rolled down the window and started chatting with Zalmy Samama, who invited her and her family for Rosh Hashana.

Listening to her speak, I noticed she had a strong Russian accent. I approached her and asked her in Russian where she's from.

"Yerevan, Armenia. But my native tongue is Russian." was her reply.

"Oh cool. My family lived in Stavropol, Russia for over a year where I served as Rabbi of the province!" I told her in Russian.

Her eyes widened. "Stavropol? I was raised and spent most my life in Pyatigorsk! (2 hours from Stavropol, in the province).

I don't know why I keep meeting these Stavropolian Jews. I invited her also for a Rosh Hashana meal. Maybe we can have a Stavropol ex-pats Rosh Hashana meal in Montreal...

Bar Mitzvah call

yesterday was Sasha Filatov's bar mitzvah. I called him to wish him Mazel Tov and remind him to put on tefillin (there are 2 pairs in Stavropol, once of them thanks to the Tefillin bank of the Shluchim office, who provided them to Igr Lerner after he promised to put them on daily).

Boy were the Filatovs happy to hear our voices. Chayale chatted with his mother, Anya, who is a wonderful woman full of life and character, and a fellow Mom. They spoke for awhile. Chayale told her that we remember her every time we see this Stavropol 'plate' which hangs on our wall that she gave Chayale before she left.

Then I told her to have a meal and eat apples with honey and pray a little on Rosh Hashana. Her husband, by the way, isn't Jewish, but he is a very good man.

Then we asked what they are planning for Rosh Hashana, and she said, 'this year we have no Rabbi to guide us, so we're going to the park and dancing to live music.'

I don't even know what to do about that. That's as far from Rosh Hashana as it gets. But what can I do? it's already been planned and all...

They so need a Rabbi, and I wish someone would move out there.

Finality

I don't have much time, so I'll be brief.

The news:

- Our stuff arrived from Stavropol! Finally! This past Friday the container arrived from stavropol with all our stuff in it. It took two days to organize getting it to our apartment, and another few days to unpack it (still not done). We also had a guy rebuild our furniture quickly, and he was great. So now we are completely out of Stavropol.

The guy who did the shipping job was so professional and reliable, which was very surprising. Sending our stuff to Russia from Montreal was a pain... our stuff took 6 months to arrive and we weren't updated on what was going on at all. We also barely had help and it was mostly an unprofessional job.

But Alexander Aksenov from Rostov was amazing! Not only did our stuff arrive within 3 months, but he also constantly was in contact with us, updating us about our stuff and being very professional.

What a mentsch.

2 - I started school in concordia today. chayale got me a school bag and school supplies, which is a first for me, since in the past my father always gave me some old pens and cheap paper. Or I'd find some notebooks in the basement to use. But this was a schoolbag FULL OF STUFF!

The professor was a Jewish guy, and it's good to be learning for a change. Business administration here I come!

3 - I played ice hockey tonight! Preseason began, and this season I'll be playing full time (once a week for about 30 weeks) in the MJHL (Montreal Jewish Hockey League). I had a better game than last time. No goals or assists, but I was somewhat up to speed, and played sound defence. I blocked 4 shots and stopped 2 shots with my stick that had dribbled through the goalie's legs. In other words, a good defensive game, without even taking a shot on goal. I am exhausted though.

4 - Lots of opportunities have arisen, and we'll see what happens. Hashem closes one door and opens another. One of them involves being a Chazzan for Rosh Hashana and Yom kippur in a local Shul for good pay, another is a good writing job, another is a fantastic shlichus'dik part time job, and lastly - I started tutoring two cute little kids who think I am the greatest since their favorite video is 'Maccabees', a video that honestly embarrasses me in its unprofessionalism.

My beef with it is that it should have been done HASC-video style (and I said this from the beginning when they were filming). Like a 'this is what you missed and you should have been there' sorta film, with lots of shots of audience reactions and participation.

Instead, there are entire scenes without an audience... I could go on and on, but the lesson I learned is to run the films myself. Now i got to keep writing and go to sleep.

Another stamp story

I'm uploading more stamps, and I find this other one, above.

Basically, unbeknown to most, Russia has tons of little 'republics' inside of it. I'm sure most of you heard of Tatarstan and Chechnya, but have you ever heard of Mordovia, Mari El, Ingushetia, Chuvashia, Evenkia, Bashkoristan and many others?

Russia is huge, and there are many nationalities in there.... many republics. In the 1920s (or maybe the 30s), Stalin planned to make a Jewish republic. He set it up in an area of Russia that's beyond Siberia, in a city called Birobidzhan. It's above Mongolia, and there is nothing there except lots of snow.

He sent around 50000 Jews there before he gave up on the plan. Still, early on there was a huge Yiddish theatre and Shul.

Anyway, for some reason they never stopped calling it the 'Yevreiski Avtonomy Okrug' or the 'Jewish Republic' and this is a stamp I found from there. Actually a mini sheet set.

Cool, huh?