Home > News

04.03.2010  Klezmer band that is both saving old traditions in its music
March, 3 a press conference of the musical band “Nayekhovichi” with the organizers of its concert — the JDC, the Jewish Student Organization “Beit Hillel” and the concert agency Bopromo was held. The concert of the group which took place in the Minsk night club “Reactor” gave a start to their European tour.

19.02.2010  New Season for Young Leaders
The “Youth Leadership” project opened a new season of work (the project is supported by the Ginsburg Family, USA). Project participants invited their friends to celebrate successful work of the program since 2003 and some new initiatives of 2009.

18.02.2010  «Holocaust. 65 Years Later»
Photo exhibition «Holocaust. 65 Years Later» organized by the public association «Jewish Culture Center «Mishpoha» (directed by Arcady Shulman) and the Vitebsk Regional Local History Museum opened in Vitebsk under the financial support of the Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance, and Research.

15.02.2010  Books of Belarus
Year by year the Minsk book exhibition attracts more and more visitors and participants. This time 619 representatives from 26 countries have displayed their stands. This year France has become a guest of honor of the 17th International Minsk Book Exhibition “Books of Belarus 2010”. In 2008 this honorary mission fell to Israel’s lot.

10.02.2010  Exhibition in Borisov
The 2nd Republican Children Artwork Exhibition «Holocaust. History and the Present. Lessons of Tolerance» was open in Borisov central regional library named after Kolodeev. The exhibition is a joint event organized by the Union of Belarusian Jewish Organizations and Communities and the Holocaust Republican Organization and timed to the 65th Anniversary since the Minsk ghetto was closed down.

08.02.2010  Mogilev Jewish Scenes
An exhibition “Mogilev: Jewish Scenes 2010” was open on February, 1. There were displayed 80 pictures of the 130 photos that had been presented during the second photography contest organized by Mogilev Jewish community.

02.02.2010  UNESCO Table of Talks
Table of talks “Development of Programs on Informal Education in Youth Summer Camps” was held in Minsk on the initiative of the “Belarus Federation of UNESCO Clubs”. Minsk Hillel is a recognized authority in the sphere of informal education in Belarus. That’s why representatives of the organization were invited to the meeting.

01.02.2010  The Holiday of Book, or The Jewish Book Community Festival through the Eyes of Children
The Jewish Book Community Festival took place in Minsk for the 11th time already. It became a tradition to dedicate the last day of the festival to children; that makes perfect sence as we all grew up reading books by wonderful writers for kids: Barto, Marshak, Kvitko and others. The children theatre studio directed by Elena Chugaevskaya sang “Creation of the World” and thus opened the Festival. The Volunteer Family Theatre “Mishpoha” staged its new play, choreographic ensemble “Neposedy” and vocal studio also performed. There have recently been published many children books of high quality with amazing illustrations. To make sure, visit library of the Jewish Community Center “Emunah”. At the Book Festival a presentation

28.01.2010  Promise to Preserve Memory about Holocaust
On January, 27 International Holocaust Remembrance Day was held in the Republican Veterans’ Palace of Culture in Minsk. As during many years already, the UN Office in the Republic of Belarus and the Holocaust Republican Organization initiated the event.

26.01.2010  The 11th Jewish Book Community Festival
On January, 24 more than 150 people visited the 11th Jewish Book Community Festival that took place in the Minsk Jewish Campus. Book exhibition has always been an essential part of all the Jewish book festivals. More than 50 new books published in Belarus were presented by the Jewish Community Center “Emunah” to the audience.

18.01.2010  Professionalism Is the Basis of Jewish Education
The first seminar "Jewish Education 2010" was held in Jewish communities of Belarus with the help of JDC and the Pincus Fund. The two-year project is supported by the grant of Pincus Fund and the Norwegian Fund. It will help to promote education in Jewish communities of Brest, Bobruisk, Grodno, Orsha, Mogilev, Mozyr, Borisov and Lida. Within the framework of the project weekly lessons on Jewish history, traditions and culture will be organized both for children and adults.

14.01.2010  Learning Via Traveling
The Jewish Family Outreach Service has organized an excursion to Jewish places of Belarus for its most active volunteers. Most of them are clients of the JFOS. The first destination was Volozhin town. Jews have been first mentioned in the history of Volozhin in the middle of the 14th century.

11.01.2010  Debut of Mogilev Photographers
The participants of Mogilev Photostudio took part in the exhibition of Hanukkah candleholders, arranged by the Israeli Cultural Center under the Embassy of the State of Israel in the Republic of Belarus. Besides photos, there were shown Hanukkah candleholders created by craftsmen from Israel.

10.01.2010  Knowledge Is Always Useful
The family theatre “Mishpoha” has already existed for 6 years and all this time actors have been doing everything for the performances by themselves: sewing costumes, making stage scenery, composing music and writing scripts. Everything has been on voluntary basis.

06.01.2010  Kids Wait For Them and Trust Them
A charity event “Helping Hand to Children” was organized by the youth board of the Jewish Community Center “Emunah”. Around 100 people took part in it. Young leaders invited their old friends – musicians from the popular Belarusian piper band «Rog Izobiliya» what means cornucopia. All the event organizers put on house slippers to show the desire of each kid to have his or her own family and home where he or she will wear house slippers.

05.01.2010  Hanukkosha Invites Friends
It’s a common tradition to give children presents on Hanukkah night after candles are lit. Kids get sweets, small toys and even some money («Hanukkah gelt») and then give it to charity (tzedakah). This year the Jewish Family Outreach Service supported by the AJJDC organized special Hanukkah events for families-at-risk who are JFOS clients. Even a performance with Hanukkosha as a main character was shown to children.

04.01.2010  The Time of Hanukkah in Jewish Communities of Belarus
Hanukkah festive events were held in all the Jewish communities of Belarus. They were very different and could fit any taste or age. According to the script of the evening Hanukkah festival in Gomel gathered guest-stars from Israel, Birobidzhan, Odessa, the USA and China.

29.12.2009  Young and Old Alike Love Hanukkah
For young people participation in Hanukkah events is the possibility to exert themselves. For people of golden age such participation is a real feeling of personal victory and pride for being a Jew. They witnessed a lot in their lives: both the time of national oblivion and the time of Jewry revival.

28.12.2009  From Generation To Generation
Hanukkah symbolizes spirit of Jewish nation. All the 8 days of the holiday we honor the memory of heroes who stood up for their religion, Commandments and traditions. And it’s great that young generation has an ability to learn from such an example of fortitude and identify two-thousand-year-long history with the history of their granddads’ heroism.

23.12.2009  New Traditions of Hanukkah
December, 13 Gala concert of the VI Jewish Community Festival «Hanukkah – 2009» took place in one of the most beautiful places in the very heart of Minsk – in the Trade Union Palace. Talented Jewish musicians and singers from all over Belarus and guests of the festival participated in it: «Malanka Orchestra», chamber choir «Salutaris», «Country Jazz», Andrey Labchevskiy, ensembles «Diligence» and «D’arti». White, black and blue are the three colors meaning a lot to Jewish people. White is the color of Shabbat challah cover, Shabbat candles, matza, Jewish prayer shawl (tallit). The moment Jews hear a prohibition on reciting a blessing over challah and, thus, on observing the Torah Commandments – white is replaced by the black color…

02.12.2009  A New book on Holocaust
A book «Executioners Witness. Jewish Massacre on the Territory of Occupied Belarus in 1941 – 1944. Documents and Materials» has been recently published. Authors: Adamushko, V.I.; Gerasimova I.P.; Selemenev V.D.; editor Novikov, S.E. — Minsk: NARB; 2009 – 216 p. The book consists of two sections: 1. Documents and materials of the National Archives of the Republic of Belarus on Nazi occupants’ crimes against Jewish people perpetrated on the territory of Belarus in 1941 – 1944. 2. Appendix.

23.11.2009  «Shabbathon of Time»
A two-day-long Shabbathon for madrichim participating in the project “Youth Leadership” of the Jewish Community Center “Emunah” was held in a picturesque place of the recreation center “Alesya”. Both young leaders who have great volunteer experience in different projects and studios of the Community and guys recruited into the “School for Young Leaders” in 2008-2009 took part in it.

20.11.2009  If Not We Than Who? To Be Continued…
The Jewish Community Center “Emunah” continues to hold charity actions “Warmth to Children” within the framework of the “Youth Leadership” program. The program is supported by the Ginsburg Family, USA. Young leaders have already visited the Borisov orphanage. In November they visited an orphanage for children with special needs In Ivenets. Neither epidemic that was in full swing, nor the severity of orphans’ diseases stopped the youth from doing it.

09.11.2009  New Achievements of Hesed
Welfare Jewish Fund “Hesed-Rakhamim” pays great attention to partner networking. Due to this policy a joint project organized by Minsk Hesed and the “Religious Mission «Welfare Catholic Community Karitas » of Minsk and Mogilev Archiepiscopate” was launched in October. The project is aimed at providing rest and social rehabilitation for the “Rainbow” program participants.

06.11.2009  Hillel Show Tour
Hillel Show Tour 2009 that took place on October 26-31, 2009 in Belarus is a unique project. During five years of project's existence “Show Tour” teams of best performers and studios from Hillel CASE region made their way across the cities and communities in all parts of Ukraine bringing Jewish art and performance to hundreds and hundreds community members of all ages. Now finally we were honored to meet Belarus community members presenting them this year’s program of the best dance, vocal and musical performances by “Expressiya” vocal group from Kharkov, Simferopol dance studio “Signon sheli”, Yulia Pankeeva from Sevastopol, “Step by Step” dance duet from Kishinev and Alexander Zmachinsky from Minsk.

04.11.2009  Our Home is Beiteinu
Shabbathon «Our Home is Beiteinu» for the families bringing up children with special needs was organized in late October in a picturesque place of the recreation center “Alesya”. Forty people from Minsk, Gomel, Mogilev, Bobruisk, Derzhinsk and Dokshitsa took part in it. Organizers of the Shabbathon from the Jewish Family Outreach Service came beforehand to make final preparations and create a special atmosphere of Jewish home: they decorated the hall, made small souvenirs, etc.

04.11.2009  New Generation of Grannies
Marina Movzon, the soloist of the «Gil Zagav» dance-group and a volunteer of the Museum of Jewish History and Culture has been awarded with a title of «Supergranny-2009» in the «Grannies! Go Ahead!» contest. The event was organized by the «Hesed-Rakhamim» Welfare Jewish Fund and the Outreach Center of Partisan district in Minsk.

02.11.2009  Always in Memory. Never Again in Reality: “History of the Jewish places in Belarus”
On October 22, 2009 a trip “History of the Jewish places in Belarus” was launched within the framework of the project “Social and Psychological Help to Victims of the Shoah. Always in Memory. Never Again in Reality”. The project participants started their acquaintance with the centuries-old history of living Jews in Belarus from a visit to a small town of Zaslavl. Natalia Metelskaya, a guide, began the excursion straight on bus and supplemented the story with interesting photos and pictures. In Zaslavl the group stopped at the old citadels and places where Jews used to live. The excursion was concluded by visiting the museum ethnographical complex “Mlyn” (“a mill”). It used to be a mill, a smithy, an inn, formerly belonged to a local Jew.

29.10.2009  In the Memory of War Heroes
On October, 26 1941 Masha Bruskina who was 17 years old and her underground comrades Kirill Trus and Volodya Scherbacevich were hung at the gates of a yeast plant in Minsk. It was the first public execution of partisans in the German-occupied USSR during the Second World War. The picture made by a hangman showing the horrible scene was printed in numerous books about WWII and on history, it served as an evidence during Nurnberg process (1946) and was included into material for the movie “Ordinary Fascism” by Mikhail Romm. The photo is even exposed at the Museum of Jewish History and Culture.

27.10.2009  Day of Jewish Knowledge — Hevruta is the Best Choice!
The «Hevruta 2009: the Day of Jewish Knowledge» was held at Minsk Jewish Campus on October, 18. It is one of the most important and, surely, the most intellectual and entertaining educational event in Belarus. Feedbacks of those who visited MJC prove it. Around 500 people of different ages, interests and world views united by the wish to learn something new and to share knowledge participated in “Hevruta-2009”.

21.10.2009  Clubs of Communities or Communities of Clubs? Let us work together!
A meeting with Belarusian Hesed club heads and coordinators of community programs took place in October. It was initiated by Yoni Leifer, the Resident Representative of the AJJDC in the Republic of Belarus; Elena Kossovskaya, the Director of the Local Welfare Fund “Joint”; Dr. Asi Kaniel and Dr. Stanley Abramovich from JDC Israel; Irina Fridman, a JDC Belarus coordinator and Alexander Lyampert, the director of the Training Institute for Welfare and Community Workers.

12.10.2009  Seeking for Studies. The Ginsburgs Scholarship Starts New Season
This year the Ginsburg Family Scholarship was awarded to 13 students in learning for their first higher education. On the 31t of September Minsk Jewish Campus welcomed the 13 winners on a festive ceremony to be presented with the certificates of the Ginsburg Family Scholarship.

08.10.2009  «Thia» Studio Present Famous People' Works
Each Wednesday «Thia» Studia opens doors of Minsk Jewish Campus to let out diversified and rich world of Jewish and Belarusian culture. More than 150 of its participants headed by only one woman in charge — Liudmila Dorofeeva, together generate a professional, fascinating and worth being proud of brain-storming team.

29.09.2009  «If Not We than Who? »
A trip to the Borisov orphanage was organized on September, 23 2009 within the framework of the project “Youth Leadership” (the project is supported by the Ginsburg Family, USA). Plans to organize this special event were announced a month prior. Many people were ready to give a helping hand to those children who were left with no parents and were brought up in orphanages. Besides clothes, toys, stationery they donated lots of things: diapers, wipes and other necessary things for small kids

24.09.2009  Famous guests
On 12–16 September, following an invitation of the Union of Religious Jewish Congregations in the Republic of Belarus, a Nobel Prize winner Stanley B. Prusiner (San Francisco, CA), visited our country. On September 15, 2009 he visited the Museum of Jewish History and Culture. During a couple of hours he was watching the exposition, then discussed some mutual projects with the Museum and left a record in the Visitor's Book:

15.09.2009  Months of Our Hopes
Every time during High Holidays Minsk Jewish Campus looks somewhat special and home-like. Children’s babble, cheerful laughter of youth, serious talks of wise adults, Jewish music inimitable in its beauty – lots of sounds are heard in the court which is festively decorated. One could not stay indifferent to life size puppets crowded by kids, Jewish craftsmen street, stalls dedicated to the Jewish holidays of Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot and Simhat Torah. But the most important thing is that the whole families consisting of several generations come to celebrate the High Holidays.

15.09.2009  Bike-quest «Back to Future».
There have been many projects implemented by Minsk Jewish Student Organization Hillel during this summer. The projects were all different and different people took part in them. They have even been implemented in different countries, but… But there has been one element that united all the projects; this is a usual wheel: a wheel of a bus or a car, a wheel of a bike and a wheel of a barrow for waste removal, a wheel of a train or undercarriage.

04.09.2009  Expedition to Jewish places of Belarus
All Jewish communities across Belarus have projects one can only be proud of. Though, there are plenty of them in Minsk, but there is one project singled out as the most unique. It has been existing for 5 years already. More than 200 young people from Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine have participated in it. The project is called “Student Expedition to Jewish places of Belarus”.

07.08.2009  “Always in Memory. Never Again in Reality”
From year to year the number of witnesses of the Holocaust is decreasing. Every meeting with people who went through this terrible tragedy is unique and inimitable in emotions. The project “Always in Memory. Never Again in Reality” contributed to establishing contacts between senior people who survived the Holocaust, people who saved Jews during the WWII and young generation with no connection to the Jewish community.

03.08.2009  Steps Towards Social Integration
It’s been the fourth summer in a row that educatees of “Rainbow” Program for people with special psycho and neurological needs feel the excitement of the baggage packing and the coming trip. For some of them it was a fond hope, but thanks to assistance of so many unindifferent people, the “Rainbow” participants travel to Tarasovo.

31.07.2009  Children Camp in the City
In July the Jewish Community Center “Emunah” and the Jewish Family Outreach Service organized a daycare camp “Shemesh” in the Minsk Jewish Campus. The camp united twenty children in age range from 7 to 14 years old. For children from families at risk this is the only possibility to spend a good summer.

30.07.2009  Words Uniting All Generation
Four memorials to Holocaust victims were open in July on the territory of Belarus: in the villages Medvedichi and Ostrov (Brest region), Daraganovo (Mogilev region) and Baranovichi city. All the memorials are built on the initiative of the Committee for the Preservation of the Victims of Holocaust in the Republic of Belarus.

29.07.2009  It is still great pain that is read in eyes of those who survived
Four memorials to Holocaust victims were open in July on the territory of Belarus: in the villages Medvedichi and Ostrov (Brest region), Daraganovo (Mogilev region) and Baranovichi city. All the memorials are built on the initiative of the Committee for the Preservation of the Victims of Holocaust in the Republic of Belarus. The Committee was initiated by the heads of the biggest Jewish communities and organizations of Belarus and supported financially by the Simon Mark Lazarus Foundation (Great Britain), Miles and Merelin Kletter Family Fund (USA) and Warren and Beverly Geisler Family Fund (USA). Local authorities helped a lot in territory improvement.

27.07.2009  Daycare camp “Shemesh”
In July the Jewish Community Center “Emunah” and the Jewish Family Outreach Service organized a daycare camp “Shemesh” in the Minsk Jewish Campus. The camp united children of 7-14 years old. For children from ‘families-at-risk’ this is the only possibility to have a good summer rest.

21.07.2009  New Prospects in Training Young Leaders
Teams of young leaders of the JCC “Emunah” visited Vitebsk and Orsha within the framework of the Project “Youth Leadership”. There was organized a workshop for young people who are involved into Jewish life of the city in the Vitebsk Jewish Campus. Guys from Vitebsk listened very attentively to the experienced young leaders from Minsk, asked questions, proposed different ideas for mutual education and development, as for example, making common seminars both in Minsk and Vitebsk

16.07.2009  Pilot Project “Children's Initiative”
The seminar “Third Stage of the CIS Pilot Project “Children’s Initiative” was organized in Minsk. 21 people from the CIS Jewish communities and 5 people from the Minsk Jewish Family Outreach Service participated in it. Ester Kats, Larisa Korol and Anna Shtrom, representatives of the Jerusalem Office of AJJDC were conducting the seminar. Executing staff of AJJDC in Jerusalem Alit Epshtein and Arie Haviv also visited the activity. Institute of Social and Community Workers hosted the seminar.

14.07.2009  Recallecting Scary Pages in History…
In July, 21-24 in Brest there was IX International conference for schoolchildren “Holocaust: Memory And Warning” arranged by Russian Center and Fund “Holocaust”, PC “Republican Fund Holocaust” (Belarus), “Holocaust” Brest center (Belarus) and Ukrainian Center of Holocaust studies. The conference took place with the help of the Brest regional executive committee, Euro-Asian Jewish congress, Brest city library and hotel “Belarus”.

10.07.2009  Extraordinary METRO
“Metro” seems to be an ordinary word; though everyone has his own associations but all will agree that it’s a specific world. Jewish Cultural Center Emunah only strengthened the meaning. This year they had organized summer family camp named “METRO”; decrypted as “Minsk Eager-Jewry Travels to Revive On…” meant the camp will be interesting, unordinary and seizing into the Jewish special world.

01.07.2009  “The Way Kolyshki Occurred to Exist”
On June 29th Arkady Shulman presented his new book “The Way Kolyshki Occurred to Exist” in Vitebsk Jewish Campus. The book narrates 400 years history of the Kolyshki shtetl. The legend says the shtetl was originally founded by the Jews in Liozno district of Vibesk region.

26.06.2009  Up On the Jewish Frequency
The Jewish people all over the world are proud of their traditions and keep hard to follow them. In period from 15 to 24 June, 2009 there was a traditional (ninth already) JDC summer family camp for the members of Belarusian Jewish Community. The camp was worked out and organized by Youth Student Club “Hillel”.

17.06.2009  “Jewish Education 2009”
Thanks to support of the American Jewish Joint Committee and Mr. Stanley Abramovich Project “Jewish Education 2009” was started in the following Belarusian cities: Mozyr, Brest, Borisov, Lida, Orsha and Grodno. It is about teaching Jewish History, Traditions and Culture by children and adults; except for the classes with teachers, the project participants will visit summer day education camps.

15.06.2009  Creative Camp
This year fifty two children were invited to participate in the Children’s Creative Camp organized by JCC Emunah. It became the brightest moment of the summer 2009 for them. A great number of children wanted to get to the camp, and the organizers faced a difficult choice making a selection. The preference was given to the active participants of the creative studios of JCC Emunah and JCCs of Bobruisk, Borisov, Vitebsk, Gomel, Lida, Mogilev, as well as to the laureates of the festival “Galaxy of Talents”. Besides, five children with special needs invited by the Jewish Family Outreach Service took part in the camp, where they created and had rest together with their peers.

12.06.2009  Family is Based on our Attitude to it
Every year Jewish Family Outreach Service initiates regular meetings under aegis “Days of Psychology”. This time Minsk Jewish Campus welcomed psychologists, teachers and social sector employees to have a deeper look at “Social and Psychological Aspects of a Family”. More than 60 professionals working for various State and Non-government organizations of Minsk and case-workers and curators of Borisov, Vitebsk, Polotsk, Bobruisk and Gomel Hasadim were enrolled into the activity.

10.06.2009  Precious Time
Once upon a time four bad wizards decided to get their youth back. It turned out to be a piece of cake, as they had to find several lazybones and to use their spent in vain time – this is how it works in a “Fairytale About the Lost Time” by Evgeny Shvarts. A man that spends his time uselessly gets old notelessly, and this idea is completely supported by participants of Day Care Center of Public Charitable Jewish Organization “Hesed-Rakhamim”.

09.06.2009  Emuna's Got Talent
On May 31t Minsk Jewish Campus hosted final annual performance “Friends Forever” of Jewish Cultural Center Emuna’s creative teams. On a summer Sunday there was no room at all in the hall of Minsk Jewish Campus! Those spectators who didn’t manage to get a seat had to stay among close rows; despite the strict definition of “final” and “annual” everyone knew that the performance of the creative children teams are always bright, joyous and rememberable.

08.06.2009  Though Unbethought but Not Lost
“Reizele” and “Kohavim” studios of Jewish Cultural Society Emunah exhibited in one of the Minsk children libraries and aroused high interest. “Reizele” studio represented works of Jewish children on disaster at Chernobyl Nuclear Power Station in 1986.

05.06.2009  Mazal Tov! Summer 2009 Has Started!
Summer has finally started. For every child that means rest, camps, travelling, nature, communication with peers and many other indescribably exciting events and the time spent with parents. This year the 34 youngest educatees of “Mazl Tov” Program in Jewish Cultural Center “Emunah” from 1 to 5 years old set up the summer camp season. In period from May 24 to 31 a field camp was organized for Jewish children and their parents

04.06.2009  The Uplift
Shavuot or the Festival of Weeks celebrates the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai and starts in 49 days or in seven weeks after Pesah. This 2009 year the Belarusian Jewish Community gladly celebrated it at the sunset of May 28th and one more time recalled the Miracle that happened many years ago.

03.06.2009  Protecting a Child
June, 1 is the Children’s Day. What does it mean “to protect a child”? For the Jewish Family Outreach Service (JFOS) one of the answers to this question is to create such living conditions for children, when their parents understand and love them, when eyes of children light joy and happiness.

02.06.2009  Outgiving Haircut
“Free Haircut” campaign was organized for the third time already, it means the action became traditional. It became possible thanks to the volunteers – both clients and friends of the Jewish Family Outreach Service.

01.06.2009  “Jewish Communities Social Services”
Fifteenth anniversary of Hesed-Rakhamim initiated a meeting of Belarusian Hasadim’ directors. “Jewish Communities’ Social Services” was the keynote of the meeting conducted by Institute of Social and Community Workers.

31.05.2009  «The War Cut His Life Short»
Minsk Public Cultural Association named after Izi Harik held an evening commemorating 95th birth anniversary of the Jewish poet Genakh Shvdedik in Minsk Jewish Campus. Mr. Shvedik was born in Bobruisk on March 4th, 1914. After graduating from a 7-year school he left for the Far East with the others to build Birobidzhan city.

28.05.2009  “Lomir ale...” Hesed-Rakhamim
Over thousand people came to Minsk Officer’s Palace on May 12th to celebrate the fifteenth anniversary of Non-government Charitable Jewish Organization “Hesed-Rakhamim”. Its first steps go 20 years back. Taking into consideration the restructuring political course, the situation in the country was quite difficult; at that very time Anna Gurevitch, Riva Schneider and Sofia Abramova decide visiting lonely Jewish population and to assist them around the household and congratulate them on the Jewish holidays.

26.05.2009  International Games of Cheer and Intellect
In the end of April Jewish Student Center “Hillel” received a phone call from organizers of Belarusian Club of the Cheerful, Witted and Intelligent Games. It turned out that this year Minsk welcomes International Games of the Club, so a team of Israel arrived to contend with Belarusian team.

19.05.2009  «Striving For Life»
Once started in Vitebsk Jewish Family Outreach Service, «Striving for Life» program continues its activities. Twice a week children with special needs have sport classes with a volunteer Yuri Podskrebalin; they also have classes in the swimming pool. Senior members of the program also visit classes of medical choreography. In May the program participants accompanied by their parents visited a zoo and also celebrated together «Lag ba Omer», «Shavuot» and «Family Day».

04.05.2009  Jewish Knowledge Day — Hevruta 2009 will be held in Minsk Jewish Campuson October 18, 2009
First Belarusian Hevruta was held in 2008. It’s best evaluation is in the feedbacks, saying ”...It was a wonderful sunny holiday! Rich interesting program made us want to participate in every activity simultaneously, we wanted to know, to hear and to see everything. It was also a great possibility to meet and to communicate with people you are always too busy to meet. It was also a high level of various lectures, classes and discussions. It is all about Hevruta!”

29.04.2009  Nation is What Its Anthem Says
On 1948, May 14th or Iyar 5th, 5708 David Ben-Gurion proclaimed Declaration of Independence of Medinat Yisra'el. His words resounded in voice of millions of people and in thousands of prayers. On April 29, 2009 the State of Israel celebrated its 61t Yom ha'Atsma'ut.

28.04.2009  Sense of "Hesed-Rakhamim"
The Hesed-Rakhamim two words stand for mercy, clemency, equity, generosity, good deeds, in other words, it is mitzvoth of selfless assistance. The two words gear our spirituality as good deeds should push out the following good deeds, they should be passed from one to another in a string and it shouldn’t be closed. This is what Hesed-Rakhamim signifies.

23.04.2009  Bravery and Courage in the Flame of Shoah
Every year on Nisan 27 (in 2009 it’s April 21t) Israeli Embassy and Jewry around the world held memorial events dedicated to Shoah and European Jewry’ Heroism. On this very day Jerusalem holds mournful ceremonies to commemorate 6 000 000 Jews massacred during the WW II. During two minutes the sirens drone across the whole country; every person at home, in the streets and parks stand still to silently join this sorrowful and anxious voice.

20.04.2009  Pesah — Time of Our Freedom
Every organization of Minsk Jewish Campus has conducted its Seder Pesah, below are the most interesting ones presented. Leadership Youth Pesah Project realized under the support of Jewish Federation of Great Atlanta embraced all youth Jewish organizations of Minsk. Major part of trainings of young leaders who will conduct Seder Pesah were organized together Hillel Pesah University, that’s why the organizations checked the leaders’ abilities and knowledge at the Seders together by the same criteria: they watched the Seders, discussed and talked over the mistakes, emphasized positive moments and unique interesting features of the future Seder presenters.

15.04.2009  Creation is Life
Life is the most precious thing one has. It is horrible to face sorrow alone. A word of encouragement helps, but “Creation is Life” program in context of Non-government Charitable Jewish Organization “Hesed-Rakhamim” offers even better help, direct active help.

13.04.2009  Cultural Heritage Will Help to Preserve The Nation's Freedom
Fifth Anniversary Festival of Cantor Music was held in Minsk on April 12th. About 400 spectators including US Diplomatic Mission’s Representative, Heads of Jewish Organizations and members of Jewish Community came to enjoy.

12.04.2009  Project for Preservation of Holocaust Victims' Names Discovers New Names
The project for Holocaust Victims’ Names Preservation introduces us many interesting people and their life stories, researches uncover new names. The project’s volunteers put many efforts in it. They regularly bring new photos and documents into the Museum, dedicate to it large part of their free time. Only in Minsk 2500 new blanks were collected during three months, about 500 people were interviewed.

06.04.2009  From Purim to Pesah We Go
“Galaxy of Talents” — the Second Belarusian Community Festival of Children Creative Work — performed its gala concert on April 5th in Belarusian Drama Theatre. Every Jewish event organized by JCC Emunah is bright and cheerful, so the gala concert was. Looking at children with tiny spark of excitement before performance and admiring audience applauding, everyone feels a part of that wonderful fairy tail, a part of the Jewish nation and realizes that the young generation grows up in respect of national religion and traditions.

24.03.2009  Righteous Gentiles Conference
Many of those who saved lives and whose lives were saved during the WW II have passed away. Many memories leave together with these people, but duty of the present generations is to preserve the heroic deeds of the ordinary people deserving to be proud of for the future generations.

22.03.2009  Constructive Cooperation
Regular municipal meeting on constructive interaction between non-government national and cultural organizations of Minsk took place in Minsk Jewish Campus. Though many of the participants visited Minsk Jewish Campus for the first time, almost every invited NGO’s head is closely cooperating with JCC Emunah while organizing mutual activities.

17.03.2009  «Remember Your Name»
For about two years Belarus runs a project for preservation the names of Jews massacred during Shoa. During all this time the major activities were held in Minsk. Since November 2008 other Belarusian cities entered the project – Mogilev, Gomel and Vitebsk. Volunteers of the mentioned Communities actively participate in the project.

13.03.2009  “Find an Actor in Yourself”
“Inspiration” theatre of Minsk Jewish Charitable Fund “Hesed-Rahamim” was recently registered in World List of Peculiar Theatres “Special Art Phenomenon and Modern Art”. The “Inspiration” theater was found in the framework of “Raduga” program to rehabilitate and socialize young disabled people with psychoneurological diseases.

09.03.2009  A Perfect Woman
How many of you “give the road” to a woman in a complicated situation? How many of you know about the Jewish tradition when a woman leads the situation out of deadlock using her bottomless potential and enabling a man to restore at the same time?

08.03.2009  Learning New Through Recalling the Past
They dance magnificent, look great and stir up burst of positive emotions from the first beat – this is the perfect characteristic of Gil Zahav dancing team. Japanese called its members people of silver age (from Eng), meaning people who learn new through recollecting the past. It’s an axiom that older generation’s culture leads to great results.

05.03.2009  For the First Time...
In 2008 Museum of Belarusian Jewish History and Culture welcomed more than a thousand people. In February 2009 about 300 visitors came. The Museum staff recalls these visitors with warmth and respect. Unfortunately, major part of these people are home bound due to various reasons.

04.03.2009  I'm not an expert
The exhibition of Daniel Livshits works “I’m not an expert yet. I just try my best…” opened in Minsk Jewish campus on the 3d of March, 2009. Being a gifted child, he designed the cover of children’s book “The Ship of Goodness” and wrote the same named fairytale, when he was only nine. “The Ship of Goodness” travels over starry sky and makes everything different, unusual on its way – people, cities, countries.

02.03.2009  Massacre Marked this Day …
March the second (Adar 14), 1942 is marked in Jewish History by a pogrom in Minsk ghetto. Despite the desperate resistance, about 5 000 Jews were brutally murdered there. Death passed no one, even children of an orphanage and patients and staff of an infective hospital were shot. On the next day, March 3d, all corpses were thrown into the “Yama” (The Pit).

24.02.2009  Tu-bi Shvat Guests
We have recently celebrated the holiday Tu-bi Shvat, established by Sages to detach maasrot (tithe). Torah requires every Jew to detach yearly tithe from the fruits’ harvest to the needy. It is also a tradition to plant trees in Tu-bi Shvat. Good deeds as well as trees give their sprouts: just someone is the first to do them.

20.02.2009  Invent a New Holiday?!
We even can’t conjecture how many holidays are celebrated all over the world! For example, whether many of you know that the 11th of January is “Thank you” International Day, the 21st of January is International Embrace Day, and the 17th of February is the Day of Spontaneous Display of Goodness, which I associate with my recent visit to the kindergarten?!

17.02.2009  «Books Have Their Own Fate, Depending On The Reader's Approval» (Terentzian Mavr)
The XVI International Book Fair “Books in Belarus — 2009” launched in Minsk on 11 February, 2009. The Republic of Kazakhstan is an honourable guest of the fair, which gathered 25 countries this year. In 2008 Israel was the third country to get such a prestigious status after Russia and Ukraine.

17.02.2009  Presentations of children's creative magazines «Sevivon» and «Sevivonchik»
Over 100 people came to JCC Emunah on February 13, 2009. They witnessed a significant event — the presentation of new children’s creative magazines «Sevivon» and «Sevivonchik», which appeared thanks to the L.A.Pincus Fund.

09.02.2009  A Happy Blend of Feeling, Vocation and Talent
Hurrah to wonderful news! Volunteer Family Theater “Mishpoha” has started this year again. Charles Hoffman Award 2008 has sure enough promoted this activity. For the first time during more than its 5-years activity, the “Mishpoha” volunteers were supported not only by AJJDC and JCC Emunah.

05.02.2009  Add Me to Your Buddy List
Jewish Welfare Fund “Hesed Rakhamim” has initiated a new program aiming at socializing people with special needs. Thirteen program’s participants were offered personal computers for learning, developing and finding new friends.

28.01.2009  Generations Bridged by Memories
The history of Jewish Belarus is rich in both happy and tragic events. Young generation is often not interested in remote past as they are full of ambitions and future plans and they do not want to waste their time on dull long lectures. So, let bygones be bygones?! Never!

27.01.2009  Shoa: Commemorate and Avert
On the 27th of January, 2009 Minsk Jewish Campus welcomed both foreign and local notables to once again pay tribute to the memory of 6 millions Jews cruelly murdered during WW II. After United Nations Organization proclaimed this day as the annual International Day of Commemoration of the victims of the Holocaust in 2005

26.01.2009  Old Scores to War
This year «Gilf» («Help») organization of Minsk, uniting former ghetto and Nazi camps prisoners, celebrates its 15th anniversary. The survivors founded it in 1994 not only to recollect the past times and experience, but mainly to do everything possible to prevent the nightmare of Hitler's xenophobia forever hereafter. The living memory of those years and events, carefully preserved and passed on to future generations, is the only helpful mean in this case.

22.01.2009  Where have all the young people gone…?
As the theater starts with a coat rack, for many students learning Jewish culture, Jewish Community Center Emuna starts with the library. This is the place for them to get prepared for the exams, find necessary information for their research and graduate works, listen Jewish music and get acquainted with Jewish attributes; this is also the place to go outside the school studying program.

20.01.2009  War Is Their Destiny
Human lives, their heroism and courage in World War II make up the most vital theme in creative work of Yury Gorulev, the laureate of the award “For Spiritual Revival” in 2005. Presentation of his film in Minsk Jewish Campus devoted exactly to this theme.

20.01.2009  Choice of Two Fortunes
January, 13, in Minsk Jewish Community House took place the meeting in memory of Solomon Mikhoels, People's Artist of USSR, and chairman of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee. Solomon Mikhoels was killed in Minsk on the night of January, 13, 1948. Unforgettable voice of Solomon Mikhoels, sounding from gramophone record dated 1920's, opened the commemoration meeting. Then, Inna Gerasimova, director of the Museum, presented the exhibition “In memory of the Great Solomon”, which demonstrated rare photographs on the life and work of Solomon Mikhoels, among them — portraits of the actor, created by well-known Jewish artists and sculptors.

19.01.2009  History Lessons' Mutual Learning
“In one breath, forgetting about the time, deeply impressing, abiding in memory” – this is how one-day seminar was described by its participants – school teachers of Pukhovichi region. The seminar was a partnership project of Pukhovochi Regional Educational Department and Republican Fund “Holocaust”. The seminar’s concept was proposed by a teacher of Mariyna Gorka town, Mr. Boris Mukha.

13.01.2009  Power of Love
In the framework of the charity action "Women's Health", Minsk Jewish Community House held a meeting with Leonid Putyrsky — chief mammologist of the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Belarus, Professor, Doctor of Medical Sciences, and the head of the Republican mammology center.

05.01.2009  Dreams Come True
December 28, holiday magic lights lit the hall of Minsk Jewish Community House. That day, children art studios of JCC «Emuna» gave Hanukah festive concert. More than 120 people — parents and friends, grandmothers, grandfathers, and just other visitors — have become participants of the bright performance.

31.12.2008  Hanukah Show
Unfortunately, we still do not often, but each year more and more, have integrated children summer health camps, seminars or activities, where meet together and have fun children with special needs and their healthy peers. JFOS in Bobruisk Jewish community has successful work experience in this direction quite for a long time.

30.12.2008  "Kislev Miracle Today"
«During Hanukah we unite, remaining different, because everyone is equal in joy! » Jewish people have been celebrating Hanukah for more than two thousand years. December 27, a Hanukah party for seniors and students was organized in the club of Vitebsk community center.

23.12.2008  Key Wonders Are Ahead
The light of Hanukkah candles illuminates all generations of Jews. Till this light exists, the Jewish people prosper and continue to emit light – the light of Torah.

23.12.2008  Bright Children Memories
Children's memories of the holidays are always more vivid and remain for years. They very often predetermine our attitude to life and to the traditions of our people. Strong faith in justice and miracle, possible in our real world, fills the hearts of children in Hanukkah days.

21.12.2008  Hesed Clubs' Future
The directors of Hesed clubs and managers of Daycare centers from Ukraine and Belarus tried to answer the question of “Position of community programs in Hesed future”. This discussion was led by Shosh Levavi, Anna Shtrom from Jerusalem JDC.

17.12.2008  Echo of "Listapad — 2008"
The club "Thiya", JCC "Emuna" (Minsk), screened films-participants of XV Minsk International Film Festival «Listapad — 2008», which recently took place in Minsk. Film critic and theatre expert Nelly Krivosheeva opened the meeting with an overview of movies that had become festival prize winners.

17.12.2008  Five Rainbow Years
“Rainbow” program celebrated its 5th anniversary in Minsk Jewish Community House in a circle of close friends, assistants and other people not indifferent to the lives of people, whose problems sometimes we prefer not to discuss and just conceal.

16.12.2008  "A Year of Working, A Lot of Done"
The JFOS program «Help yourself» in Vitebsk Welfare Public Organization «Hasdey-David» celebrated a year of working. The participants of the program are children with special needs and young disabled persons up to 30 years with different diseases.

12.12.2008  Exclaim To Be Volunteer
The seminar, devoted to the Jewish tradition and development of voluntarism in Jewish community, united active and beginning volunteers in Bobruisk. The activities began with the quotations about voluntarism; “Volunteers in Jewish organization” discussion continued the meeting: the portrayal of successful volunteer was made up together.

08.12.2008  This is a "global" sensation!
Seminar-Shabbaton, arranged by the JCC «Emuna», gathered 66 people. The families, who were unable to attend the summer seminar this year because of the lack of places. «Emuna» has conducted retreats since 2001. This year was chosen a «star» theme: «Kohavim naladnu».

04.12.2008  A Friend In Need is A Friend Indeed
In 1992, the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed December, 3 to be an International Day of People with Special Needs. What this date is definite for? The people in focus could hardly be pleased to receive congratulations for the specific holiday: often they do not consider themselves as people with special needs or unwilling to do it.

03.12.2008  Greeting Card
Why do we admire children’s drawings? Perhaps, the answer is that creative works of an adult artist are usually influenced by feelings outcoming from the life experience, while children’s works are realy spontaneous: it is a magic world where the works, opening the best and brightest sides of our sole, are created without any canons of composition and color combination.

30.11.2008  A Real Beauty
"Sooner or later time comes to make a reappraisal of life principles and deeds. Sometimes we are in need of Kindness. When misfortune comes and a person finds himself face to face with everyday life, he is seeking for protection, even in casual everyday things. And he is able to find it at our place — in the Family Outreach Service Center!"

26.11.2008  Transformation of the soul
This year the participants of the “Rainbow” program had an opportunity to take part in VI² International integration theatre festival “Sunny wave” in Kiev (Ukraine) thanks to the financial support of JDC. It was the first trip abroad for some participants and the début on the professional stage for all of them. “Rainbow” theatre group performed a play “Jewish passions on turnip” at the festival. “Rainbow” actors played with confidence and artistry and became the laureates of the theatre festival “Sunny wave” in Kiev.

13.10.2008  This time is better than ever!
The Festival of Jewish autumn holidays in Minsk Jewish Campus has already become a tradition. It involves the majority of Minsk Jewish Organizations and guests from peripheral communities.

12.10.2008  Special assistance to the individuals
On 3-5 of October, 2008, JFOS organized the seminar for physically and mentally challenged children and their parents from different cities of Belarus in a comfortable rest house. Special attention was paid to the twenty-four-hour medical assistance and nutrition.

08.10.2008  “Team building”
Institute of social and community workers organized practical seminar “Team building” for JFOS workers. At the beginning of the meeting the head of the Institute Alexander Lyampert defined the goals of the seminar and asked everyone to answer the following questions:

05.08.2008  In cooperation with the Belarusian Language Organization named after Franzhisk Skoryna a trip to former Jewish places (Byhov, Dashkovka, and Sapezhinka) was conducted
In cooperation with the Belarusian Language Organization named after Franzhisk Skoryna a trip to former Jewish places (Byhov, Dashkovka, and Sapezhinka) was conducted. The members of the Organization and Mogilev Jewish community, who were interested in history, took part in it.

22.07.2008  "The world n the light of Holocaust "
In July, 20 (Hoiniky) and 21 (Smorgon town) 2008 the unveiling of the memorials at the Holocaust places of WW2 took place. That burial grounds of Belarusian Jews were found and explored by the Memory immortalization committee of Holocaust victims in the Republic of Belarus.

11.07.2008  After 100 years...
For the first time Barry and Merl Ginsburg came to Minsk in 2005. And that time, traveling around Vitebsk district, they decided to show the historic motherland of their ancestry to the whole family, that is not a small one (over 30 relatives: children, grandchildren, great grandchildren).

06.07.2008  The world …disappeared and real
The Belarusian Museum of Jewish history and culture prepared some exhibitions. In the Museum an exhibition by a photoartist Evgeny Talamay (Pinsk) takes place and the unique works of a famous performer of Jewish music, an artist Anatoly Nalivaev “Memory about the lost.

03.07.2008  Events, devoted to the 500th anniversary of Bobruisk Jewish community and 60th anniversary of the State of Israel's Independence Day took place in Bobruisk on June 26-
Events, devoted to the 500th anniversary of Bobruisk Jewish community and 60th anniversary of the State of Israel's Independence Day took place in Bobruisk on June 26-29. The original Jewish pronunciation, Jewish songs and music were heard near a local theatre in the centre of the town.

02.07.2008  Day camp
Three sessions of the Day camp were conducted on the basis of MJC. There were 15-20 in each session. 50% of them are the children from socially unprotected families, their camp stay (warm dinners) was paid by JFOS.

02.07.2008  When we hear the word “summer”, the first thing that comes to our mind is childhood
When we hear the word “summer”, the first thing that comes to our mind is childhood. Carefree and unconcerned days, when there is no need in thinking about school and homework; when the day is so long and light, and even if it rains, the day becomes sunny again soon.

26.06.2008  National culture festival
Creative groups of the Belarusian Jewish Community are participants of the National Culture Festival. 27 national groups, more than 700 brilliant soloists and creative groups took part in the festival that year (in the final day of the festival in 1996 in Grodno, 11 representatives of national communities were present).

26.06.2008  VIII International conference for students “Holocaust: Memory and Warning”
VIII International conference for students “Holocaust: Memory and Warning” was held in Brest on June 21-24.

26.06.2008  The Institute of Communal and Welfare Workers: Degree in Professionalism
A joint course “Social work with elderly people and people with special needs” was organized for the Hesed caseworkers though the Institute of Social and Communal Workers on the basis of the Belarusian State University “Institute of Continuous Education”.

24.06.2008  Ready for Cooperation
Minsk Jewish Student Union “Hillel” carried out 2 seminars on June 20-22 simultaneously. One of them was one of the first seminars in the extremely successful “Hillel” project “Competence school”.

24.06.2008  The presentation of a documentary film “Six Centuries in Belarus” that was conducted by the Museum of the Jewish culture and history in Belarus, took place in MJC
The presentation of a documentary film “Six Centuries in Belarus” that was conducted by the Museum of the Jewish culture and history in Belarus, took place in MJC. The film is devoted to the 600 years of historical and cultural heritage of the Jewish community in Belarus.

22.06.2008  Not long ago Jewish people celebrated the holiday Shabuoth
Not long ago Jewish people celebrated the holiday Shabuoth. One of the holiday traditions is a celebration of the end of the academic year and summing up the results. On June 15, 2008 in Minsk Public Organization of Jewish culture named after Izi Haric a regular meeting took place in the circle of Yiddish amateurs that functions within the framework of the project “the Yiddish— language, literature, culture”.

13.06.2008  Making Progress and Enjoying It!
Emunah is successfully realizing a project «Creative Jewish Journalism». Thanks to a generous support of the L. A. Pincus Fund for Jewish Education in the Diaspora our children enable to reveal their talents and develop their skills. During regular Jewish classes participants learn Jewish culture and traditions and later they transfer Jewish issues and topics in their creative works.

02.06.2008  JCC “Emuna” Mazl Tov camp
Dates: May 25 – June 1, 2008. The Mazl Tov camp turned out to be a week of family joy and unity on May 25 – June 1, 2008. JCC Emuna’s unique project is extremely popular among families with kids up to 5 and long before it became clear that the camp would be this year as well, parents wished to have their names written down just for a case.

02.06.2008  "Colored calendar days»
“Today we are summarizing the results of the school year and giving a send-off to future first formers from “Pochemuchki”. With these words the report concert by the children’s creative studios of the JCC “Emunah” started. That year it took place in June, 1 (The Day of Children’s Protection).

12.05.2008  To Israel with love
The event that was conducted on May, 11 in MJC on its significance will not yield to the other greetings and events, devoted to the 60 years past from the State of Israel foundation.

07.05.2008  Yom ha-Shoah in MJC
Yom ha-Shoah in MJC. It was not one night or one week — that were years… «It is not the death with the weapon in hands in the war. This is the extermination of people, houses, families, books and believes.

29.04.2008  "The memory and warning"
Serious research works on the theme Holocaust were afforded by the students of Belorussian state technological university in the XI republican exhibition of methodological literature in Minsk.

28.04.2008  «The Pesach Universities»
This year 22 young people— the representatives of Jewish communities of Borisov, Gomel, Grodno, Polotzk, Bobruisk and Minsk, took part in the yearly Hillel’s project “Pesach University”. During 4 days they studied the history of the Exodus, the structure of the Haggada, Pesach prayers and songs, and the peculiarities of conducting Seder in different age and social groups.

25.04.2008  IV International Kantor Festival in Minsk, Belarus
Word “kantor” excites each Jewish heart and makes us feel proud we belong to the People. A kantor is a Jewish poem and song, Jewish happiness and sorrow, Jewish grief and hope.

25.04.2008  "Holocaust in books “Memory of the Republic of Belarus”.
The book of the candidate of the historical science M. Botvinnic “Holocaust in books “Memory” of the Republic of Belarus” was shown to the public. It is a scientific publication that consists of 180 pages. The book is a distinctive guide-book of 140 books from the batch “Memory”. The publication includes short reviews to each book of the batch.

23.04.2008  Slutsk: swastika on the monuments to the Ghetto prisoners
During Pesach celebrations the vandals drew 17 swastikas in black color and wrote the date of Hitler’s brith on the memorial to Slutsk’s Ghetto prisoners. The first to see that “anti-Semitic gift” were the correspondents of the Slutsk’s newspaper “Kuryer”.

18.04.2008  Pinsk: The Holocaust theme in the famous artist's works
The preparative works are still being done for the Planer, devoted to the Holocaust theme and timed to the 65 years of extermination of Jews in Belarus during the WW2 in Pinsk. As the head of the Pinsk Jewish community told, in the Planer 20 artists of different nationalities will take part.

17.04.2008  IV International Kantor Festival in Minsk, Belarus
Kantor festivals are traditionally held during Pesach and Belarus was not an exception. IV International Kantor Festival took place in a municipal music hall of Minsk on April 22, 2008. The idea of Kantor festival revival came to Ludmila Dorofeeva and Georgiy Abramovich four years ago.

16.04.2008  Pesach. The celebration of freedom and dignity
Jewish Pesach lasts from the evening of April, 19 till April, 27. Pesach is the oldest Jewish holiday, connected with one of the most important events of the Jewish life— the Exodus from the Egyptian slavery about 3300 years ago, in 2448 by the Jewish calendar.

15.04.2008  Minsk association of Jewish culture: the event devoted to memory of Izya Harik
On April, 13 the evening devoted to memory of I. Harik, the classic of Jewish poetry, took place. You could hear the poems of the poet in Yiddish and Russian languages. S. Zinoveva (the granddaughter of I. Savikovski) sang the songs, melodies to which were written on the poems of I. Harik.

21.03.2008  Purim is the most festive of Jewish holidays
On March 19, 2008, Purim celebrations in commemoration of the Jewish people deliverance of the ancient Persian Empire from Haman's plot to annihilate them, as recorded in the Biblical Book of Esther (Megillat Esther) began in all the organizations resided on the territory of the Minsk Jewish Campus.

12.03.2008  Unique Community Event — First "Hevruta" in the MJC
The first "Hevruta" — Jewish Knowledge Day was held in the Minsk Jewish Campus on March 9, 2008. The event participants wrote just most glowing comments in the Hevruta participant book

03.03.2008  "Hevruta" — Jewish Knowledge Day
“Hevruta” – a Jewish Knowledge Day – will take place in the Minsk Jewish Campus on March 9. 2008. Everyone interested in Jewish history, tradition, attitude of world-known individuals to Judaism and Jews, diversity of views on Jewish topic is invited to participate in this educational event.

19.02.2008  Social Work with The Elderly and People with Special Needs Seminar
A “Social Work with The Elderly and People with Special Needs” three–day seminar started in Minsk Jewish Campus on February 12, 2008

12.02.2008  Minsk Public Association of Jewish Culture named after Izya Kharik continues its successful experience
Since January 14, right after the winter holidays at school, MPAJC continued its lessons of Yiddish studying. Last year in period from September 3 to December 17 the classes were held twice a week. The course of “Elementary Yiddish” was completed.

04.02.2008  Mogilev
Hesed’s volunteers cooked and performed Jewish cuisine at Festival of National Cultures. Funds for cooking — $65 – were provided by local donors. All other activities were held on a regular basis and in accordance with the set schedule.

30.01.2008  International Holocaust Remembrance Day in Minsk
The third commemoration ceremony on the International Holocaust Remembrance Day took place in a central Minsk culture hall on January 27, 2008. The event was organized by the UN representation office in Belarus and National Holocaust Fund of the Union of Jewish Organizations of Belarus.

29.01.2008  International Holocaust Remembrance Day in Minsk
The third commemoration ceremony on the International Holocaust Remembrance Day took place in a central Minsk culture hall on January 27, 2008. The event was organized by the UN representation office in Belarus and National Holocaust Fund of the Union of Jewish Organizations of Belarus.

25.01.2008  Blossoming gardens of winter
The first blossoming tree in that January days was grown in “Emunah” by the children from an extended-day group “Yahad”. The children were told how to celebrate that holiday at the lessons that were held in the “Story hour” program in the creative studios.

22.01.2008  Do not loose touch with Jewish roots...!
A great master of speech Eduard Samoilov conducted a literary evening on life and creative work of Sholom-Aleihem writer in club of amateurs of Yiddish. His style of conversation – easily and jokingly – always fascinates the audience.

19.01.2008  Never Stop Dancing
Dancing group “Gil Zakhav” of Public Welfare Jewish Organization Hesed-Rakhamim is three years old already. During these years the group became famous not only in Minsk, but out of its bounds. Every year the group’s archive grows as the number of diplomas and letters of gratitude grows.

14.01.2008  The evening, dedicated to 60 years anniversary since Solomon Mikhoel's Death in Minsk.
On January 13, 2008, on the crossroads of Ulianovskaya and Belorusskaya streets in Minsk there was a wreath-laying ceremony. The ceremony commemorated Solomon Mikhoels (Vovsi) who died here 60 years ago.

14.01.2008  Minsk Public Association of Jewish Culture named after Izya Kharik continues its successful experience
Since January 14, right after the winter holidays at school, MPAJC continued its lessons of Yiddish studying. Last year in period from September 3 to December 17 the classes were held twice a week. The course of “Elementary Yiddish” was completed.

10.01.2008  Newest Community Literature
In the morning of January 6, 2007, a big vociferous crowd of Jewish kids – participants of the JCC Emunah – jumped on a bus at the MJC gates to travel to the Borisov city.

09.01.2008  Saving the memory of Nazi victims in Belarusian communities.
Bobruisk At the place of Bobruisk Ghetto the memorable sign will be instolled. The authorities of Bobruisk allowed to install a memorable sign at the place were Ghetto was. Ghetto appeared in Bobruisk in July 1941 and existed till November, 6: the Prisoners were taken out to Kaminka village and were executed (by shooting) there.

07.12.2007  Special Olympics After-Party: Celebrating a Culture of Diversity
Jewish Athletes Become Stars in the Minsk Jewish Campus. Since every good event has an after–party, with such mind–blowing accomplishments in Shanghai, it's no wonder that the community organized a celebration for the Jewish and non–Jewish players of the Belarusian Special Olympics team. A gala banquet celebrating this milestone in Belarusian Jewish history was put together in the big hall of the MJC, featuring emcees Elena Razladova and Sergei Kalnitsky.

07.12.2007  This Hannukah, the entire city of Minsk is alight with Hannukah festivals
This Hannukah, the entire city of Minsk is alight with Hannukah festivals. The holiday was kicked off on the first night with Chabad’s Hannukah play performed by the Or Avner school, followed by a concert featuring Minsk’s newest Jewish band “Shalom”.

06.12.2007  Michael and Diana Lazarus: future versus oblivion
Anyone would be tired of returning in this country every six months to inaugurate yet another memorial to victims of the Holocaust. Anyone else would glaze over from listening to that endless story of human solidarity and unselfishness, of inhuman cruelty and greed.

23.11.2007  Lights of the future
"From the very beginning we felt that it was a wonderful idea to organize a show of young talents from all over Belarus, with contests in singing, dancing, instrument playing, drama and poetry, with awards and prizes for the very best; applause from the audience and praise from the jury for the ‘promises’..

20.11.2007  Thank you, Atlanta
More than 550,000 doses of vitamins have been distributed among the children of the Minsk Jewish community in three days. The comprehensive figure should include another 3000 packs that are being donated to non-Jewish health care and associated organizations.

12.11.2007  English Tea
Every Tuesday, young Jewish adults gather in a friendly atmosphere to discuss life, love, Jewish identity, or the latest news – all in English.

12.11.2007  Moishe House Minsk: The First Moishe House in the Former Soviet Union
Imagine a warm and pluralistic Jewish communal house where two friendly young women offer themed Shabbat dinners, Shabbat afternoon board games, Israeli movie nights, a Rosh Chodesh women’s group, challah-baking lessons, outings to ice-skating rinks and museum galleries, and many more activities aimed towards Jewish young adults.

08.11.2007  Jewish athletes among the best at the Special Olympics World Summer Games in Shanghai!
Serguey Kalnitsky, Olga Davydova, Irina Shakhlevich, Boris Rayski, Tatiana Grinberg, Oleg Kolobov and Irina Pavlovich won for National Team of Belarus eight bronze medals and one gold, which is a smashing result after only one year of training.

02.11.2007  After the Carnival
Hesed-Rahamim’s numerous talents offered the audience of one hundred plus fans a show sparkling with artfully staged transformations of familiar characters into consumed performers.

26.10.2007  Memorial For “Nameless” Partisan
Oct. 26, 1941: Dispassionate SS officers parade a seventeen-year-old girl, a young man, and an older man through the streets of Minsk and hang them side by side at the gates of a yeast factory.

25.10.2007  Details relating to the Holocaust are routinely kept in numbers
Ceremony 64 Years After the Liquidation of Minsk Ghetto. The Holocaust is often remembered in numbers. Six million: Jews murdered. 60 billion: reparation dollars to survivors. 20 million: Soviet citizen death toll.

23.10.2007  Tomorrow's highlights
Merle and Barry Ginsburg keep coming to Belarus with constancy. Consular formalities, long flights, crowded airports, security checks, jet lag have long since become unavoidable attributes of the series of long flights to Belarus which they affectionately call their “trip home.”

18.10.2007  The “Righteous” Village
Well after seventy, they still call each other Maya, Frida, Zhenia. They live in Minsk – three out of forty Jewish kids, who through 1942-1943 had escaped the living hell of Minsk ghetto to reach the tiny village of Poretcheye where locals were willing to share their meager earthly possessions with the young martyrs to keep them in life.

30.09.2007  Sukkot Festival in Gomel
According to tradition, Jews are obligated to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem three times a year: Passover, Shavuot, and Sukkot. On Sukkot, known as the Festival of Booths, Jews are commanded to eat, drink, and even sleep in their Sukkah, a small portable square hut, to commemorate the wandering of the Israelites throughout the desert on their way from Egypt to the Holy Land.

26.09.2007  Business Program for Young Entrepreneurs Launched in Minsk Jewish Campus
An elite group of young industrious risk-takers is embarking on an entrepreneurial journey this fall. Due to a joint initiative of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and Minsk ’s Emuna Jewish Community Center, a new project aptly called “HELP” has been kicked off in the Minsk Jewish Campus.

24.09.2007  Memorial Unveiled in Slutsk Brings in Somber New Year
During Rosh Hashana this year, an unlikely community of only 100 Jews celebrated not only the beginning of a new year, but also their heroism of years past. A long-awaited memorial marking the location of the Slutsk Ghetto and its uprising was finally unveiled the first Sunday of year 5768.

04.09.2007  Every Jew must be a learner, every Jew can be a teacher
1) EVERY JEW MUST BE A LEARNER
2) EVERY JEW CAN BE A TEACHER
These are the main principles of the Limmud concept as told by one of its founders, Clive Lawton from England, to a group of Belarusian volunteers attending Baltic Limmud in February, 2007.

03.09.2007  He who defies the maxims
Stating that Shaul Fox is an undisputed authority in the area of Industrial and Organizational Psychology would be narrowing purposely the immense array of his professional competencies to what he has been hired to do for the JDC office in Jerusalem.

30.08.2007  Ginsburg Scholarship Award
As parents and pupils get ready to get back to school, a select group of students gathered in the Minsk Jewish Campus to receive certificates of excellence even before they started their year of studies. These were Ginsburg Scholarship awards

28.08.2007  Needed and happy to be
Alevtina Babyna became Hesed client in 1998 when the recrudescence of polyarthritis in lower limbs put her on crutches. The pain was insufferable, so was the feeling of helplessness and irrelevance against her long previous life full of physical endurance.

21.08.2007  Falevich's Fundamentals
At 73, he still is what his father had been all his life: dedicated communist and convinced internationalist. Named after Friedrich Engels, Karl Marx’s pal and accomplice in their abortive attempts to overthrow the reign of misappropriated surplus value, he still mourns the USSR and blames those who emigrate for a better living in Israel, in the USA or, even worse, in Germany.

15.08.2007  What Makes This Camp Different From All Other Camps?
This summer, 39 parents and grandparents and 48 children ages 5-17 enjoyed a 10-day summer camp experience in the raw Belarusian outdoors of the Uzda forest. The camp was called "The World through Jewish Eyes".

14.08.2007  Donation of equipment to the Center of Palliative Medical Care “Hospice”
Thanks to a well–fostered relationship with the Minsk Jewish Campus, the only hospice in Belarus just became even more unique. Through the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee's IDP fund, the Minsk Jewish Campus's Resource Development Center was able to acquire an oxygen concentration machine for clients of the hospice.

03.08.2007  Now's the time
On his third visit to Minsk last week, Jerry Weiner looked and sounded somewhat different compared to the previous trips. Discriminative and perspicacious, he seemed to scrutinize the community life through some kind of looking glass that would focus on the essence instead of frippery.

31.07.2007  Camp Raduga: People with Limits Push the Boundaries
To the average Minsk resident, traveling a mere one kilometer outside the city is no major escapade. But to participants and organizers of the Raduga camp, that kilometer is for some, an achievement of a lifetime. "Raduga", Russian for Rainbow, is a club for young Jewish adults living with psychological and physical disabilities. The club is organized by Hesed-Rachamim

27.07.2007  Mournful at the memorial: re-connecting
When the “Simon Mark Lazarus Foundation” erected its fourteenth memorial to the victims of the Holocaust in Belarus this summer, Michael Lazarus, the Foundation's CEO, said, “I've kept coming here for three years in a row, visiting places, looking for testimonies and, eventually, witnesses, meeting with Jewish community leaders and local authorities.

23.07.2007  Just make sure: somebody cares
The case workers call it here just “Claims Conference”: that’s shorter and easier to pronounce than the official appellation. “Hesed” charities’ executives swear by it whenever it comes to raise money for welfare programs on behalf of Nazi victims, who, they, often ignore the very existence of the “Conference on Jewish Material Claims against Germany”, and most probably don’t even think about the chain of command that provides them with food sets, medicines, house help, home care and so on.

19.07.2007  Stanislav Zhitin
Before 30 years of age, Stanislav Zhitin, though afflicted with infantile cerebral paralysis, has been courageously living his physical misery — for his family was there to support him and to provide the necessary affective comfort.

10.07.2007  Cabbage, Mushrooms, and Borsht: Atlanta Teen Ambassadors Come to Belarus
This morning Jason Feldman was touring Minsk with his new pal Vadim, and an elderly Hesed volunteer named Garik. But this was no tourist's excursion. These three had a mission: to deliver food packages for the hosts of the “Warm Home” programs planned for the ensuing Shabbat.

04.07.2007  When it comes to learning more
Managerial training course held by the Institute of Welfare and Community Workers at the MJC has become popular since its appearance in 2005. From the very beginning, it looked like an unexpected possibility to make a breakthrough from the everyday routine towards better career prospects, thanks to the methodological support and teaching techniques provided by the Belarusian State University.

29.06.2007  WJR quilts at the retirement home in Minsk
WJR gifts-in-kind came out very handy when distributed on the eve of Independence Day at the retirement home in one of the city districts in Minsk. Fifty quilts, single, double and "king size" will keep the inhabitants of the retirement home warm and comfy when winter comes again — that is what all of them kept saying, appreciative of that seasonable and helpful sign of attention, courtesy of WJR.

26.06.2007  Preparing a “Family Visit”
If you happen to have a few words with Rabbi Yehiel Poupko, you are in for some surprises. You are going to learn about yourself things that, previously, you were taking for granted. You might have prepared your questions to ask as you might be answering his — it all comes to a show of wisdom that relays on firm believing in basic facts and constant doubting everything else.

25.06.2007  MJC website survey
MJC website survey

21.06.2007  “Headgear Festival”: fashion news and more.
Everybody knows nothing can't stop women from making simple things trickier than necessary. Looking for protection from the unusual under these latitudes, summer heat, the female population of Minsk Jewish Campus chose headgear as the benchmark for another attempt to leave the beaten tracks of everyday routine for the realm of pure beauty, where men are not allowed, and their opinion ignored.

15.06.2007  Pinsk Jewry on old photographs
Silver or digital, black-and-white or full color, the still picture has been preserving its humble magic through the years of stiff competition with cinema, TV and video, stalking the phantom of human memory. Fifty or so photographs featuring faces and life scenes of Pinsk Jewish community during twenty five years between the two major wars of the last century, have been deployed in an exposition arranged by the Museum of Jewish Heritage to celebrate the 500^th anniversary of Pinsk Jewry.

12.06.2007  Amateur artists from Bobruisk at Minsk Jewish Campus
They come from a proud old city where, according to a popular joke, even horses understood Yiddish. Those were the days when Jewish population accounted for eighty percent of the total of some 400,000; there were 47 synagogues, two Jewish theatres, schools and colleges.

07.06.2007  MJC's new role: promoting healthy life with Klezmer music
Alla Danzig's Minsk Klezmer Band was the main lure at the “Happy Hour” party launched by US Embassy in Belarus. Hearing the expression “Happy Hour” bar pillars and other erudites would lustfully visialize two huge drinks — with lots of ice, please! — to be served for the price of one during sixty minutes.

06.06.2007  Sooner done than said
Like many things, habits, ideas transplanted in a different society or another ethnic environment, Bregmann's dance therapy has been imported in Belarus in view of a breakthrough in the rehabilitative activities on behalf of young adults with special needs. Though no one expected wonders, the impact it produced will take weeks to estimate.

05.06.2007  Minsk Hillel's 10th Anniversary
More than 200 people gathered in one of Minsk night clubs to celebrate Hillel's 10^th Anniversary. “Veteran” students, who established Minsk Hillel, present Hillel students and a lot of guests and friends came to the party. It was a real celebration with guests, congratulations, presents, firework and a huge cake!

31.05.2007  Conference for Progressive Jewish Educators Held in Belarus
When Ira Belskaia did a tour of the Progressive Movement's educational programs around Belarus, she saw that each teacher had great ideas, but that no one was sharing his/her talents with one another. She realized that their innovative teaching techniques were clever, but could be much more useful if bounced off other educational specialists.

30.05.2007  The Belarus Party Profiles: Hillel's 10th Anniversary
Jewish communities across the Former Soviet Union were astir with chatter this week following the blowout party run by Hillel Minsk in honor of its 10^th birthday. This invitation–only bash turned out to be the sizzling soiree of the season, with over 200 lining up along Vera Khoruzhay street to get into the Reaktor nightclub.

28.05.2007  JDC Minsk and the UBJPAC issue the long-awaited book on Jewish athletes
Semyon Liokumovich has been pushing this project for six long years. Publishing a book on Jewish athletes in Byelorussian sport looked daring and ambitious, and still does, for both now and in the past, sports in Belarus have been a “sacred cow” and the only reliable vehicle for the positive image of the country abroad.

22.05.2007  Happy Shavuot!
More you know about Mazl Tov Pre–school Education Programs, more you feel amazed with resourcefulness and creativity of the educators, especially when toddlers are concerned. For, together with older kids, the 6 months to 3,5 years old are entitled to the same kind and patient attitude when the basis of Faith are being laid.

18.05.2007  Eager to answer the challenge, they win again
At the early days of the Communist era public libraries were duly considered strong points of new ideology among populations that the Civil War left with no food for thought lest any food at all.

18.05.2007  AJJDC humanitarian aid distribution, May 17, 2007
On May 17, 2007, distribution center of Minsk Jewish Campus was full of beautiful young ladies. It was a special distribution this day. It was devoted to those people of Jewish society who are young and now are in their most interesting life's period, when all ways are open for them. Of course, we are talking about alumni of high schools. The atmosphere of the coming holidays was in the air.

17.05.2007  Yom Yerushalayim
Yom Yerushalayim, Jerusalem Day, is the most recent addition to the Hebrew calendar. It is celebrated on the 28th day of Iyar, six weeks after the first Passover seder, one week before the eve of Shavuot.

14.05.2007  On the way of martyrs
The martyrdom of Jewry in Poland during WWII has been widely acknowledged apparently because of the industrial approach to the “Endloesung”, Final Solution, the Nazi planned mass murder and total annihilation of the Jews.

10.05.2007  Victory Day in the Yama Pit
Victory Day, which occurs May 9^th in the former Soviet bloc, celebrates the end of World War II, and specifically the capitulation of the German army to the Allied forces: the Soviet Union, United Kingdom, France, the United States, and other Allied states.

07.05.2007  Family Camp Planning
37 high school and university student-leaders from JCC Emuna and Hillel joined forces this weekend to organize family camps for Jews of Belarus. These camps, an initiative of the Joint Distribution Committee, will welcome affiliated and unaffiliated Jewish couples and their children from Minsk and the periphery to enjoy 10 beautiful summer days together in the woods.

02.05.2007  JFOS Steals Thunder at Child Rehabilitation Symposium
Organizations working to rehabilitate mentally challenged children have been working completely independently of one another — that is, until now. A premier children's rehabilitation center decided that it was time for professionals of this field to put their heads together to work towards a brighter future for children with special needs.

30.04.2007  Minsk Jewish Campus: a view from a five years distance
For the elder part of the Jewish community Minsk Jewish Campus is a dream come true; for juniors it is a wonderful reality, with a touch of magic here and there. It took exactly five years to make out of the modest piece of real–estate in the downtown Minsk a warm and cozy and caring heaven for some twenty thousand local Jews, that at least once a year come here looking for company and entertainment, if not already involved in the operations of 18 organizations that the MJC shelters.

30.04.2007  Sefer-JAFI Seminar on Zionism
On the weekend of the Torah portion of Parashat “Kedoshim,” Jews around the world recited the verses relating to the court system, conduct in business, and farming practices in the Land of Israel.

24.04.2007  Israel Independence Day in Minsk
“Pioneers … and defenders, they made deserts bloom, revived the Hebrew language, built villages and towns, and created a thriving community controlling its own economy and culture, loving peace but knowing how to defend itself, bringing the blessings of progress to all the country's inhabitants, and aspiring towards independent nationhood.”

20.04.2007  Seven more Belarus on the glorious listing
Seven more Belarus on the glorious listing. They should have been more this afternoon at the Israeli Cultural Center, to receive from the Ambassador Zeev Ben Arie their diplomas of Righteous Gentiles of the World.

13.04.2007  Holocaust Day
Crimes and atrocities of the Holocaust need no recalling: they are always here, bleeding and sore, and unabsolved. The murder of six millions diverted the course of history, calling in question fundamental truths and values of human civilization.

11.04.2007  Big Seder in Hillel!
This Sunday, the Minsk Jewish Campus attracted over 70 people to a big seder organized by Minsk Hillel, the organization for Jewish students in Minsk. This massive undertaking was only the culmination of a sequence of courses of the “Pesach University,” a Hillel Pesach program offered to exceptional young people seeking to enhance their knowledge of Pesach.

06.04.2007  Beyond the Holocaust: Jewish Museum Opens Exhibition of Young Jewish Artist
The Museum of Belarusian Jewish History and Culture inaugurated a new public exhibition featuring the work of young Jewish artist Luba Abramova. For a museum which houses archival documents, and highlights Holocaust commemoration and Jewish life pre–World War II

02.04.2007  A better way to say it
Kids from “Kohavim” Art Studio were the first to start Passover festivities at the MJC. Patience being the hardest skill to learn for young hearts, they just couldn't wait to discover the austere magic of immortal exploits of the People on the way to Freedom.

30.03.2007  Psychology week at the MJC
Katya Sergheeva is psychologist with the JFOS in Minsk. Dealing mostly with the problems generated by various kind of disruptions in family environment, Katya offers her clients assistance that goes well beyond the academic perception of professional duties.

23.03.2007  Atlanta Federation Mission
The Minsk Jewish Campus was recently graced with a visit from leaders of the Jewish community of Atlanta. These individuals, both professional and lay–leaders, made their journey to better learn what is going on in Jewish Minsk. Because Atlanta is Minsk's Jewish sister–city, some of the mission participants were returning to Minsk after only 6 months of being away.

22.03.2007  After Years of Struggle, Jews of Grodno Successfully Raise Plaque for Lost Cemetery
This Sunday, a somber crowd congregated by the Neman Sports Stadium in Grodno. To bystanders walking the busy central streets of this Belarusian regional capital, this seems like a strange setting for a memorial service. But for those that witnessed stadium's construction, the location could not have been any more suitable.

19.03.2007  SEVIVON's spreading out
The trip to Bobruisk on that shiny spring Sunday was simply delightful, though it took more than two hours to get there. The JCC “Emunah” who organized that trip thought of everything: snacks and soft drinks, presents for the hosts and some ideas of mutual interest to discuss.

14.03.2007  On the hidden side of Purim
Purim festivities at the MJC offered, among others, another facet of “Raduga” efforts aimed at creating prerequisites for a painless social adaptation of young community members with developmental disabilities.

05.03.2007  Minsk Jewish Campus: Making Noise this Purim
Purim, which started Saturday night, was kicked–off with clamor and joy in the Minsk Jewish Campus. The festivities hosted by Rabbi Grisha Abramovich, Rabbanit Ira Abramovich, and the entire Progressive community of Minsk featured activities for parents with young children, and a Jewish trivia game for adults. The gragers, or noisemakers, did not stop spinning all night.

02.03.2007  Yama Memorial Ceremony
Today, hundreds gathered in the rain to honor the memory of 5,000 prisoners of the Minsk ghetto who were brutally murdered by Nazis on this day 65 years ago.

01.03.2007  Purim Project: Hillel Minsk Gearing Up for Atlanta Invasion
Over two thousand years ago, the Jews of Persia equipped themselves to thwart away the troops of the evil Haman. In honor of their bravery, this Purim, Jews in Minsk are preparing themselves for a more festive foray — the arrival of a group of Jewish students from Atlanta.

01.03.2007  3rd Group of Purim Postmen Return to Home as Hillel Program Comes to a Close
While most Jews had already started getting nervous about Passover after the one–day Purim holiday was over, a group of students from Emory University had only just begun the highpoint of their celebrations one week after Purim was through. The timing was not important, however. What mattered was delivering the joy of Purim throughout Jewish communities of Belarus.

21.02.2007  What's in a Name? Britah at the Minsk Jewish Campus
Everyone has one, and everyone's indicates identity, sense of self, a personality. Especially in Judaism, a name holds special significance in carrying out rituals such as aliyah to the Torah or reciting a prayer for the ill.

08.02.2007  News from Lazarus
Donated by the Simon Mark Lazarus Foundation, the 10 kg “Bosch” washer was delivered to Rakov Nursing Home on February 6, by Larissa Geller, Hesed–Rakhamim PR–officer.

06.02.2007  Vitebsk Revival: Community Celebrates Construction of The Barry and Merle Ginsburg Building
When they first decided to travel to Belarus, Barry and Merle Ginsburg traveled to the Vitebsk region to unearth their family history from the town of Gorodets. While they were searching for a link to their ancestors, they found a connection to a community still rife with Yiddishkeit in the center of Vitebsk.

05.02.2007  Minsk Jewish Campus Says Farewell to JDC Mission
The Minsk Jewish Campus recently said goodbye to an accomplished group of Jewish professionals. As soon as the visitors from JDC New York and Israel arrived to Minsk January 21, they got to work. Their mission: to study the work that the JDC Minsk does in partnership with its associate agencies.

01.02.2007  Tu B'Shvat in Minsk: When Winter is at its Worst, Jews Celebrate the Spring
Tu B'Shvat, the Jewish New Year for trees, is celebrated on the 15th of the Hebrew month of Shvat. In Israel, Shvat, usually falling in February, signifies the inauguration of springtime, a time when the temperature rises and flowers and trees begin to blossom. Shvat in Minsk, however, is when winter is at its height. But nonetheless, children and their parents trudged through the snow to reach the Jewish Campus where they celebrate the Jewish Arbor Day.

31.01.2007  Rhyming fundamentals
Living in Belarus and writing poetry in Yiddish seems nowadays like a challenge. And challenge it is, for reality is not at all propitious to what even in prosier times was qualified as “talking to the L…d directly, with no mediator”, — in Yiddish, Russian or Swahili.

30.01.2007  Jazz in the MJC
This week, the Minsk Jewish Campus assembled hundreds of viewers for the Jazz event of the year.

26.01.2007  Two more stones on the grave of millions
The UN-proclaimed Holocaust Day and the commemorative event planned for Jan.28 at the MJC will certainly overcast this story, too short and simple to emulate heart-breaking pictures in official publications and pathetical phrasing of social occasions.

22.01.2007  “Sevivon” — a product of creative thought
It looks like time has come when the true meaning of the ubiquitous term “creativity” shakes off layers of fancy definitions: from interpretation to originality to innovation. Let it become what Sonia Filkova, JCC Emunah's director, means it to be when addressing her staff, or parents of Emunah's

18.01.2007  On the way to pleasant surprises
Of twenty plus ethnical minorities in Belarus, that include also a Korean entity, Germans, though not the most numerous, seem to be among very active. How would you explain elsewise the origin of that charming sound produced by the female sextet that animated a gloomy mid–January afternoon at the MJC?

17.01.2007  Resource Development Center
Through its various departments and skilled personnel, the Resource Development Center is putting the Belarusian Jewish Community on the map. As one of the only Resource Development Centers in the Former Soviet Union, this organization in the Minsk Jewish Community is pioneering a professional field in a region with huge potential for communal growth.

16.01.2007  What's in the news?
Jewish life in Minsk was given an unprecedented coverage by Byelorussian media during the second half of the year 2006. Roch–a–Shanah and Chanukah festivities, inauguration of memorials, Community Book Festival and BelGoset (Jewish theater) anniversary, Hesed–Rakhamim welfare activities and “Rainbow” rehabilitative programs for youth with limitations have become the issues general audience seem to follow with ever–growing interest and sympathy.

29.12.2006  WJR Humanitarian Aid Distribution in Belarus
On a cold winter night, frantic mothers and grandmothers bundled up their babies and trekked to the Minsk Jewish Campus where they hastily congregated around tables trying to snatch their first choices from the assorted merchandise scattered around the room.

27.12.2006  Hanukkah Comes to an “Inspirational” Close
Folks in the Minsk Jewish campus can't stop chatting about “Inspiration,” the Hanukkah play put together by professionals and clients of Hesed, Raduga, and The Jewish Family Outreach Service. When Lena, the director of Raduga, the club for young Jews with disabilities, proposed creating a Hanukkah play to be performed by mentally disabled youth and elderly individuals with physical illnesses, people thought she was reaching for the impossible.

19.12.2006  This Hanukkah in Minsk: Elderly Individuals Reach Out to the Young Mentally Disabled
For the first time on the Minsk Jewish Campus, elderly Hesed clients are coming together with the disabled in a theater workshop to create a Hanukkah masterpiece. For the past 3 years, Raduga, the Jewish organization for young mentally disabled individuals ages 18–23, has run a Hanukkah theater workshop.

18.12.2006  Hanukkah festival
This year, Jewish communities from across Belarus shipped off their best and brightest musicians to the Veteran's Concert Hall in Minsk where they joined forces to create a Hanukkah tour de force. With its versatile repertoire of Klezmer, modern Israeli, Yiddish, Russian, and even Belarusian music, this year's Hanukkah concert caused a Jewish invasion of Minsk that even the Maccabees would have been proud of.

18.12.2006  Chanukah lights
It is general knowledge that children are the most appreciative kind of public, and Chanukah matinee launched by JCC Emunah's Mazl Tov Pre–School Development Program was bound to provide another proof of that common place, but… This one was special!

15.12.2006  SABA: more concern
Day care and home nursing services of Minsk and Vitebsk Heseds are adopting the program SABA conceived to optimize the choice of appropriate approach to welfare clients of elderly age. When first presented by Anna Strom from JDC, Jerusalem, it looked somewhat depersonalized; the client with his or her specific needs and problems seemed to become an average.

15.12.2006  Chanukah Hu Chag Tov!
Whatever the words we choose to express our best wishes on Chanukah to someone we love, congratulations on that glorious occasion remain mostly pictorial: wonders lit by candlelight. Who better than children would depict a wonder, moreover on Chanukah?

15.12.2006  The Ginsburg Container Arrives Just In Time for Hanukkah
After three long months of waiting and a journey across thousands of miles, the cargo train carrying hundreds of boxes labeled “JDC” has finally arrived to the unloading dock outside Minsk.

13.12.2006  This Year's Hillel Seminar Comes to a Close
Jewish students and young professionals are returning to class and work invigorated and exhausted from a weekend of amusement, competition, self–improvement, and religious rejuvenation. Minsk Hillel, in partnership with the Israel Cultural Center attracted 60 young Jews ages 18–30 to this weekend's seminar, held in a retreat center just outside Minsk.

06.12.2006  All we know…
Actually, we don't know much about her: just a few facts, some conjectures. She lies under a standard–issue memorial slab “To the Victims of Fascist Reprisals” in a small village somewhere on the western extremity of the Naliboki wilds. No one cares.

04.12.2006  Learning and teaching Jewish tradition — by the book
A “Comprehensive Guide of Jewish Education” has become the big news at the X edition of Minsk Community Book Festival. Summing up multifaceted experiences of Mazl Tov Pre–School Development Center programs, this treatise offers an extensive outreach of a mature practical approach to numerous problems of Jewish content in educational activities among children from 6 months to 5 years.

30.11.2006  The Ginsburgs Are Back!
When their ancestors fled the small village of Gorodets in the 1850s, they had no idea that their descendents would return with such enthusiasm 160 years later. But indeed they did, and on their recent second trip to Belarus, the Ginsburgs came with a mission: to continue their involvement in various Jewish community projects.

30.11.2006  Roundtable at MJC
This event brought together ministers of four main religions. For the first time ever, two rabanim, a mufti, a Catholic priest and an Orthodox clergyman met at Minsk Jewish Campus to express their worry and indignation as to repeated acts of vandalism of memorials, sanctuaries, offices of cultural and ethnical institutions.

27.11.2006  Looking forward to … Shanghai
Two members of MJC table tennis team on the draft to the national team for the 2007 Special Olympics World Summer Games in Shanghai were competing at the Sports Festival dedicated to the International Day of Solidarity with Disabled Persons November 26.

23.11.2006  Torah from Smilovichi: Sequel I
Smilovichi is ceasing to be the “blind spot” in the history of Byelorussian Jewry. Isroel Plaks, a 95 years old gentleman of Byelorussian origin living in Baltimore, MA, said when learning from his son about the publication concerning the Torah from Smilovichi: “This Torah must be the one I had my Bar–Mitsvah with”.

19.11.2006  Going in deep and learning
The latest outing organized by and for JCC “Emuna”s staff and supporters from the Keshet Family Club was dedicated to Midrashim. They were eighty to escape everyday routine for two days in attempt to transcend the common sense and conventions through the wisdom of Torah. The concept was ambitious: to make the participants understand that whatever the problem, the solution lies as near as at the Beginning of Time. Every means seemed appropriate: lecturing, staging, singing, dancing, discussing, — all in the magic atmosphere of Shabbat.

15.11.2006  25-40 gauge in action
The combination of two numbers sounds somewhat soldierly and would make an excellent name for a club of retired military, resuscitating past acts of bravery and trench camaraderie. Hopefully, this was not the case though the name sticks perfectly to the social venue launched by Minsk Beit Hillel offering everyone a rare opportunity to have a comprehensive look back to the Nineties when it all started: first madrihim, religious revival, new Jewish organizations. It was a club all right if only for one night: Kosher wine, Vietnamese food, jazz and klezmer music.

13.11.2006  “Yama” Memorial Vandalized, Israeli Cultural Center spray-painted
Last weekend two anti-Semitic outbursts marked the otherwise calm Byelorussian autumn.

09.11.2006  “Youth Peace Cup”
The opening match of the first “Youth Peace Cup” soccer tournament in Minsk (Nov.6–9) opposed players with psycho–physical limitations of the Sports Club “Olymp” sponsored by National Center for Rehabilitation and Support of Invalids, and coached by Boris Batchovski, active member of “Hesed–Rahamim" well fare organization.

08.11.2006  Competing in well-doing
The International Fair of Socially–oriented Projects was this year dominated by programs of works and services conceived to the good of disabled and disadvantaged persons from all the strata of population. Exhibitors were stressing the urging necessity of changes in addressing two main problems: physical imparity and lack of communication.

06.11.2006  Juniors on Board
If problems of succession on the managerial level seem to be the general preoccupation among Jewish organizations, only JCC “Emunah” thought of implementing a practical approach well in advance of the critical moment of the transfer of authority though even the closest look at Sofia Filkova or Irina Abramovich would dismiss that dire anticipation.

05.11.2006  JFOS meet JF&CS
It takes time to realize that things we have in common are much more important than differences. It is amazing how many similarities exist between people professionally involved into social or humanitarian activities: they largely overweight all sort of specifics when it comes to assisting the fellow creature in need and sorrow.

01.11.2006  Quoting Bertold Brecht…
It took exactly half a century since the first ever professional theatrical performance in Idish by Abraham Goldfaden's troupe in 1876 in Yassy, Rumania, before the State Jewish Theatre of the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic presented an opening premiere in 1926.

24.10.2006  The way to Bykhov
The very first German troops appeared in Bykhov on July 4. It took them another month to plot the “Aktion”, which by mid–October 1941 reduced the Jewish community of the small ancient city of Bykhov nearly by half. Five thousand Jews were executed through August to October; the rest were doomed to live the martyrdom of the ghetto.

23.10.2006  Atlanta — Minsk: looking into the future
During their five days visit in Belarus the mission from Atlanta Jewish Federation managed to form an idea on how different Jewish organizations operate and co–operate among them.

23.10.2006  Sisyphean labor of Boris Maftsir
For some time already, Boris Maftsir has been trying to fight the volatility of human memory. He works for the Yad Vashem Memorial and keeps touring FSU territories at the pains to fill the gap between numbers and names. The relationship might look somewhat metaphysical if not for the simplest of examples: out of more than 80,000 Jews exterminated in Minsk by the Fascists, only twenty thousands are now known by their names.

19.10.2006  Not Just a Caption
The snapshot showing two lovely ladies about to embrace seemingly contains no other implication than what an indifferent viewer would notice and, eventually, forget. Yet, it might have been the only one worth taking at that modestly arranged social venue attended in the middle of a working day of Oct.16 by a bunch of mid–level city officers, health officials, local authorities and ministers of various confessions.

10.10.2006  What holidays are for...
Autumnal festivities in the MJC will end next Sunday with the celebration of Simchat Torah. They were quite special this year lit by warm sunny days and starry nights. When it was getting rainy and windy the sun was never far away sending at least a couple of rays to enliven hopes for a better life.

05.10.2006  Rescue the Torah
The 14 October 1941 when some two thousand Jews of Smilovichi perished under the bullets and the bayonets of the Einsatzgruppe “B” the torah laid still in the deserted shul waiting to be burnt or spoliated. Those were the very last moments of its sacral life. No one will unroll it with reverential awe, no one will read it before the heedful kehilah. Never more.

03.10.2006  Tania's day
The winner of the “Best Rosh–a–Shana Postcard” contest Tania Braghinskaia received her award from the JDC Country Director, Belarus and Moldova, Stuart Saffer before her coevals at the Emuna “Kohavim” Art Studio.

28.09.2006  Blessing days of joy and truth
The chain of Rosh–ha–Shana events at the JCC seemed to augur an exceptionally happy and marrowy year — even at the first glance, when it all started with a JFOS volunteers' party alternating apples and honey and “Shana Tova” cheers with brainstorming sessions that climaxed two days after into a stunning show for and in favor of young disabled and large families.

21.09.2006  We win again!
Eight members of Jewish community will take part at the 2007 Special Olympics Summer Games in Shanghai, PRC. This is one more recompense for the past achievements but also a new challenge, for they will account for a quarter of Belarus national team.

15.09.2006  Ver reid af Idish?
That possibly will be the question to ask each other when attending the premire of the show Ziama Sharfman, 71 has been rehearsing lately with his troupe: Lev, WW II hero, 82, Anna, 69, mother of two and grand–mother of four, and Anna the youngest, 60 years old only.

12.09.2006  A Zisser Yor!
Tania Braghinskaia won the “Best Rosh–a–Shanah Post Card” Annual Contest supported by JDC NY Headquarters.

11.09.2006  Allegations with question marks?
They say up there it's no good to begin an article with a question. But who really cares considering the subject? Because it's Emunah we are talking about, and a fresh start after a relatively calm period of summer vacations.

04.09.2006  Before, then, never…
Time adverbs often become inseparable from impressions and feelings they stuck to under the burden of circumstances.

24.08.2006  Integration: the way to a better world
Among the multitude of problems that arise when dealing with young disabled, the painful feeling of futility often becomes a major handicap. Perhaps, this is the reason why enthusiasts and specialists in Jewish communities keep looking for approaches that would attack the cruelest sequel of the sickness, which is social exclusion.

21.08.2006  Drive, kick and goal
Boris Botchkovski is one of the pillars of Special Olympics in Belarus, and the driving force of sports and physical activities among disabled within Minsk Jewish community.

10.08.2006  “Rainbow”, a link between Minsk and Evpatoria
Actually, “Rainbow” is the JFOS sports–and–fitness program for people with physical and other limitations. Five of them among the most active and enthusiastic rode some 1600 km in a mini–bus to Crimea this summer just to advocate their choice to companions in misfortune.

04.08.2006  Wooden “tombstone”?
Wooden matseivas (sepulchral slabs) were discovered by Beit Hillel expedition through ancient Jewish stetls in Belarus. Visiting and cleaning up old Jewish cemeteries, often abandoned and neglected, was one of the initials goals of that in week–long outing, in an attempt to preserve remaining evidences of once rich and intense Jewish past.

28.07.2006  The Homestead in Tarasovo
Initially designed as a means to assist mentally disabled youth, the “Rainbow” program started at “Hesed Rahamim” two years ago as a shop floor initiative born of the most natural need to provide sympathy and care for those who need it more than anything.

25.07.2006  Teens from Atlanta are leaving Belarus
Teens from Atlanta are leaving Belarus. Six days of wandering over a small beautiful country generated a bizarre feeling of affinity with people they just met. They speak of commitment to Jewish values, of emerging Jewish community, of support they are planning to provide for the renewal of Jewish life in Belarus.

25.07.2006  Happy Birthday!
On July 25, the president of the Union of Jewish associations and communities of Belarus Leonid Levin celebrated his 70th birthday.

24.07.2006  Shabbat in Sarwasz
Shabbat in Sarwasz began Friday morning with rabbinical counseling and making hallahs for Shabbat meal. Every move and gesture that day was full of special meaning, new to the majority. Anticipations and expectations climaxed in a solemn suite of Sabbatical prayers and ceremonies that our kids followed rapt and breathless.

24.07.2006  Atlanta News 5
Hello, Minsk, we'll be back soon!

21.07.2006  Solidarity with Israel
A solidarity action took place at MJC on July 20. The Jewish community received the Ambassador of the State of Israel who presented his government's official views on different aspects of the military standoff in the region.

21.07.2006  “We love it here
“We love it here!” That's what six Minsk teenagers say to each other when going through the events and results of another day in Barney Medintz Camp. They loved water–skiing and scooter biking, they loved three–day expedition through Georgia, they certainly loved winning a soccer game against an elder team. Who wouldn't ?

21.07.2006  Atlanta teens in Minsk!
Audrey Galix and Susan Moray are in charge of a group of Jewish teenagers from Atlanta who arrived in Minsk a couple of days ago. “It has been an absolute surprise”, they said, when talking about their fosterlings' first impressions. “We all were in a positive mood on our way here, but nobody really expected to see such a nice and modern city with lots of green spaces.

21.07.2006  It's difficult to think of a more nourishing environment for young souls than everyday activities in Sarwasz summer camp
It's difficult to think of a more nourishing environment for young souls than everyday activities in Sarwasz summer camp.

18.07.2006  Sarwasz, here we come
The way to Sarwacz International Jewish summer camp turned out to be a true Odyssey for twenty two teenagers from MJC: three days of breath–taking landscapes, good Hungarian food, fantastic cities like Budapest and its suburbs, and even an “appalling” wait on an empty night road 30 kliks from Budapest for the repair of the broken–down bus.

14.07.2006  “Atlanta News 3”
The last few days at Barney Medintz Camp were sporty with a swimming race across the lake, and roving, the latter being absolute news for the lot of Minsk teens. If archery remains a subject to master, a front–page profile on Belarus, published in the local newspaper was a definite success.

11.07.2006  “Atlanta News 2”
The main news of this week in Barney Medintz Camp was the ever–growing abundance of all kind of impressions. Independence Day firework was terrific!

07.07.2006  JFOS volunteers' action
Eager to drill and enhance the team spirit, JFOS volunteers took an action that at the first glance seemed anything but far from their usual field of activities.

06.07.2006  “Atlanta News”
Six teenagers from Minsk led by the madrichim Dima Bykhovski have arrived to the “Barney Medintz” Summer Camp in Atlanta, Georgia.

06.07.2006  Drinking kosher
Introducing Israeli kosher wine on the Byelorussian market, the company “Shtopor” took a certain risk. Fairly expensive and practically unknown by the local, rather restricted wine–drinking community, this product needed a strong marketing effort.

27.06.2006  We all feel stronger
The idea of the Young Jewish Professionals Leadership training course was born out of the pressing need for a competent and cost–effective management of ever growing activities within Minsk Jewish community.

26.06.2006  A proud and sorrowful legacy
Three new memorials in Novoelnia, Diatlovo and Smolevitchi were inaugurated during the visit of Michael and Diana Lazarus in Belarus on June 23–26 this year. Those are places among so many others where the Jewish history had left indelible marks of pain and sorrow for thousands of innocent souls exterminated in 1941 — 1942.

21.06.2006  Our memory and pain…
On June 15, the boys and girls of the JCC “Emunah” Day Camp took a trip to the small Jewish towns of Rakov and Vishnevo. They were joined by Hillel students as well as participants of Teenagers Club and the Madrichim Club.

19.06.2006  Paul Anticoni visit in Belarus
During his short stay in Belarus, the newly appointed CEO of WJR Paul Anticoni together with his predecessor Vivienne Lewis paid a visit to Borisov where he met the little Anna Volosatch.

19.06.2006  Atlanta — Minsk: something personal
When Jerry Weiner says so, he means it. For among numerous projects on the go between the Jewish Federation of Greater Atlanta and Minsk Jewish Community quite a lot are based on personal ties. Does that imply just a privileged relationship between donors and recipients? Definitely not, mostly because there is something that goes well beyond that kind of deal and makes every person involved eager to know more and better of each other. And, eventually, to help.

18.06.2006  A spur to try harder
It was just another Sunday on Minsk Jewish Campus, full of ordinary activities for children and adults.

08.06.2006  "Shavuot" for all
The "Mazl Tov" family retreat seminar is no news anymore though avidly expected and enjoyed in advance every year for some time already. But this one was absolutely special: five families with young disabled children with mental and physical disorders were invited.

07.06.2006  Olympics For All
III Summer Belarusian National Special Olympic Games for individuals with mental limitations took place in “Staiki” sports complex in the Minsk region on June 1 – 4, 2006

02.06.2006  Life is … sports
When speaking of “Special Olympics” program we usually stress the sports–and–fitness aspect of it, and we are not all that wrong. No limitations, physical or mental, must prevent disabled people from feeling strong and fit and ready to compete if only among their equals.

19.05.2006  Lag ba–Omer in the Belarusian Countryside
The most active participants of the JCC Emunah's children programs went to the countryside for the Lag ba–Omer celebration on May 14, 2006. The group consisted of 30 boys and girls.

18.05.2006  Back to the Jewish Roots
Merle and Barry Ginsburg arrived in Minsk in the evening of May 8, 2006. Their four day visit to Belarus has become a remarkable event for the couple as well as for local Jewish Community.

17.05.2006  Young Jewish Leaders from the US Visit the MJC
Over fifty young leaders from the American Jewish communities visited the Minsk Jewish Campus on May 17, 2006. Guests from the United States got acquainted with the life of the Belarusian Jewish community.

11.05.2006  New Partnership Means New Possibilities for All
On sunny morning of May 11, 2006, the Minsk Jewish Campus (MJC) again became a place that witnessed initiation of a new partnership between the Jewish Community and a Belarusian orthopedic rehabilitation center.

10.05.2006  Traditional mournful meeting was held on the 9th May at the “Yama” (“Pit”) memorial in Minsk
800,000 Jews were massacred in Belarus during the Holocaust. Traditional mournful meeting was held on the 9^th May at the “Yama” (“Pit”) memorial in Minsk.

08.05.2006  Israel Independence Day
Israel Independence Day is celebrated on the 5^th day of the month of Iyar.

28.04.2006  The 4th Anniversary of the Minsk Jewish Campus
On April 24, 2006 the Minsk Jewish Community celebrated the 4^th anniversary of the Minsk Jewish Campus. The MJC opening became a significant milestone in the life of the Minsk Jewish Community. Nowadays the Campus is the centre of the Jewish life in Minsk.

24.04.2006  Exotic Dance in the MJC
Exotic Dance group arrived in Minsk from the Israeli city of Ashkelon. In spite of the congested schedule of their performances in Minsk, the guests found time for a visit to the MJC.

21.04.2006  Pesah in Belarus
This year the Pesah celebrations started on the 12^th April. In Belarus the Feast of Unleavened Bread was celebrated in all 27 Jewish Communities across the country, and over 10,000 Jews attended the celebrations.

21.04.2006  Bar Mitzvah at the MJC
An important event happened on 17^th April in the life of Igor Konyukh and Yuri Efimov, participants of the JCC Emunah's after–school program. The two teenagers became the main characters of the Bar Mitzvah ceremony held at the MJC.

18.04.2006  Cantor Music Sounds at the MJC
Cantor music concert was held on April 16, 2006 at the MJC. It was jointly organized by the JCC Emunah's cultural club “Tchiyah” and the Association for Progressive Judaism Communities of Belarus. Cantors from the USA, Russia and Belarus took part in the concert.

10.04.2006  Lucky Winners of the Contest for the Trip to Atlanta
Two groups of the JCC Emunah’s teenagers spent their summer vacations in the camp Barney Medintz of the Atlanta Jewish Community Centre in 2004 and 2005. This summer another six JCC Emunah’s teens are going to spend the vacations in Atlanta with their American coevals.

07.04.2006  Rainbow Colors Make Their Life Brighter
The Rainbow program was initiated by the Hesed–Rachamim over two years ago. Its purpose is rehabilitation and adaptation of young disabled people with psycho–neurological problems. At present, twenty–two young disabled people participate in the program. Twice a weak, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, they are brought to the MJC.

04.04.2006  Songs in Yiddish are Forever
“Folklore Heritage in Jewish Songs” is a new project which started in the Minsk Beit Hillel on March 26, 2006. It is one of the most interesting projects ever run by the Hillel students. Within the framework of the project, young people will travel to small Belarusian towns and remote settlements, where they will meet with the Jewish folklore bearers. The students will record the melodies and write down the words of the previously unknown songs in Yiddish.

28.03.2006  “A Week of Psychological and Pedagogical Knowledge”
Lectures, discussions and master–classes are organized for the participants of the seminar “A Week of Psychological and Pedagogical Knowledge” which started at the MJC on 27^th March. The event will last for five days. About 80 persons take part in the Seminar.

24.03.2006  Purim Celebrations
Purim is believed to be one the most joyful Jewish holidays. Indeed, people of all ages — children, teenagers, adults, and elderly people — have a lot of fun and joy during the Purim celebrations. Festive atmosphere reigned during Purim–5766 at the Minsk Jewish Campus — traditional place for celebrating the Jewish holidays.

21.03.2006  Presentation of Summer Camps
Spring has come, and it is time to think how to spend the approaching summer vacations. Therefore, a special event was organized by the JCC Emunah on 18^th March — presentation of the three summer camps: Camp Barney Medintz (Atlanta, USA), International Jewish Youth Summer Camp (Sarvash, Hungary), and family retreat seminar.

17.03.2006  “Tolerance — Lessons of Holocaust”
>“Tolerance — Lessons of Holocaust” was the topic of the seminar held at the MJC on March 10 — 12, 2006 for teachers of secondary schools. It was organized by the Jewish History and Culture Museum of Belarus and the Union of Belarusian Jewish Associations and Communities. Over 30 teachers from Belarusian cities, towns and settlements participated in the seminar.

10.03.2006  Solemn Ceremony at the “Yama” Memorial
On 2^nd March former ghetto and concentration camp prisoners, World War II veterans, officials and the Minsk Jewish community members got together at the “Yama” (“Pit”) memorial in Minsk to take part in the solemn ceremony in the memory of five thousand Jews killed here in 1942. The mourning meeting was initiated by the Union of Belarusian Jewish Associations and Communities. Participants of the meeting said prayers and laid wreaths to the monument which bears inscription in Russian and Yiddish.

09.03.2006  Belarus Revisited
Michael Olshansky, chairman of the All–Israeli Association for Immigrants from Belarus, was invited to Minsk to take part in the 3^rd All–Belarusian People Assemply. When the Assembly was over, on March 3, 2006 he visited the Jewish History and Culture Museum of Belarus.

07.03.2006  Belarusian Army Soldiers Care for the Most Underprivileged Jews
The fifteenth container with the humanitarian cargo from the World Jewish Relief (WJR)  — major Belarusian Jewish Community partner in the field of humanitarian aid from GB — arrived to a warehouse in Minsk in the beginning of March 2006.

02.03.2006  Beautiful Rainbow Colours Bring Them Together
Winners of the preliminary contest, held for the clients of the Hesed Rachamim's «Rainbow» program took part in the competition devoted to the Motherland's Defenders Day. It was held on 26^th February in the Invalids Rehabilitation and Social Support Centre.

17.02.2006  Tu B’Shvat Celebrations 2006 Started in the Minsk Jewish Campus
Traditional annual Tu B’Shvat celebrations started in the Minsk Jewish Campus. The event organized by the JCC Emunah on 12th February will be remembered by its young participants for a long time.

15.02.2006  Educational Seminar for the JCC Emunah’s Madrichim
Educational seminar for the JCC Emunah’s madrichim was held on February 9 – 12, 2006 in a picturesque place outside Minsk. Thirty madrichim participated in it. The seminar program included master-classes on ornamental and applied arts, music, and theatrical skills, as well as psychological trainings.

08.02.2006  Candidates for Barney Medintz
Fifteen JCC Emunah's teenagers became the preliminary contest winners for the opportunity to spend part of their next summer vacations in the Barney Medintz summer camp of the Atlanta Jewish Community Centre. For the fifteen teens it is just a chance so far, as the final contest will be held in April when the lucky six will be determined. Meanwhile, all of them diligently study English, as proper knowledge of the English language is one of the requirements for inclusion into the team going to Barney Medinz next summer.

29.01.2006  True Partnership Has No Borders
Charitable event was held at the MJC on January 29, 2005, when gifts from the Atlanta Jewish community distributed among schoolchildren of the Minsk Jewish Community. Eighty-eight pupils received backpacks with stationary. This charitable action was jointly organized by the Jewish Community of Atlanta, JCC Emunah and the Jewish Family Outreach Service (JFOS).

27.01.2006  The first Global Holocaust Remembrance Day was marked by a solemn ceremony in the Minsk Jewish Campus on January 27,
The first Global Holocaust Remembrance Day was marked by a solemn ceremony in the Minsk Jewish Campus on January 27, 2006.

25.01.2006  JFOS Launches New Teen Program
A new JFOS program for teens called "Young Psychologist" opened in December 2005. It's goal is to help young generation to understand themselves and the world better.

23.01.2006  No Weather Can Stop Jewish Dancing
“Yes” to the competition!” – said the participants of “Fidgets” [Neposedy] – the JCC Emunah’s choreographic studio. And the decision was right. The reward for their performance at the VIII Minsk City Festival of National Cultures “Unity” was a laureate diploma.

20.01.2006  Mishpocha Magazine: New Edition, Reles in Russian
Publication of each issue of this magazine is an important event in the cultural life of the Belarusian Jewish Community. A meeting with Arkady Shulman, the editor–in–chief of the Mishpocha magazine, was organized by Hesed–Rachamim on January 11, 2006.

15.01.2006  Hanukkah-2005
Hanukkah-2005 festival was crowned by a charitable concert that took place on the 3rd January in the Minsk veterans’ palace. It was jointly organized by the Union of Belarusian Jewish Associations and Communities, JCC Emunah, and Hesed-Rachamim with the financial assistance of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.

10.01.2006  New Discoveries: JFOS Carries Out New Events of My Jewish Universities Project
Any journey starts from the first step. Natalya Dovgan believes that her project My Jewish Universities will be the first step or a bridge to the Jewish Community members' roots. It will enable them to find their place in the Community life.

03.01.2006  Loving Hearts Find Each Other in Hillel
Katya’s and Arkady’s wedding took part in Minsk in the end of December. This young Jewish couple would not have met but for vibrant activities of Minsk Beit Hillel.

30.12.2005  Toasters for Large Families
Charitable party was jointly organized on December 20, 2005 by Hesed–Rachamim and the Minsk association for parents of large families.

29.12.2005  JCC Emunah’s Cultural Events in January 2006
JCC Emunah’s Cultural Events in January 2006

26.12.2005  Rainbow that Brings Joy and Hope
A party held at the Minsk Jewish Campus on December 13, 2005 was devoted to the 2nd anniversary of the Rainbow program implementation. The MJC's management and numerous guests congratulated instructors, volunteers and participants of the program with the anniversary.

26.12.2005  Spectacles from Britain
The World Jewish Relief (WJR) organization has been a regular sponsor to the Belarusian Jewish Community for the last two years. Within the framework of the Jewish family support program the WJR has already supplied to the Belarusian Jewish Community ten containers with humanitarian aid, donated a truck to the Hesed–Rachamim and the JFOC, and opened the WJR Gifts–in–Kind Distribution Centre at the MJC.

20.12.2005  The 3rd Fair of Social Projects and Services
The 3rd fair of social projects and services was held in Minsk on December 8 — 9, 2005 at the Belarusian State University. It was initiated by the Belarusian Association of Social Workers. The fair was held within the framework of the nation–wide open competition for social projects and reports prepared by state organizations and NGOs providing social assistance for different groups of population. Over 100 projects were presented at the fair. The slogan of the fair was “We are going to build our future together!”

13.12.2005  Their Tree of Wishes will Blossom and Give Wonderful Fruits
Exhibition of works of art created by gifted deaf-and-dumb pupils from the art studio “Farba” was held on December 9, 2005 at the MJC. “We are planning to continue our cooperation with the art studio.

11.12.2005  Constituent Assembly of the “Jewish Culture and Art Academy”
Constituent assembly of the international public association “Jewish Culture and Art Academy (JCAA)” was held on December 11, 2005. The Academy's activity will be directed at the Jewish nation's cultural heritage preservation, as well as development and popularization of Jewish culture and arts. Currently, preparation for its official registration is under way.

09.12.2005  Jewish Cultural Society “Emunah”
Emunah's Cultural Events in December 2005

04.12.2005  9th Community Festival of Jewish Books (CFJB) was held at MJC on November 13 — 20,
Community Festival of Jewish Books (CFJB) was held at MJC on November 13 — 27, 2005. Its topic was “Jewish writers in the era of changes”. It became a tradition that books, published during the inter–festivals period, are displayed and presented on the 1^st day of the festival.

30.11.2005  JF & CS mission to Minsk
Yael Stein, Lisa Morgan, Jennifer Stapel–Wax and Lori A. Wilson from the Jewish Families and Career Service, Atlanta, US, visited Minsk on November 13 — 20, 2005. During their stay in Minsk the visitors got acquainted with the Hesed–Rachamim and JFOS's structures and activities, as well as with the JFOS's partner organizations: non–Jewish NGOs and associations for invalids.

28.11.2005  How to present annual report and social project…
Information meeting “How to present annual report and social project at the Fair” was held on November 21, 2005 at the MJC for the participants of the 3^rd Fair of Social Projects and Services (http://www.basw–ngo– by.net/).

28.11.2005  Press Conference in Minsk
Press conference “Righteous Gentiles of the World. Discovery of New Names by the Jewish History and Culture Museum of Belarus” was held on November 17, 2005 in Minsk in the National Press Centre of the Republic of Belarus.

15.11.2005  Jewish Healthcare International Mission to Minsk
Over five years ago Jewish Healthcare International (JHI) mission arrived in Minsk for the first time. From that time on, such visits are made on a regular basis. This year three JHI representatives — Robert Bernstein, Judith Bornstein and Ilana Ben Shahar — visited Minsk from 31^st October till 5^th November.

10.11.2005  Post-camp Seminar
Summer camps in Sarvash (Hungary) and Atlanta (USA), retreat seminar in the Crimea, consorting with teen ambassadors from Atlanta here in Minsk – those were the most impressive events for members of the JCC Emunah’s teenagers club and madrichim school during hectic summer months.

01.11.2005  Sukkot Picnic
On a bright and sunny day the JCC Emunah’s teens and children clubs organized a picnic. Children and teenagers left the city with bags full of food-stuffs and construction materials. Having arrived at the picnic place in a forest, they started to gather branches and brushwood for building a temporary dwelling called sukkah. Naturally, this happened during Sukkot when Jews leave their comfortable flats and houses and spend a week in a shabby dwelling with a leaky roof in order to experience the feelings of ancestors in the course of their 40-year wandering in the wilderness. Joy and enthusiasm overwhelmed youngsters during the building processes, and perfect dwelling was built “quick as you can wink your eye”.

01.11.2005  Children Day Camp
JCC Emunah proposed a wonderful alternative to the Community families: children day camp!

31.10.2005  “Charity and Jewish Education” Conference
“Charity and Jewish Education” conference was held in Minsk on October 21 — 23, 2005. Ninety persons took part in the conference, representing 15 organizations from 13 Belarusian cities.

21.10.2005  Representatives of Minsk Social Services are Impressed by Hesed's Activities
On October 11, 2005 Hesed–Rachamim hosted a round table devoted to Elderly People's day and Mother's day — both events are celebrated in October. Representatives from different bodies of the population social protection system participated in the meeting, including heads of social protection departments of the city of Minsk, directors of regional centres for social services, experts from the labor and social protection committee subordinated to the Minsk city executive committee and experts from the Ministry of labor and social protection of the Republic of Belarus.

20.10.2005  Round Table in Kolodishchi
“Organisation of work on development of physical culture, sanitation and sports for disabled people” was the topic of the round table held on October 6 – 7, 2005 in the Disabled Sportsmen Support Centre in Kolodishchi, suburb of Minsk.

19.10.2005  Rosh ha-Shanah in Mazal Tov
Rosh ha–Shanah celebration in Mazal Tov on October 16, 2005 was bright and dynamic. Festive atmosphere reigned at the MJC: beautifully decorated hall, melodic Jewish music, cheerful and funny clowns meeting the guests at the entrance…

23.09.2005  Mission of the World Jewish Relief Organisation to Minsk
On September 18, 2005 the World Jewish Relief (WJR) mission headed by Honor Vivienne Lewis, the WJR Executive Director, arrived in Minsk for a three–day's visit. On the same day the WJR representatives at the festive ceremony, held at the Minsk Jewish Campus (MJC), donated a truck to the Hesed–Rachamim and the Jewish Family Outreach Service (JFOS) and opened the WJR Gifts–in–Kind Distribution Centre.

19.09.2005  Wedding
The Minsk Beit Hillel must be a record-holder in a number of Hillel weddings – about 20 young Jewish families appeared in the city of Minsk during the last few years.

14.09.2005  Families with disabled children in the Rogachov Sanatorium
Families with special needs require human compassion and assistance. They experience much sadness in their lives, and only sometimes they have minutes, hours and even days filled with smiles and joy. And this is the case for the four Jewish families with disabled children who have treatment and rehabilitation in the Rogachov Sanatorium since the beginning of September.

12.09.2005  JCC Emunah opened a new season.
With the onset of a fall the Jewish Cultural Centre Emunah opened a new season. Children studios, providing education in painting, vocal, choreographic, decorative and applied arts, received their pupils on the first Sunday of September 2005.

31.08.2005  Family Retreat Seminar in the Crimea
Family retreat seminar was organized by the JCC Emunah for seventy-five Jewish families. It was held in the boarding-house “Lukomorye” in the Crimea from 12th to 22nd August, 2005. Topic of the seminar was Bereshit.

31.08.2005  Families with Disabled Children in the Bobruisk Sanatorium
“It was so useful and enjoyable here: a lot of interesting events, swimming, good food and, of course, medical procedures and treatment that we badly need. I was so happy to be here together with my mum. It is a pity that our stay in the Sanatorium is over. I’d rather stay here a bit longer. Hopefully one day in the future we shall come here again”—said Ekaterina Yarotskaya, one of the ten disabled children who had treatment, rest and recreation in the Bobruisk Sanatorium from 9th to 29th August 2005.

30.08.2005  Teen Ambassadors from Atlanta — Review of the Visit
“We miss our new friends. It is wonderful that we have Internet, thanks to which we can regularly exchange messages” – said the JCC Emunah’s madrichim at the meeting devoted to the results of the Atlanta teenagers’ visit to Belarus, which was held on August 3, 2005 under the chairmanship of Sofia Filkova, director of the JCC Emunah.

29.08.2005  Not a single desolate Jewish grave
Earlier or later each individual starts thinking of the ancestors and of the responsibility for preservation of their memory.

22.08.2005  Great success of Freigish on the Belarusian State Philharmony Stage
The Freigish ensemble was created in 2003 at the JCC Emunah. It is a unique ensemble of the Jewish cantor music. It consists of 7 persons: two soloists, four musicians and arranger. Its goal is to revive the cantor art in Belarus. It is the only ensemble of this kind in country. And in spite of the fact that this musical group was organised only two years ago, it is gaining popularity with every day and its success is obvious.

27.07.2005  Welcome to Jewish Belarus!
The first group of students graduated from the Jewish Tour Guides program at the Jewish Museum of the JCC Emunah in Minsk on June 21, 2005. The students' work during the academic year resulted in creation of new original excursion routes to Jewish sites of Minsk.

25.07.2005  Shabbat in Hungary
Shabbat in the Sarvash International Jewish Youth Camp became an event to be remembered for a long time. Preparation for Shabbat started early in the morning. Madrichim told the youths about peculiarities for meeting the Sabath , taught them to sing the Shabbat songs, and reminded them of the Jewish wise men's famous expressions.

22.07.2005  Small in numbers, great in achievements
The JCC Emunah's group is the smallest one among the FSU countries in the International Jewish Youth Camp in Hungary. Though small in numbers, the teenagers have achieved excellent results in sports and demonstrated versatile talents in arts.

21.07.2005  Ancient Jewish Traditions Kept Alive in Minsk
Tuesday, July 19, 2005 became an important date in the life of the Minsk Jewish Community, as on this day one more baby went through a Brit Milah ceremony in the city of Minsk.

21.07.2005  Israel is in my heart and in my soul
The JCC Emunah's 15 teenagers and 2 madrichim arrived in the International Jewish Youth Camp Sarvash on July 16, 2005. The camp was opened in Hungary in 1990 with the financial support of the AJJDC and Ronald Lauder Foundation.

20.07.2005  A concert of Klezmer music
A concert of Klezmer music was given by a well-known American violinist Yale Strom in the big hall of the Minsk Jewish Campus on Monday July 18, 2005.

15.07.2005  Righteous Gentiles Alley Opening in Bobruisk
On July 3, 2005 the Alley of Righteous Gentiles was opened in the city of Bobruisk. Israeli and German diplomats, Jewish rabbis and Orthodox priests, representatives of the city authorities and other officials participated in the solemn ceremony. The idea of the memorial creation was born in the Bobruisk Jewish Community,

14.07.2005  Visit
On July 10-14 Phil Schatten, JDC new board member and his wife Cheryl Fishbein visited Belarus. They visited MJC, got acquainted with the activity of Hesed-Rachamim, JCC Emuna, visited the Jewish History and Culture Museum of Belarus.

12.07.2005  Opening of Memorial Plaques at the Holocaust Massacre Sites
Memorial plaques at the Holocaust massacre sites were opened in Rakov and Vishnevo (Minsk region) on July 10 and in Parafianovo (Vitebsk region) on July 11, 2005. This event became possible thanks to noble efforts of the Committee for Preservation of the Memory of Holocaust Victims and generous support of Simon Mark Lazarus Foundation (Great Britain).

10.06.2005  "Peace" for the Future
A group of German school students and teachers visited the Jewish History and Culture Museum of Belarus . The trip to Belarus took place in the framework of “Peace” German project.

07.06.2005  Strategic Management and Rapidly Changing Environment
A conference on strategic management for Belarusian Jewish Community leaders and Hesed directors was organized in the Minsk Jewish Campus by the Minsk Institute for Communal and Welfare Workers (ICWW) on June 5–6, 2005.

06.06.2005  What is Shabbat Celebration About?
A special seminar-Shabbaton was organized for participants of the volunteer drama studio Mishpocha and family clubs Keshet and Yeladim on June 3-5, 2005. The seminar premises were arranged by JCC Emunah in a picturesque place outside Minsk that hosted over 60 Shabbaton participants: Jewish children and their parents.

29.05.2005  Special Event for the JCC Emunah Pre-School Program Graduates
Annually dozens of JCC Emunah pre–school program graduates go to school. On May 29, 2005, over 100 Jewish families came to the Minsk Jewish Campus to enjoy the concert that was organized by the community for children who will become “First–Graders 2005” this coming September.

29.05.2005  First-Graders 2005
Annually dozens of JCC Emunah pre-school program graduates go to school. On May 29, 2005, over 100 Jewish families came to the Minsk Jewish Campus to enjoy the concert that was organized by the community for children who will become “First-Graders 2005” this coming September.

24.05.2005  Representatives of the Jewish and Tatar Communities Meet in the Jewish History and Culture Museum of Belarus
Representatives of the Jewish and Tatar Communities of Minsk as well as a number of Righteous Gentiles living in the city met in the Jewish History and Culture Museum of Belarus on May 24, 2005.