For Marina Braverman of Staten Island, N.Y., being together with 600 other Russian-speaking Jews from around the world at the 14th annual Russian Jewish Shabbaton weekend earlier this month was something she looked forward to all year long. It’s an annual event that her parents took her to as a teen, and where years later, she met her husband, Alex, and where she has taken her children, ages 7 and 4, since they were infants. “It gives us tremendous inspiration that lasts the whole year,” she says. “We can’t wait to come back next year.”
The three-day gathering in White Haven, Pa., brought together Jews who long ago fled the Soviet Union, more recent immigrants from Eastern Europe and refugees from the ongoing war in Ukraine for a weekend filled with seminars and song, Torah classes and prayers, food and friendship.
“It was powerful to see everybody from different places coming in and sharing the same experience,” says Alex Braverman, adding that he wants his children to understand that they’re Jewish and also have them know that they have a shared history with all of Russian Jewry.
Temuri Yakobashvili, former ambassador of Georgia to the United States, says in addition to the powerful speakers and a varied mix of topics, he was glad to see the crowd’s diversity. Yakobashvili, who attended the event with his wife, says it’s meaningful to have a mix of those who are actively practicing Judaism and those who are seeking to learn more about it, as well as the event’s socio-economic and cultural diversity.
The program was hosted by the Brooklyn, N.Y.-based Chamah—which runs humanitarian and educational programming in Russia, the United States and Israel—in conjunction with the Lubavitch Youth Organization. The weekend featured programming in Russian as well as English, and drew people from Russia, Ukraine, Georgia and other nations that were once part of the former Soviet Union; as well as from Israel and around the United States—from Miami to Boston, California and beyond.
“Having these groups together and not only being physically together, but interacting with each other, learning from each other, sharing after classes, debating, arguing, just enjoying together—that was the most incredible part of it,” says Yakobashvili. “The diversity gives you different perspectives.”
The weekend offered so much to explore, he says, adding there was something for everyone, from kids to adults. During their time together, participants heard from rabbis, authors, entrepreneurs and artists. “If you didn’t like one thing, you had other options,” he explains. Lecture topics ranged from the rabbinical court to parenting, creating sacred space, how the Talmud tackles current problems, Kabbalah, finding one’s life mission and more.
Yakobashvili came away with books about kosher, the Jewish soul, writings around Judaism, classical texts and religious texts, he explains. “I’ve also learned a lot about a variety of subjects,” he says.
A Jewish Retiree Feels Like a Newborn
Mikhail Fiterman, who was born in Kiev, Ukraine, attended the event for the first time this year. Fiterman remembers growing up without access to religion. When he came to the United States in 1994 with his family, he didn’t have time to pursue Judaism as they struggled to restart their lives in a new country. Now retired from his job in Mount Sinai Medical Center’s engineering department, he started exploring it after his wife encouraged him to go to synagogue. “I started to read Torah and watch YouTube videos, different Russian-speaking rabbis, their comments,” he says. “And I was so interested, it was a totally different world.”
And so, he and his wife embraced the Jewish knowledge available and joined for the Shabbaton’s programming. “It was my first time at the Shabbaton,” he says. “I considered myself like a newborn.”
They attended with friends from their synagogue, neighbors and friends they’d only previously met over Zoom. And for every lecture he attended, he says, there were several others he wanted to see. “During the same hour, there were three different lectures in three different rooms, you wanted to be at the same time in three different rooms,” he explains. One lecture he especially enjoyed, he says, was a talk on Kabbalah given by Rabbi Bentzion Laskin, the Shabbaton’s program director.
“There were a lot of people and this spirit of Jewish people together, celebrating and dancing and drinking and eating, communicating, socializing—it was amazing,” he says. “Our life, it’s about choices, and sometimes, you hesitate. And Torah gives you the right direction to navigate this world.”
A Spiritually Elevating Event
Dr. Isabella Reichel, a professor of speech pathology., who lives in Queens, N.Y., attended the event for the third time with her family and said every member, regardless of age, found something unique in the Shabbaton. “We all went together and enjoyed the atmosphere, the lectures, the environment,” she says of her married daughter with three children, son and husband. “It was an exhilarating experience.”
She says it was a great place to meet people and feel connected, and that she came home with a sense of excitement about the presence of an amazing religious Russian community. “People were there to learn, and to feel like we are all a part of the story of the Jewish people,” she says. “People were spiritually uplifted.”
And the event was inclusive to learners on all levels, she adds. “This is a warm, inclusive environment where everybody is embraced,” she says. “I would love for more people to know about it.”
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