Simply Simferopol

Today was our first full day in Simferopol. After a hearty Ukrainian breakfast with buckwheat, many eggs, cheese and lots of bread and butter, we started off the morning with a planning session with Rabbi Misha and our translator, Tonya, to figure out just exactly how leading a seder in three different languages would work. By the end of our session, it seemed that our goal would be accomplished. We decided to have the entire seder, including pretty much everything that one's average seder would include, in the time frame of an hour to and hour and a half. While we were skeptical at first, I am happy to report that this is indeed possible, but more on that later.

After our seder plan was completed, we set out on a walking tour of Simferopol. We started off at a market place from the Soviet era, which in absolutely no way can be compared to Machane Yehuda (the open-air market in Jerusalem). Everything was so clean and quiet, and you could actually have a conversation while walking through there! The vendors were almost whispering the prices to the passerby's. After walking through the market we passed along some of the main streets of Simferopol. One of the most interesting parts of Simferopol is it's architecture, since they have buildings from the pre-Soviet era, the Soviet era, and the post-Soviet era. Each building has its own distinct style but they are nestled in together. We continued on our tour down the main street where we were able to say "good-bye" to chametz (bread) with personalized pizzas in a wild Italian pop music themed pizza place. We finished off the tour by walking to the Ner Tamid synagogue in Simferopol. The synagogue was given to the Progressive movement in the mid-1990's and they have gone through great lengths to update and improve the building. It's really obvious how hard they're working to improve their synagogue and its incredible to see and experience how every little item they receive goes to help them.




The main highlight of our day was leading the seder for the Progressive community of Simferopol. There were about 80 people who attended the seder. Most of them were elderly community members, but there were also a number of younger adults, as well as some children in attendance. All of the aspects of the seder were either said in English or Hebrew and then translated into Russia, or just said in Russian. One of the most amazing things about this seder was that even though we might not speak the same languages, the seder is EXACTLY THE SAME! Before leading the seder, we had the opportunity to help out with the making of some of the key ingredients of the seder like the charoset. It is so fascinating to see how each community has their tradition for how to make charoset. Here they grate the apples and add in vanilla sugar, walnuts and grape juice. They also had hard-boiled eggs with mayonaise and pickles, as well as Sprats (Vlad is particularly enthusiastic about these tiny canned fishes). We led most of the seder, with the help of Misha and Tonya. While there weren't enough Haggadot for everyone, it was amazing to be able to hear that community members were participating in the seder with us. Vlad gave a surprise performance of a Russian romance during the Shulchan Orech (seder meal) which the community members really seemed to appreciate! Also, watching Misha in action is inspiring. The man is one-man, multi-congregational, fundraising, spiritual MACHINE. The congregants adore him and he is an energetic and exciting leader. We are certainly learning lots about congregational leadership from him. Meanwhile Elle is really excited about learning as much Russian as possible while we're here, and she says harasho and privyet like a local.

Tomorrow we're off to Yevpatoria, a city right on the Black sea, to lead our second seder of the trip. We will be going on a walking tour of the "Little Jerusalem" (since we don't see enough of regular-sized Jerusalem) of Yevpatoria and then going to lead an early Seder. The congregation also has its own synagogue and we're fascinated to compare it to Ner Tamid, where we spent the seder today. Chag Pesach Sameach!

(Today's blog was composed by Jessie)