Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Kiev
Quick reminder: this is the third posting in the series.
We left Lviv by sleeper car train on Thursday night and arrived in Kiev Friday morning. After reuniting with the other students traveling in Ukraine, we went on a short tour of "ancient Kiev" and then to Shabbat services. The Shabbat services here were very touching and enthusiastic. Although the congregation was very small, they clearly took great joy in coming to the small synagogue and participated fully in the service. New tunes were played, many written by the young cantor from this synagogue.
Saturday we spent the day touring the city, seeing sites and accidentally running into an enormous anti-parliment rally. Saturday night we attended our final Ukrainian seder, which included a live band, matzah eating contests and dancing into the night. It felt a bit like a bar mitvah. After the seder, our friend Tanya and her fiance Losha came up to our hotel room where they played some of the music we heard Friday night. Jamie recorded it on his ipod to bring home to share. In turn, some other students shared some American Jewish music that hadn't yet made it to Ukraine.
Sunday, as our last view of Kiev and Ukraine, we visited Babi Yar. Babi Yar was an enormous ravine where the Nazis killed hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians, Jews, Gypsies, rebels and more. Most were Jewish. Today it is less than half the depth it once was and is now a large public park. The only reminder of what happened there are a few memorials and the trees that grow in the park where the soil is impossible for growth, but so much human ash under the surface makes life possible. There is a small Jewish memorial and it is only a few years old. Ukrainians do not learn about the tragedy of Babi Yar in their curriculum and many do not know what they are walking through as they stroll through the park.
We leave Babi Yar and head to the airport. Our trip to Ukraine has been a quickly swinging pendulum, from death to life, from tragedy to triumph, from memorials to living communities. Here we are at the end, saying goodbye to our new friends, once again looking at death, tragedy and memorials. I can't decide if this has meaning, or if it's simply where the itinerary allowed for time. In any case, as I look back at Babi Yar, this horrific place, I am struck by how many trees grow where a half-century ago trees could not grow. Life keeps going on. Maybe that is the lesson here in the Former Soviet Union, keep on living, keep on trying, our people continue to survive.
Kiev:
Babi Yar:
We left Lviv by sleeper car train on Thursday night and arrived in Kiev Friday morning. After reuniting with the other students traveling in Ukraine, we went on a short tour of "ancient Kiev" and then to Shabbat services. The Shabbat services here were very touching and enthusiastic. Although the congregation was very small, they clearly took great joy in coming to the small synagogue and participated fully in the service. New tunes were played, many written by the young cantor from this synagogue.
Saturday we spent the day touring the city, seeing sites and accidentally running into an enormous anti-parliment rally. Saturday night we attended our final Ukrainian seder, which included a live band, matzah eating contests and dancing into the night. It felt a bit like a bar mitvah. After the seder, our friend Tanya and her fiance Losha came up to our hotel room where they played some of the music we heard Friday night. Jamie recorded it on his ipod to bring home to share. In turn, some other students shared some American Jewish music that hadn't yet made it to Ukraine.
Sunday, as our last view of Kiev and Ukraine, we visited Babi Yar. Babi Yar was an enormous ravine where the Nazis killed hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians, Jews, Gypsies, rebels and more. Most were Jewish. Today it is less than half the depth it once was and is now a large public park. The only reminder of what happened there are a few memorials and the trees that grow in the park where the soil is impossible for growth, but so much human ash under the surface makes life possible. There is a small Jewish memorial and it is only a few years old. Ukrainians do not learn about the tragedy of Babi Yar in their curriculum and many do not know what they are walking through as they stroll through the park.
We leave Babi Yar and head to the airport. Our trip to Ukraine has been a quickly swinging pendulum, from death to life, from tragedy to triumph, from memorials to living communities. Here we are at the end, saying goodbye to our new friends, once again looking at death, tragedy and memorials. I can't decide if this has meaning, or if it's simply where the itinerary allowed for time. In any case, as I look back at Babi Yar, this horrific place, I am struck by how many trees grow where a half-century ago trees could not grow. Life keeps going on. Maybe that is the lesson here in the Former Soviet Union, keep on living, keep on trying, our people continue to survive.
Kiev:
Babi Yar:
