Moses' impassioned entreaty to Pharaoh has been tweaked by Rabbi Menachem Mendel Pewzner, chief spiritual leader of St. Petersburg, Russia.
No longer are Russia's Jews oppressed, he knows, but they still need help from the world's Jews in order to thrive.
Rabbi Pewzner, along with Mark Grubarg, chairman of the St. Petersburg Jewish Community and an official with the St. Petersburg governor advisory council, visited Cleveland last week. They spoke with representatives from the Jewish Community Federation of Cleveland about strengthening ties between the two cities.
A native of New York, Pewzner has lived in St. Petersburg with his family since 1992. He came to the former Soviet Union as an envoy of the late Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Schneerson.
Pewzner has been first-hand witness to the incremental growth of St. Petersburg's Jewish community since the fall of communism. However, 70 years of oppression have left their mark on a people still getting used to the idea of religious freedom, the rabbi remarks.
"Although we are no longer in desperate times, we still need help from the international Jewish community,” echoes Grubarg, a native Russian who accompanied Pewzner during a Feb. 28 visit to the CJN.
St. Petersburg's Jews require emotional, political and financial assistance, says Pewzner, who has been the city's chief rabbi since 1996; he coordinates a Jewish school, two kindergartens, and a yeshiva in the city.
Cleveland's Federation already supports programs of its own creation in St. Petersburg through the Overseas Connections Committee (OCC). These programs include Passover Project, where young adults from Cleveland conduct Passover seders with members of the St. Petersburg Jewish community. Federation also assisted in funding of the newly constructed YESOD, which will serve as the Russian city's Jewish communal headquarters.
While "there is a lot of Jewish work going on,” says Pewzner, the reconstruction of St. Petersburg's physical and emotional Jewish infrastructure is still very much a work in progress.
For example, citizens are speaking freely to government officials about Jewish causes, notes Grubarg. More importantly, he stresses, government officials are listening to Jewish concerns, which was unheard of 20 years ago.
The government has also returned various Jewish-owned properties to their rightful owners, and has allowed synagogues and Jewish schools to operate in St. Petersburg and other Russian cities.
Grubarg, who grew up in a stifling, government-sanctioned atmosphere of religious oppression, calls that progress. As a boy, Grubarg received his Jewish education strictly at home. He attended Leningrad State University in the late 1960s to pursue a teaching career, and was one of only two Jews in a class of 400 students.
Jewish communal life at university was nonexistent. Grubarg donned tefillin in his dorm room each morning and celebrated the High Holidays in private. Students who tried to organize any public Jewish activity were expelled. If not for the fall of communism, Grubarg says he probably would have made aliyah to Israel.
Today, Russian Jews have a communal infrastructure in place and are free to worship as they please. However, that sense of freedom has been dulled by decades of living without a religious identity, Grubarg laments.
"We still have to remind people why they should live a Jewish life,” agrees Pewzner. Russian Jews, he adds, have yet to grasp how Judaism has the power to unite a people. There is an inherent "lack of understanding” among Russians about what it even means to be Jewish.
A certain amount of "Jewish pride” exists within the community, explains Grubarg, but among older Russians that pride exists only in the vaguest sense. Too many Jews don't realize the necessity of being plugged in to their local community and giving what they can of both their financial and emotional support, he says.
Hope lies in the younger generation, continues Pewzner, and not just those older students active in St. Petersburg's Hillel. Even young children attending Jewish schools are taking what they've learned and sharing that knowledge with their parents and grandparents.
Pewzner and Grubarg see this as Russia's "window of opportunity”: young people growing up Jewish and then raising an active Jewish family within the country's borders. While some Jews have left for Israel, Europe and the U.S., Russia still has a solid base of young Jews to work with.
But Russia's Jews cannot succeed alone, Pewzner admits. They need to partner with strong Jewish communities stateside and throughout the world. That may be the only way these once-oppressed people can truly grow.
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