Dear Friends,

I was probably in my early 20s. It was the first time since my family left Leningrad in the late 1970s that I returned to the city of my birth to teach at a seminar for teachers of Jewish subjects. They weren’t really teachers of Jewish subjects. They were teachers of physics, geography, English, French, and biology who were being hired for Jewishly-themed programs that were then emerging from underground, a place that the Soviet’s thought they had safely buried any form of Judaism, or certainly of Jewish education.

​As for me, while I spoke Russian, I was an American boy, or enough of one that my American classmates never detected an accent. Yet it was in Leningrad, then Moscow, where I saw the passion of Jewish texts come alive. These were people who knew how to read, yet raised in a generation where saying what you think or understood could have been a crime. They were now testing the waters of freedom, one again being reconnected to the heritage many thought was lost forever.

I will never forget their handwritten notebooks, the passion with which they studied Hebrew, read poetry, sometimes in Yiddish, or carefully followed each Hebrew word in the texts we brought with us. It wasn’t a flame, it was a fire – and their enthusiasm for Jewish study stoked the flames within those of us who had the privilege to teach them.

We are now 30 years later and much has changed, including a need to create new formats and approaches to present the treasures of Judaism in ways that appeals to and engages our youth. But that is about delivery, not about the content.

Whatever the tools, the passion and meaning of Jewish study and activity for us – and for our future - is perhaps more important now than ever for our survival as a proud, strong, educated and active Jewish people.

Beit Avi Chai brings many programs on offer in the coming weeks. I do hope that you will join us from wherever you may be.

With warm regards from Jerusalem,

David Rozenson