VITEBSK, Belarus – The latest incarnation of Limmud FSU (former Soviet Union) took place for the first time in Belarus over the weekend, one of the most storied countries in Jewish history.

Once home to a thriving Jewish community decimated by World War II, Belarus produced nine Israeli presidents, two Nobel Prize laureates and dozens of world-class rabbis, intellectuals and artists. Notable among these figures are President Shimon Peres, former prime ministers Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir, former president Chaim Weizmann, the Soloveitchik rabbinical dynasty, and renowned artists Marc Chagall, Chaim Soutine and Nahum Goldmann.

In Vitebsk, a four-hour drive outside the capital of Minsk, over 500 young Jewish men and women converged from Friday to Sunday to learn more about their shared history.

Even Peres’s daughter, celebrated linguist and author Prof. Tzvia Walden, flew in from Israel with her husband, Sheba Medical Center deputy director Prof. Raphael Walden, to speak at the historic conference and to honor her father’s childhood home outside of Minsk.

“I am honored to be here to represent my father,” said Walden when the Belarus government designated his modest childhood home a national monument last week. “I know he would have been so happy to be here with all of you.”

Still, Belarus’s tragic history – shrouded by the mass murder of 800,000 Jews who had lived there for centuries – was never far from the minds of the many participants who traveled from other FSU countries, America and Israel to attend the gathering.

“We must never forget the genocide that took place here,” said famed Belarus architect Leonid Levin, who is chairman of the Union of Belarusian Jewish Public Organizations and Communities, on Friday at a memorial site where 5,000 Jews were slaughtered. “This is our past. This is part of who we are.”

Prominent philanthropist and businessman Matthew Bronfman, who chairs Limmud FSU’s International Steering Committee, said he had traveled from New York to attend the conference in Vitebsk to help reconnect young Jews with a once-severed history.

“Our conferences embody the very spirit, energy and excitement of a new and young generation who are eager to reconnect with their own rich intellectual and religious heritage, from which they and their parents were cut off during 70 years of Communist rule,” he said.

He added that Limmud was “a revolutionary approach to questions of Jewish identity and education, and has become an inseparable part of the circle of Jewish life for young and not-so-young Russian-speaking adults.”

The volunteer-driven Limmud Jewish education conferences, first conceived in Britain 33 years ago, have since branched out internationally in nearly 10 countries, including Canada, Australia, the US, Switzerland, Turkey, Israel, Ukraine, Russia, and most recently Belarus.

Limmud FSU was founded in 2006 by Chaim Chelser, of Israel, co-founded by Sandra Cahn, of New York, and Mikhail Chlenov, of Russia, and Aaron Frenkel, of Monte Carlo, is the president. The organization presents world-class Jewish scholars and professionals on topics including Diaspora Jews in the 21st century, Jewish art history, Torah and business, Israeli society, science and the soul, Jewish philosophy and Jewish-themed dance classes.

“We combined Limmud with Vitebsk, the capital of culture of the former Soviet Union – the country of Chagall and many other distinguished artists, as well as the former home to two great Israeli leaders and Nobel Prize winners, Shimon Peres and Menachem Begin,” said Chesler.

He praised the governments of Minsk and Brest, known to be politically restrictive, for having agreed to honor Peres’s childhood home and recognize Begin.

“It is a great achievement for Limmud to work on a joint effort of this kind with these governments, and shows that there is still a future for Jews in this part of the world,” he said.

Yana Osipova, an 18-yearold college student from Belarus, said Sunday that she was attending the conference to learn from world-class professionals.

“I belong to a Jewish club in my city and I live a Jewish life, so this project is interesting to me because many interesting people with different interests are here, and they’re willing to share their experience and knowledge with other people, and they do it with pleasure,” she said.

She added that there was “no problem being Jewish in Belarus.”

“There are some people who sometimes laugh at Jews, but that’s not a problem – especially when you meet and learn from people like this,” she said.

Participants certainly had a breadth of options, with speakers including senior Peres adviser Yoram Dori; Susan Goodman-Turnarkin, senior curator emeritus at the Jewish Museum of New York; Israeli Ambassador to Belarus Yosef Shagal; director, producer and screenwriter Boris Maftsir; and actor and director Shmuel Atzmon, founder of the Yiddishpiel Theater in Tel Aviv.

Vasilisa Smirnova, a cosmetics business developer from Moldova, said this was her seventh Limmud conference.

“I’ve become a Limmud addict,” she said over the weekend. “For me, this is important because I find Jewish culture very deep and very wise, and because I am young and looking for answers. I have found that Jewish culture helps me find answers to questions like, ‘Who I am in this world?’ and ‘What I should do?’” Kate Kozenkova, a 19-yearold college student, traveled four hours from Minsk to attend the conference, even though she is not Jewish.

“It’s a great opportunity to meet new people from all over the world, and I think it’s a good forum for promoting Belarus, which I love,” she said. “I think that the Jewish culture and community are great. I have never seen such close relationships between people who have never met before – they speak and connect with their hearts.”

While Kozenkova said she did not have any Jewish friends in Minsk, she noted enthusiastically that she had made several over the two days of the conference.

“For me, it’s your culture that I love – there are so many unbelievably interesting things about it that inspire me,” she said.

The people, she continued, “are so open and kind….

They smile at each other and are like a big family, and it doesn’t matter where I’m from or what I do…. It’s like an island paradise of Limmud.”

For Julia Davyelava, a musician and English teacher from Belarus, the Vitebsk event was her first Limmud conference.

“I wanted to learn what Limmud was all about because I’m a creative person and have interests in different spheres – philosophy, psychology, religion and literature,” she said. “I attended amazing lectures and now feel like I’m taking with me a little piece of gold from the beauty I saw here.”

While the vast majority of attendees said they were pleased with the lectures at the event, Anastasia Rosenberg, a Jewish Agency employee from Moscow who has attended five conferences, said she was disappointed by Vitebsk’s limited offerings on art history.

“I was an art history major, and I had hoped for more information about art in the sessions, since Chagall is from here, but I felt that the presenters were too broad in their presentations,” she said. “I just wish they offered more details about the art of great Jewish artists like him, and not general facts that I already knew.”

Despite her complaint, though, she said she was grateful for the program’s overall ability to educate her in a number of other areas of Jewish history and culture.

“Every Limmud is a step forward in life because you learn so much every time you attend,” she said. “This is why I keep coming.”

Natasha Lukyanava, a pianist and English translator from Minsk, said Limmud organizers had paid for her to attend the conference when health problems left her short of cash.

“I wasn’t able to pay to come because I was having trouble with my back and was unable to work,” she said. “But I wanted to come because I wanted knowledge – it’s just something from inside me. And Limmud let me come without paying.”

She said organizers had provided her with train and hotel fare so she could meet a friend at the conference, who helped her over the two days.

“I thought, if God wants me here, He will provide for me,” she said with a smile.

“And He did.”

She added that it was her dream to make aliya one day.

“I have been to Jerusalem a couple of times, and I really felt connected to it – like the saying, ‘If I forget Jerusalem, may my right arm wither away,’” she continued. “I felt like [Israelis] were my family, and I hope to come back to see them again soon. I feel like it is my country because the Old City’s Jewish Quarter has an atmosphere like Minsk.”

Meanwhile, Limmud FSU COO Roman Kogan, who has been instrumental in arranging all of the program’s conferences throughout the former Soviet Union, America and Israel, said he was delighted at how well Belarus’s first Limmud panned out.

“We are very proud to launch the Limmud FSU project in Belarus,” he said after the conference concluded.

“We worked very hard for many years to make this happen, and for the first conference here, it was brilliant in terms of the quality of the program.”

He thanked the numerous volunteers and presenters who had contributed.

“For Belarus it’s a huge project, because it gives the young generation of Belarus Jews an alternative platform for building their Jewish community and life, and I hope it will become a regular Limmud destination and continue to grow, because Belarus has a very rich Jewish history.”

Indeed, Kogan said he hoped Limmud would help reestablish a Jewish presence in a land where Jews once thrived and contributed to the world.

“We hope Limmud will contribute its own piece to this colorful mosaic for today’s Jews,” he said.

Dorn was president of the Union of Religious Jewish Congregations in Belarus at the time of his arrest last year. He is charged with tax evasion, to which he admitted last week according to the Belarus paper Nasha Niva, and abuse of power or authority. Prosecutors accused Dorn of renting out space belonging to the Jewish community without permission. Dorn denies the power abuse charges.

The maximum penalty for tax evasion is up to seven years in jail and foreclosure of all assets. If Dorn also is convicted of abuse of power, he may be sentenced to three to 10 years in jail for that offense.

On March 21, prosecutor Tatiana Rak asked the Central District Court of Minsk to hand down a five-year sentence to be served in a medium security facility. She also requested the seizure and foreclosure of all Dorn’s assets and his disbarment from serving in publicly elected positions for five years. BelaPan, a local news agency, reported the verdict will be announced on Friday.

Last month, prosecutors in Minsk dropped bribery charges that were included initially in their indictment.

Dorn was arrested in March 2012 on allegations that he had mismanaged the community’s property for personal gain. Police also said Dorn had been caught accepting a $13,000 bribe in a sting operation.

On March 2, 2013, UCSJ President Larry Lerner and International Director Leonid Stonov had an hour long Skype discussion with the Chair of the Moscow Helsinki Group (MHG), Luidmilla Alexeeva. Alexeeva is a long-term partner of UCSJ. She arrived in the US on March 1, 2013, after being invited by Senator Benjamin Cardin, chairman of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), also known as the U.S. Helsinki Commission. During her stay in the US, Alexeeva will have meetings with many key members of Congress and the human rights community.

During the Skype conference, Alexeeva described the severely deteriorating human rights situation in Russia. She cited the detention and arrests of participants of peaceful meetings and rallies and spoke about the many difficulties that NGOs face today. These range from issues with registration to the regular tortures occurring in police stations and jails. In addition, she described other problems such as the censorship and control of information, increasing extremism and the threat of the new “agents of influence” law that can prevent NGOs from receiving foreign grants.

MHG continues to support UCSJ’s monitoring of antisemitism and xenophobia, as well as our advocacy for the victims of such abuse. MHG permits us to use their network for this monitoring. Alexeeva also stressed that the West needs to improve its collection and dissemination of information regarding mass violence against human rights workers in Russia. UCSJ promised to help with this issue.

UCSJ and Alexeeva also spoke about the Crisis Support Center that we run in our office in Washington D.C. The CSG works to help threatened members of the human rights movements.

Finally, the UCSJ leadership congratulated Alexeeva on her nomination for the Nobel Peace Price (together with Belarusian activist and political prisoner Ales Belyatski) and expressed full support for this nomination.

This is another result of the case against prisoner of conscience Ales Bialiatski, whose trial was universally declared as unfair. He is the chair of Viasna and Vice-President of the International Federation for Human Rights. Part of his punishment, in addition to a four and a half year prison sentence, is a fine and the confiscation of Viasna’s office.

“This is yet another blatant disregard of the Parliamentary Assembly’s calls to the authorities of Belarus to stop harassing civil society and human rights defenders,” said Andres Herkel, Parliamentary Assembly Council of Europe (PACE) rapporteur on Belaru. “Meanwhile, Ales Bialiatski, Viasna’s Chairman and a human rights defender, is still in jail, where he is subject to ill-treatment, despite repeated calls to the authorities to free and rehabilitate all political prisoners in Belarus.”

The staff at Viasna remain steadfast in their mission, however.

Israeli President Shimon Peres, born in Belarus, said at the opening ceremony, “My mother sang to me in Russian, and at the entrance to this museum, memories of my childhood flooded through my mind, and my mother’s voice played in my heart. I came here to say thank you.” Other visitors stated that their parents, who left Russia during the 1970’s, simply could not believe that such a museum now existed in Moscow.

The complex’s state-of-the-art design features interactive galleries that bring the visitor into the world of Russian Jews at a specific period in time. The NY Times reports, “Touch the screen in one exhibit in this vast building and a visitor can appear in a mirror dressed in the garb of a 19th-century blacksmith, or a trader or a ‘representative of the intelligentsia.’ Tap a Torah in a virtual synagogue, and a cantor’s voice rings in the air. In a virtual Odessa, one can sit down in an interactive cafe to chat with long-dead writers.”

The museum does not shy away from the darker periods of time for Russian Jews– the Odessa cafe exhibit includes touch-screen tables that ask the question “If your store were destroyed by a pogrom, what would you do? A) Give up and emigrate to the West, B) Stay in my hometown and try to rebuild the store, C) Join a Jewish self-defense league and prepare for the next pogrom or, D) I am still in shock.”

Despite the many positive reactions to this new, $50-million museum (that was partially funded by President Putin), the LA Times points out that this does not put to rest problems surrounding the surge of racist nationalism in Russia. A week ago, thousands of nationalists marched throughout Moscow denouncing Jews, Masons and various other ethnic, religious and social groups, many wearing black hoods and high boots.

Commissioner Fule stated,  ”I fully understand the personal suffering of your husbands and your families. I call once more on the Belarusian authorities to immediately and unconditionally release and rehabilitate all political prisoners. I also urge the authorities to refrain from exercising pressure on and subjecting political prisoners to inhumane conditions.”

October 30, 2012

Dear Mr. President:

The Union of Councils for Jews in the Former Soviet Union (UCSJ), an American independent grassroots human rights NGO founded in 1970, strongly protests the continuing persecution of journalists and other activists in Belarus. This policy shows that Belarus authorities openly ignore international treaties, especially the Helsinki Final Act, the European Charter on Human Rights and Articles (including # 19) of the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights.

We firmly object to charges against journalist Andrzej Poczobut, a correspondent of Gazeta Wyborcza, a Polish daily newspaper, and a prominent Polish-Belarusian minority activist. Now he cannot leave Grodno and must register with the police three times a month. He is officially charged with “libeling the President” under Article 367(2) of the Belarus Criminal Code, for 12 written articles that were published in Belarusian independent media. He has written about prisoners of conscience and criticized the authorities’ response to a wave of “silent protests” in Belarus in the summer of 2011. He also protested against the execution of two people in connection with a series of bomb attacks in Belarus. He wrote that the process violated the laws and that their guilt was not proven.

Charges against Mr. Poczobut have not been dropped, and he still faces a prison sentence in Belarus of more than seven years. Mr. Poczobut believes that his arrest in the summer of 2011 is an attempt to intimidate him and prevent him from carrying out his journalistic activity. Mr. Poczobut also received a 3- year suspended prison sentence on July 5, 2011 on the same charges for other newspaper articles.

The UCSJ asks you personally to stop the violence against and persecution of journalists and human rights activists in your country, and that you fulfill all of your official obligations regarding these issues. Immediately retracting all charges against Andrzej Poczobut, Ales Belyatsky and the other political prisoners can be the first step in this direction. We know that the Council of Europe’s policy toward Belarus is dictated by a sincere attitude toward its people and by a desire to support a legal state where the Rule of Law is a priority.

Sincerely,

Larry Lerner
UCSJ President

Poczobut has published articles in Belarus that criticize the process and decisions made in criminal cases, the government’s official response to the June- August 2011 “silent protests” and the treatment of Belarusian prisoners of conscience. He is clearly being targeted for his work, and is not being allowed his right to freedom of expression.

 Amnesty International is asking that concerned people:

“…write immediately in Belarusian, Russian or your own language:

• Calling on the authorities to terminate criminal persecution and drop the charges against Andrzej Poczobut immediately;
•  Urging them to guarantee the right to freedom of expression in line with their international human rights obligations, including Article 19 of the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights.