IN-DEPTH FEATURES
The Story of the Vaad Lehatzolas Nidchei Yisroel

Part Four: Fanning the Embers -- Present and Future

Whoever Saves a Single Jewish Soul . . .

Rabbi Ariel Levine, Chief Rabbi of Georgia and a veteran Vaad operator, was told about Yosef (not his real name) by the Jewish Agency's shaliach in Georgia, who used to travel to Rustavi, a town forty kilometers from Tbilisi, to teach Ivrit.

On one of his trips there, he had met Yosef. Some time before, Yosef had come across a Tanach and had been teaching himself. With his long beard, the result of his having read about the mitzva of lo sashchis, Yosef must have appeared distinguished, perhaps patriarchal. However, he naturally had not the slightest idea of the existence of Torah Shebe'al Peh. Yosef is over thirty five and still a bachelor. He has already learned a lot but the best thing for him would be to come to Eretz Yisroel and set up a home. Meanwhile, he remains on in Georgia, for the sake of his widowed mother.

Roman (not his real name) is middle aged and occupies a communal position among Georgian Jewry. One day, he came to Rabbi Levine to inform him that a Jewish missionary group R'l, had arrived in town to spread their message. They rented a theater and put on a musical show. When the group's leader, an American Jew (part of whose image was the display of an Israeli flag), took the stage and began to speak about J., Roman stood up and yelled, causing an uproar. The result was that the man was thrown off the stage. However, the group simply relocated to Yervan, where there is also a Jewish community but where they found no opposition. They were able to begin operating undisturbed.

These are two examples of what can be encountered by rabbonim and teachers "on the job," throughout the lands of the former Soviet Union. Patient labor, which for years may only show meager results, does not make the most exciting of stories, vital though they may be. Seminars and events, visits and tours, all generate a lot of atmosphere, and have a powerful effect on the participants, as has been seen in earlier accounts.

What about the work that goes on in the communities -- perhaps gatherings of Jewish population is more accurate -- where the life of the local Jews still follows the same day- to-day rhythm that it did five or ten years ago? Over six years' experience has shown that transforming these populations into kehillos is by no means a straightforward proposition.

If they advance enough in their appreciation of what Yiddishkeit demands, Jews of the former Soviet Union will invariably leave their native lands for the stronger Jewish centers where the facilities exist that will enable them to lead more Jewish lives. Those who are left are usually less informed and/or less motivated. The task of the intrepid few who either stay on or travel in from abroad to teach and lead, is an uphill one. In conversations, they repeat the advice that their own rabbonim and teachers have given them with regard to their goal: their work should be geared towards the individual nefoshos whom they will affect, or who will be approaching them.

Undoubtedly, the reclamation of one Yiddishe neshomoh for Torah that would otherwise have remained lost, justifies the investment of resources in this work. But what of the rabbim? Is there hope for change on a large scale? To what extent should limited means be channeled into providing the structure of Jewish communal life where little interest is exhibited?

Here opinions and approaches differ. Reb Mordechai Neustadt, Vaad chairman, acknowledges the complexity of the situation and the difficulty in knowing where to concentrate. On the one hand, arrival in Eretz Yisroel unprepared and ignorant of Yiddishkeit is a situation which is to be avoided if at all possible, and the first line of the Vaad's work has always been with those who plan on emigrating. However, there still remain significant numbers who are not planning to leave and there are even Jews returning to their native lands. Doesn't it make sense to try to build kehillos there? Can Jewish life still be built there? There is little motivation, though there are places where a basis exists. "Or," asks Reb Mordechai, "should we perhaps say, `We are interested in dealing with whoever has resolved to leave for Eretz Yisroel,' and simply forget about the rest?"

In practice, the Vaad attempts to do as much as possible on all fronts. The sense of responsibility that inspired the formation of an entire relief apparatus to help a handful of struggling ba'alei teshuvah, does not -- indeed, cannot -- distinguish between the more and the less motivated, between relatively small circles of confidantes and much larger populations of lost souls. Although full commitment to mitzva observance may not be on the cards at present, there is at least hope for the future as long as a basis exists. If nothing is done now, even that slight hope dwindles away.

Another important factor to bear in mind is the presence of other, sinister influences, that are trying to attract ignorant Jewish souls. Part of the impression which organized Jewish religious life makes upon a Jewish population is the reinforcement of individuals' sense of identity. They may not be interested in becoming full participants but they will realize that they have a heritage of their own. Overall, the Orthodox Jewish presence on the communal scene in Russia is a powerful influence in countering other forces.

As far as the practical resolution of these issues goes, local conditions are a major factor. There are locations, such as Kishinev and Saratov, where highly successful work has been and is being done by the Vaad with youth. Large numbers of them have become truly observant, amongst them are even many dedicated bnei Torah. The background of the adult Jewish populations in these places is European/Ashkenazi and despite the astonishing success with the youth, the communities themselves have not changed markedly.

Communist ideology did not penetrate as deeply in the Asian provinces of the former Soviet Union as it did in the European ones. Though ignorance there is almost as widespread, the Jews of Georgia, Azerbaijan, and elsewhere have maintained warmer ties to their religion than those from whose midst the embers of the past were ruthlessly stamped out by the Communists. Unlike the large cities, distinct Jewish populations have remained in these locations, providing a basis, at least, upon which to build. In these regions, the Vaad is currently involved in ongoing projects in Tbilisi, capital of Georgia and in Baku and Kuba, both in Azerbaijan.

This article will survey the work in these latter places (Kishinev and Saratov will be surveyed in the concluding article), and examine the effects it is having. It scarcely needs mentioning -- but should still be pointed out in the present context -- that many other Jewish groups are involved in a variety of outreach projects in numerous locations across the former Soviet Union. Even in speaking about the Vaad, no attempt has been made to evaluate or even to mention the contributions of all the organizations and individuals who are or who have been involved. No conclusions should be drawn from the omission of the many names and initiatives that were truly worthy of being noted. On the other hand, although this article, like its predecessors, deals only with the Vaad Lehatzolas Nidchei Yisroel, many of the issues it raises are common to all comparable work that is being done.

Tbilisi: On the Map

As more and more opportunities presented themselves for kiruv work in the former Soviet Union, the Vaad's leadership constantly sought suitable openings. As one of the first groups in the field, they were in a position to act swiftly in order to consolidate the early start which their own and other chareidi groups made. One of the most successful initiatives was launched in Tbilisi, Georgia in 5753 (1993), with the installation of Rabbi Ariel Levine as Chief Rabbi.

Rabbi Levine had been "discovered" by Vaad shelichim some years before. His early knowledge about Yiddishkeit was gained from Rabbis Eliyohu Essas and other leaders in the informal network of ba'alei teshuvah.

In the mid-eighties, Vaad shelichim noticed the great promise of the young baal teshuvah and many visits were made to Tbilisi in order to learn with Ariel on a one-to- one basis. Rabbis Moshe Eisemann and Aviezer Wolfson were among those who went to spend long hours teaching him Chumash, gemora and Shulchan Oruch.

In the conditions that prevailed under the Communist system, Ariel's work as a computer engineer also afforded him ample time for progressing on his own. Frequent power failures and breakdowns of the equipment, meant that work often came to a halt. When this happened, one of his co-workers would remind him of the seforim which he kept nearby for such eventualities, and he would take them out and begin learning. In this way, he was able to almost complete learning through Nach with commentaries in two years, while in his workplace!

As perestroika progressed, all of Rabbi Levine's friends left the country. For family reasons, Rabbi Levine was unable to do so and it became increasingly difficult for him and his wife, herself a ba'alas teshuvah from St. Petersburg, to maintain their lives as chareidi Jews without the benefit of either a similar upbringing, or a peer group to provide mutual support. Once, when discussing his situation with Rabbi Mordechai Orbach of Ohr Somayach in Toronto, Rabbi Levine asked for advice and was told, "Start teaching!"

Three people responded to the first note which Rabbi Levine posted about the weekly Torah classes he would be giving. More came to the second shiur and there were sixty at the third, with attendance eventually reaching one hundred.

At the beginning, Rabbi Levine taught Ivrit. This was a good way to attract people, since many of those who were planning aliya were anxious to learn the language. Where there were no prejudices beforehand, this could lead swiftly to learning about Yiddishkeit.

Rabbi Levine would ask those who came, whether they wanted to learn Torah as well. He recalls that the Ashkenazim who came didn't know what Torah was, so he started telling them. "One Georgian student said, `I have to ask my parents if they allow me.' The next day he came back and said that his parents didn't allow it. `Okay,' I said, `So just Ivrit.' We opened the book [and read]. `Ani David.' Who was David? The king of Israel. `Ani Esther' . . . Queen Esther. I told them about her and they learned Ivrit in that way. In the end, he became chareidi and so did his brother and parents!'"

Another Georgian bochur who was living and studying in Moscow, having been accepted in an institute which did not normally take Jewish students, visited the class together with a friend of his who attended regularly. After hearing the shiur, he decided to begin keeping the laws of kashrus. Since he had no way of doing this if he remained in Moscow, he returned to Tbilisi and joined Rabbi Levine's yeshiva. This bochur went to learn in one of the best yeshivos in Eretz Yisroel.

A more recent talmid of Rabbi Levine's travelled to Eretz Yisroel and managed to learn mila, shechita and sofrus there in well under a year! Back in Tbilisi, his services as teacher, mohel, shochet, and sofer are invaluable to both the local and the wider Jewish communities.

The Needs of Your People

The number of ba'alei teshuvah from those years alone, reached one hundred and fifty. Sixty families met Rabbi Levine at a reunion that was held two years ago, on one of his trips to Eretz Yisroel.

As the scope of Rabbi Levine's work broadened, boys' and girls' yeshiva high schools were opened, with a total enrollment of about one hundred. A more recently opened student program offers lectures on computer studies, Ivrit and Yahadut.

Two of the initial participants went on to Ohr Somayach in Yerushalayim, while another, who remained in Georgia, became shomer Shabbos. Twenty men of varying ages learn in the kollel while Rabbi Levine and Mrs. Levine's Irgun Rachamim distribute sorely needed support and aid to local Jews, irrespective of their degree of commitment.

The degree of the Levines' physical involvement in this latter work matches that of their achievements in the educational sphere. Here are some of the recollections of Dr. Meshullam Klarbeg, a shaliach from Australia, who travelled to teach in Tbilisi on several occasions.

"Reb Ariel's Shabbos table (I almost wrote tisch), is something to be experienced. Organized by his wife Devorah, meals are served upstairs in the classroom, as their downstairs apartment is not large enough to accommodate the visitors. There are fifteen to twenty guests every Shabbos -- some regulars, some invited for the occasion and sometimes some, uninvited, come along to join in the festive meal anyway. The food is more varied than on weekdays but still simple . . . There are hours of divrei Torah and singing which on occasion breaks out into spontaneous dancing . . . "

Another member of Rabbi Levine's team, Rabbi Yisroel Davis, has been involved with the schools and the kollel for several years. He also speaks of his great admiration for Rabbi Levine who, although not a strong person physically and despite the difficulties which some secular organizations (Jewish, unfortunately; the gentile authorities are encouraging religious life) have placed in his path, has made such a tremendous contribution to Georgian Jewry.

Rabbi Davis notes that even the goals of the chinuch offered in Rabbi Levine's schools have to be regulated to fit the circumstances. Promising individuals are directed towards pursuing their learning elsewhere but the goal for the majority is set at shemiras Shabbos and attending beis haknesses. This too, is in accordance with an observation said to have been made by one of the recent gedolei Yisroel who, in noting that a number of Russians were dropping out of the full time learning frameworks to which they had -- perhaps too hastily -- been directed, observed that basic mitzva observance ought to be the universal goal, rather than universal yeshiva study, at least to begin with.

Although the Torah and mitzvos which Rabbi Levine and his staff try to inculcate in their pupils can be observed far better in Eretz Yisroel, they have to face the reality of a large proportion of the pupils settling in Georgia. The girls in particular usually follow their parents in choice of domicile. This understandably makes the school's task much harder, for it may not then represent the first step on the road to a new life, so much is an attempt to break the inertia of a settled state of affairs.

The girls' school organizes trips to Eretz Yisroel, during which the young visitors hear lectures and shiurim from a wide range of dati and chareidi speakers and travel extensively in the Land. The experiences of these few weeks can serve to crystallize the instruction that has been absorbed during years of schooling, as well as having a crucial role in the decision that will be made by those who do later emigrate, namely, whether or not they will arrive in Eretz Yisroel as religious Jews.

Material Difficulties

Living conditions in Tbilisi are extremely difficult. After the departure of the Communists, local industry collapsed, resulting in severe unemployment. Economic difficulties compel the rationing of electric power and running water to only several hours each day, as different regions of the country are supplied at different times (although those with the right "connections" can have several plugs installed, enabling them to connect in turn to whichever region has power at a given time).

Diet too, is very restricted generally; adhering to the requirements of kashrus means voluntarily eschewing even part of what is available. (The Levines for example bake bread at home.) In conditions such as these, Rabbi Levine has grown and developed into a true talmid chochom, esteemed by his disciples, colleagues and early teachers alike. (When one of Rabbi Levine's teachers married off a child, he asked HaRav Shlomo Wolbe and Rabbi Levine to be the witnesses.)

Despite the hardships involved, Rabbi Levine, with his handful of dedicated teachers and visitors has achieved remarkable results. Many have already left to seek the opportunity of living full Jewish lives, while those who inspired them remain. Their patience and dedication will continue to influence the Jews of Georgia, bringing many more of them back to the path which their brethren have already rejoined.

Kuba: Where Time Stopped

It was Rabbi Levine who "discovered" the old Jewish community of Kuba, Azerbaijan. Arriving there in order to obtain a harsho'oh for writing a get, he found an entire town populated by Jews. The community managed to remain separate from their neighboring gentiles even after the Communists snuffed out religious life sixty years ago, although their isolation from other Jews had taken a heavy toll in terms of ignorance and lapsed mitzva observance.

Today, some twenty percent of Azerbaijan's approximately thirty thousand Jews live in Kuba. The community's earliest roots lie with the Jewish centers in Turkey and Kazakhstan, that were already in existence over a thousand years ago. The Jews of Kuba are thus not really Sephardim, in the sense of having Spanish roots, though they are certainly Oriental Jews in all other senses of the term. A few families did arrive from Spain around four centuries ago, as did some from Persia, a century and a half later.

Rabbi Adam Davidov, a native of the Northern Caucuses and more recently the Vaad's shaliach in Kuba found, in the course of research he conducted into the community's origins, that two hundred and fifty years ago, five rabbonim moved in with their families from Berditchev, following a blood libel in Kuba when all the town's rabbonim were killed and they subsequently despatched emissaries to the Ukraine in search of religious guidance. Thus there is also an Ashkenazi element to the population.

As recently as sixty-five years ago, Kuba still boasted a number of rabbonim and botei knesses, even after fifteen years of Communist rule. However, when a contingent of KGB officials actually arrived in the all-Jewish town, the rabbonim were either murdered or deported to Siberia and the botei knesses were all burned, except for one. Today, the sole chacham who is a native of Kuba is Rabbi Natan, whose late father, Rabbi Noach zt'l (he passed away around four years ago), was a talmid chochom who, as a boy of twelve, saw his own father murdered by the Russians before his eyes.

Relations with the neighboring Moslems have always been good. The Jews are looked up to and are given preferential treatment by Moslem traders in the market. Though in the past the economic standing of the Jews was always far below that of the Moslems, the Jews' financial situation has improved in recent years and they have been able to buy their own houses.

Many of the Jewish men of Kuba travel to China to buy merchandise which they then go to sell in Moscow. Although this gives then a comfortable income, they are away for most of the year and the town has the atmosphere of a ghost town, with only the women, children and the elderly spending all their time there.

Despite the improvement in their fortunes, living conditions remain unbelievably primitive. Cows are free to wander through the town's main street while cars are infrequent enough for it to be accepted that anyone can request a ride from their owners. Water for domestic use is obtained from electrically operated wells.

When the Vaad's 1993 leadership tour arrived in Kuba in a helicopter, all the town's Jews rushed out to meet them, excited by the arrival of the distinguished visitors and fascinated by the machine that had brought them.

Although the Jews of Kuba regard themselves as observant, their practice only extends to the few remnants of the mitzvos which they were able to preserve. They eat no chometz on Pesach and keep separate dishes for milk and meat. However, although they know that the meat of the Moslems is forbidden to them, for meat they would simply take a knife and sever an animal's head. Use of the mikveh lapsed almost entirely, though since the Vaad's involvement in the community, a brand new, kosher mikveh has been built.

On the other hand, modesty in public and private life is striking. Whether married or not, women do not walk unaccompanied in the street but are escorted by either their husband or by a close family member. In contrast to other Jewish communities in this country, intermarriage in Kuba is very low. Virtually all the girls marry men from their own community.

The talmud Torah in Kuba caters to the town's children when they are not attending classes in one of the three local schools. After learning the rudiments of Yiddishkeit in this way from the Vaad's resident teachers, many local boys left Kuba for yeshivos overseas.

However, their experiences have not all been positive. The sharp contrast between the lifestyles of their hometown and that of even the frummest American communities, proved too unsettling for many of them. On the whole, those who went to Eretz Yisroel fared no better, as they were swept up after contact with irreligious family members who had already emigrated and sadly, they absorbed the prevailing anti- religious spirit which has affected so much of the latest wave of immigrants.

Providing the youngsters of Kuba with Torah education is not a straightforward task. Although many of the children are bright and the atmosphere in the community remains positive, and despite the efforts of a number of talented and dedicated shelichim, the inertia of the prevailing norms seems harder to overcome, given the current framework, than was expected.

Baku: An Asian Capital

In the capital city of Azerbaijan, the situation is different again. Because of the city's importance, the Jews of Baku have been affected by major national events to a greater extent than those of backwater towns like Kuba. The Communist influence was very strong. All Jewish life was uprooted and ignorance about Judaism, beyond the fact of Jewish nationality, was complete.

With the Russians' departure, the country became a secular democracy. Its economy, which has lately strengthened, is based on oil. There is no antisemitism; relations between Jews and gentiles are harmonious. All these factors have a role in the currently higher than fifty percent rate of intermarriage.

Since the end of the Communist repression, Jews have been able to discover some very minimal knowledge of their own history. There was a significant initial aliya. The prevalent attitude of those who stayed towards their religion is positive and those who belong to one of the city's several kehillos are very proud to do so.

Besides several botei knesses, there is a highly admired and very successful Jewish school, which has been operating for four years. The school is extremely popular, with even gentiles claiming Jewish descent in order to gain admittance. Graduates have been travelling to yeshivos and botei ulpana in Eretz Yisroel. The Jewish school organizes lectures on Yiddishkeit for all the parents.

There is also a kollel, and a Jewish center, which houses a shop where grocery products with mehadrin supervision, imported from Eretz Yisroel, are on sale. The center also contains the premises of Akademia, a program for Jewish students, which includes computer studies, Ivrit and Yahadut.

Besides its share in the support of the existing communal structure, the Vaad also organizes special shipments of kosher food and educational equipment. All the matzos for last Pesach were sent from Eretz Yisroel by the Vaad. Although the container was held up in Greece for a while, the matzos arrived just in time and were available to the local Jews at a very subsidized price.

Meat is a problem. While Baku does have a resident shochet of fowl, there is no organized shechita of meat. Imported kosher meat costs about seven times as much as the locally available product. There is an awareness of the requirements of kashrus, but people are of course free to practice as they see fit.

Baku is different from Kuba in that the Jews of the former have a degree of urban sophistication which the warmer Jews of Kuba do not -- though compared to cities in the west, poverty and squalor abound in Baku. Through the generous help of their American brethren, the Jews of Baku do have the minimal basis for strengthening their Jewish identity. Their further progress will depend both upon the resources that are available and upon their own resolve.

This is the picture of the Jews of Baku which Rabbi Moshe Kashui paints. Rabbi Kashui, who was born in neighboring Iran and who has learned in the major yeshivos in Eretz Yisroel, has been rav of Baku and Azerbaijan for the past couple of years. He is involved in teaching and in overseeing the community's religious affairs. His dynamic character and exciting plans for future communal projects could have a galvanizing effect. In a prognosis that is affirmed by the reports of other workers in this part of the world, there is a positive attitude and a basis for progress, yet the gap remains between this and proper acceptance of mitzvos.

A Problem and Some Solutions

From Rabbi Ariel Levine's comments on the nature of the Jewish communities of central Russia, it seems that their very strengths are perhaps in some ways acting as barriers to their progress. Stalin's influence did not penetrate these regions as deeply as it did European Russia. Antisemitism was less intense and the persecution of religion, less ruthless.

Another important factor is the character of these communities, which are often thought of as being Sephardim but, in common with the other old Jewish communities of the middle east, are not descendants of Spanish exiles and have much older roots. Nonetheless they are socially and culturally similar to the Sephardic Jews. There is a tradition that Jews arrived in Georgia after the churban of the first Beis Hamikdosh, which makes the Georgian community over two and a half thousand years old, ("Our friendship started twenty-five centuries ago," wrote Dr. P. Chkheidze, the Georgian Ambassador to the Unites States and Permanent Representative to the U.N. in his message for a dinner journal produced by the Vaad.)

The ties which the Jews of these communities have to their religion are more visceral, more emotional than those of the intellectually-oriented European Russian Jews. While this has meant that they have retained more Yiddishkeit, or awareness of it, it also allows for a certain kind of frum- yet-not-frum lifestyle. They can make sacrifices for kashrus yet be lax about Shabbos observance, seeing no untenable contradiction in this as the Ashkenazi Jewish minds do. While the latter will be compelled to move to either one extreme or the other -- either embracing Torah wholeheartedly or quashing spiritual prompting by rejecting it as irrelevant R'l -- the temperament of the Jews of the Asian Russian communities enables them to maintain the same kind of attitude that has carried them through until now, which cannot really be described as ambivalence, for there is no conflict or indecision involved.

Rabbi Levine mentions the great need for sending out further mashpi'im, either English speakers who have been trained in the local language, or ba'alei teshuvah who are willing to return. In selecting people to go out to teach, he emphasizes the importance of sharing the mentality and the language of the local Jews -- this is especially so in Azerbaijan. Because these kehillos are usually closed, it is very hard to introduce a stranger to them, even a fellow Jew. This is why it has to be someone who can understand them.

Rabbi Levine's subsequent general comments apply to all who aspire to teach in Russia, or indeed, anywhere else. "This is something which not everybody is capable of doing," he says. "It's a huge mitzva but sometimes there are such stories [of unsuitable people who have been sent out for the wrong reasons]. It's amusing and upsetting. It's not `business,' being mekarev.

"First of all, one has to have the ability to teach, a warm heart, a good character, not [to be] conceited, [not to give them the feeling] that he's not behaving towards people as one ought to behave, [to be someone] who finds the good points in every person and who doesn't think that his country of origin [automatically] makes him better." He also mentioned the need for complete and long term dedication to the work, citing the example of one rav who, upon taking up his post in a town with a large Jewish population in the Ukraine said, "I will be buried here."

Even when efforts are fruitful and youngsters are prepared to travel to yeshivos, past experience suggests that surroundings should be found that are not so drastically different from what they are used to. Rabbi Uriel Abramov, who has served for a year as a teacher in Kuba and has also taught in the yeshiva for Russian boys in Copenhagen, feels that the latter institution would be ideal for boys such as those from Kuba. He maintains that the quieter and more restrained European atmosphere is far closer to what they are accustomed than the materialism of America, and far safer than the ideological minefield that Eretz Yisroel would be for them. It would thus be much more conducive to their concentration on learning and absorbing Yiddishkeit.

Ultimately though, whichever community one is talking about, institutions which only provide Jewish youngsters with several hours daily of exposure to Torah study -- as vital and as beneficial as they are -- have not been instrumental in effecting significant changes in the Jewish communities they serve.

In one of his consultations with HaRav Shach in the early years, the Rosh Yeshiva told Reb Mordechai Neustadt, "Men darf machen yeshivos in Russland! -- Yeshivos must be opened in Russia!" This was a surprising statement, considering the very limited possibilities there were at that time. HaRav Shach, however, repeated himself a year later. "Zeir fein shelichim, ober yeshivos, yeshivos . . . Shelichim are very good but yeshivos . . . you should take twenty bochurim and go and sit in Moscow with a great rosh yeshiva. By sitting and learning, Torah will take firm hold!" HaRav Shach was so insistent, Reb Mordechai recalls, that he had his hand on the receiver to call the rosh yeshiva whom he had in mind for the task. However the plan never came to fruition.

In the period immediately following the collapse of Communism, people were nervous about launching such a major endeavor because the situation was so unstable. Yeshivos Toras Chaim and Oholei Yaakov exist today in Moscow. Could the resources and the manpower be mustered for opening more?

Conclusion

All involved with the Vaad realize that the more intense the Torah learning, the more powerful the experience in reviving the Jewish spark that is buried in these Jewish souls. It is all a question of trying to achieve as much as possible with the resources that are forthcoming. This is done by adopting the strategies which prove to be most effective.

Although in the eight years since large scale emigration began Jewish populations have dwindled and establishing Jewish identity is more of a problem than ever, there are still plenty of neshomos that are blazing their way back to Torah. Could more be done? Could more Jews be reached? Those involved reply with an emphatic "Yes!"

In the meantime, the quiet, patient work goes on. One of the greatest mashgichim of the European yeshiva world, whose brilliance and pedagogic talents have had a wide and long lasting influence, is said to have attributed all of his amazing achievements to his self-sacrifice on behalf of his students and his patience with them, rather than to any electrifying effect of his personal talents. One thing is certain. In this work, nothing succeeds as much as the genuine sacrifice made by one Jew on behalf of another.

The next, concluding article in this series surveys the Vaad's work in Saratov and that of its schools in Kishinev and closes with some reflections on the singular success with which virtually all of the Vaad's work has been blessed and with a look to the future.

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