Lena Zakharova, the director of the Taglit program in Russia, is obsessed by her work. She loves Jewish youth for whom she has been working since her own youthful days. Not for a moment does the warm spark leave her eyes although she may find it difficult to express it. Because it springs from the depths of her heart.

She is not accustomed to ask questions but prefers. She has been dealing with youth for many years, beginning with Jewish Agency summer camps and now for Taglit”I was a member of the Jewish community of Moscow in 1991 and when in 2006, Chaim Chesler asked me to join the Limmud task force, it was the natural thing to do and I have been involved ever since. Dima Maryasis and I put together the initial program for the first Limmud and now, five years later, I see that the Taglit participants of then are the leaders of Limmud now.  It was not easy to create in Moscow a cultural event for which people had to pay. Before Limmud, all Jewish cultural events were free of charge. Yet today we have more than 800 participants, each of which, including all the presenters, have paid for their participation.”

What makes them come? I ask.

“For me it is important to try and create something which is meaningfully Jewish. I don’t really know why. My own personal search began when I was 15 and did not even know I was Jewish. My mother didn’t tell me and today it is important for me to impart to the young generation Jewish knowledge. 

Could you not have derived the same satisfaction in working with non-Jews?

I am not sure why, but all my friends are Jewish. It is important to me to work with Jewish children and just as important to work with Jewish parents.

Why?

So that in a hundred years time, they will still be Jewish.

Lena Zakharova

While I am talking with Lena Zakharova, lectures are continuing. One of them, by Viktor Shapiro and Viktoria Saravarneskaya is on “Jewish feeling in Russian poetry.” Several Russian poets whose work was suffused with Jewish imagery are mentioned.  On the eve of the Day of Remembrance for the Holocaust I am reminded of one of these, Margarita Aliger (1915-1992) a Jewish poet but oh so Russian, who wrote:

No one can resurrect us
There is barely a remnant left
Jews, in one word
Does blood have a voice? – I didn’t know
But I did know that blood has a color

But she made a mistake in one respect – there is a remnant left. Lena Zakharova, her brothers and sisters, her students and pupils in Taglit and Limmud are the living evidence that the “remnant” is hale and thriving.

Photos & Story: Nathan Roi, Moscow 

Translation: Asher Weil