Kharkov

KEY FACTS

Kharkov, Ukraine’s second city, is home to around 45,000 Jews

Programming also continues to provide the elderly, children and people with disabilities with an holistic welfare package from within this framework.

People of all ages are keen to learn about, and to embrace, their Jewish heritage and WJR is providing the framework to allow this to happen.

Kharkov, Ukraine’s second city, is home to around 45,000 Jews. Following the end of WWII and Nazi occupation just 1,000 of the 150,000 strong community remained. Since then, particularly since 1991 and the fall of Communism, the community has again grown and today, thanks to WJR and other communal organisations, is flourishing.

However, the community is currently flourishing in less than ideal surroundings. The hesed is housed on the top floors of a ramshackle building across the road from the children’s services. The JCC is across town, making it all but impossible for the elderly to take advantage of the facilities on offer there. Others also find it hard to make the best use of the JCC given the poor public transport links.

WJR is in the process of changing all this by building a new, inclusive centre that will be utilised by the entire community, from mothers and babies to the elderly, from students in Hillel to adults with learning disabilities. People of all ages are keen to learn about, and to embrace, their Jewish heritage and WJR is providing the framework to allow this to happen.

Programming also continues to provide the elderly, children and people with disabilities with an holistic welfare package from within this framework.

Also in Kharkov, WJR supports the Lyceum Shaalavim, a Jewish OU School that focuses its attentions on children with learning disabilities, providing them with care and an education that the Ukrainian state simply can not provide. A WJR grant has provided specialist attention for 19 children within the school.