Even as adults, and even if they’ve been here for years, many Bay Area Russian-Jewish émigrés never feel truly “Americanized.” Nor are they necessarily hooked into the local Jewish community.
Local Jewish organizations are making an attempt to bring them into the fold, however, through programs specifically targeted their way.
One is the Russian Young Adult Speaker Series, which aims to connect Russian-Jewish young adults with prominent Jewish leaders in the Bay Area. Since its first event in May 2005, the series has reached out to increasing numbers of people, with a mailing list of 500 to 600 names.
“My job is to build future leaders out of Russian Jewish young adults,” says Dina Jacobs, founder of the speaker series and coordinator of the S.F.-based Jewish Community Federation’s Russian division program.
The JCF’s Russian Young Adult Speaker Series focuses on professional networking. Every six to eight weeks, young Soviet émigrés have a chance to meet with a Jewish leader from the realm of business, organized religion or entertainment. Past speakers include Omer Caspi, deputy consul general of Israel, and Kira Soltanovich, a comedienne from Girls Behaving Badly.
“This is an opportunity to create something that allows educational opportunities and to meet and study from Jewish leaders in the community. And the other side of it is to be in a room with other people like yourself — to be able to connect, share a background, and be able to develop relationships,” says Jacobs, a Soviet émigré who arrived to San Jose in 1989 as an 8-year-old. She has since become heavily involved in the Jewish community — an anomaly among most with the Soviet émigré experience.
But catering to the Russian-Jewish young adult demographic is not a new concept. In 2003, Jewish Family and Children’s Services created a social group known as the 79ers (Gen-R), which aims to help Soviet émigrés wrestle with their hybrid Russian-Jewish-American identities.
Jewish programming is key to the 79ers, whose common bond, for the most part, is growing up secular in their assimilated Russian-American households. A regular event for the 79ers is the Shabbat dinner; every first Friday, the group hosts a dinner party with the Shabbat tradition at a different member’s home.
The group has an estimated 300 names on its mailing list, with ages ranging from mid-20s to mid-30s. And, thanks to the 79ers, many Soviet Jews are enjoying a reconnection to the Jewish culture and religion.
A seder last spring, for example, drew 70 guests. “A lot of those people wouldn’t have gone to seder if it wasn’t offered by us,” says Angela Privin, 79ers program coordinator. Most “don’t feel comfortable or are alienated at synagogue,” she explains.
Privin was born in Kharkov, Ukraine and immigrated to America at age 5, in 1976.
Until her involvement with the 79ers, she had “zero” affiliation with the Jewish community, she says.
Privin and Jacobs often work together, and, until recently, Jacobs was a member of the 79ers steering committee.
Jacobs can identify with the feeling of camaraderie among young Jewish Soviet immigrants. “I’ve been in a room where I look around and everyone there knows what you’re feeling, what your background is. We’re completely Americanized, but we’re not completely American,” she says.
As far as she’s concerned, “The more organizations catering to the community the better. People can pick and choose what events to attend. I receive all [the 79ers’] newsletters. They receive all my newsletters.”