For San Francisco oral surgeon Len Tolstunov, walking the streets of Jerusalem for the first time was déjà vu all over again.
“We felt like we’ve been here before,” he says of his trip. “Lots of Russians, Jews, food, everything was like a dream you had before.”
But it was no dream. Tolstunov, along with 28 other Bay Area Russian Jews, made the trip in October, and as often happens when visiting Israel, strong bonds quickly formed.
The trip was the culmination of a two-year project called the Jewish Community Federation Institute for Russian-Speaking Leaders (JCFI). Its mission: to develop a cadre of Jewish lay leaders from within the local émigré community.
JCFI is a project of the S.F.-based Jewish Community Federation.
Starting in February 2006, Tolstunov and his colleagues began a comprehensive study of Judaism. Monthly lectures covered Jewish history, holidays and community activism — an alien concept for many from the former Soviet Union.
“We were looking for people that were already professionally successful,” said JCFI coordinator Elina Kaplan, who helped recruit participants. “When we came together for the first session, the people said all the pieces of their life were in place and they were looking for the next big thing: a connection to the overall Jewish community.”
“It was very educational,” notes Tolstunov, who emigrated from Moscow in 1989. “It was a chance for us to get to know certain milestones of Judaism, information about Israel, American Jewry, things we knew very little about.”
By the time participants completed all the monthly sessions, which were conducted in English, they knew as much or more about their heritage than many American-born Jews.
And then it was time to party in the Jewish state.
“The mission [to Israel] was basic,” Kaplan says, “to bring to life the educational component of what they had been doing in the sessions, and to inspire.”
The entourage spent 10 days in Israel, hitting popular sites such as Jerusalem’s Old City, Masada, the Dead Sea and the ruins in Caesarea, as well as a few stops most tourists never make. Meetings with Russian-born Knesset members, military personnel, and leaders from Israel’s nearly 1 million-strong Russian-speaking community offered the travelers a rare inside look at Israel today.
“We were talking to Russian-speaking Jews in Israel,” says Galina Leytes, a JCFI coordinator who joined the travelers, “and that made a big impression on us. Some were very successful business people. We met with talented performers, and we met with the old babushkas. People were able to relate.”
Russian immigration to Israel came in two waves, the first beginning in the late 1970s, and the second in the 1990s. Tolstunov says those who came first had an easier time assimilating into Israeli society — in part, perhaps, because they were a more ardently Zionist group of refuseniks.
The second wave, which included a sizeable number of non-Jewish Russians, was larger and generally has had a harder time assimilating, though many converted to Judaism.
“It was interesting to see why people were happy or unhappy,” Tolstunov says. “Many are very much in love with Israel and happy to be there. Maybe 1 percent was not happy they stayed.”
But the trip wasn’t all policy-wonking. The group had plenty of fun too, from swimming in the Dead Sea to attending the theater and musical events.
“It’s like your loving mother cooking for you all the time,” Leytes says of her Israel experience. “All this wonderful, nice variety.”
Now back home, the JCFI participants must decide what to do with their newfound knowledge, attachment to Israel and community-minded fervor. Kaplan says the group will continue to meet as they plan individual and collective tzedakah projects. She won’t consider the program complete until they take it to that next level.
“This was beyond what we had planned to accomplish,” says Kaplan proudly. “After the trip I walked into the room and people had tears in their eyes. I think they have a stronger Jewish identity in the kishkas than many American Jews.”