In March, the beaches of Miami and Cancun were packed with college students trading the harsh light of lecture rooms for bright sunshine during spring break.
Then there were the eight students from Hillel at Stanford, who spent their time off soaking up more knowledge than sun during a weeklong trip to Moscow from March 23 to 30.
“This was an opportunity to explore a vastly different Jewish community,” said Sam Shonkoff, Hillel’s Jewish student life coordinator. “We wanted to break out of that Israel/U.S. duo and go back to the old country, yet unfamiliar territory.”
It was the first time Stanford and the Washington, D.C.–based NCSJ: Advocates on Behalf of Jews in Russia, Ukraine, the Baltic States and Eurasia coordinated the exchange program, which this year received support from the Koret Foundation, the Taube Foundation for Jewish Life and the S.F.-based Jewish Community Federation.
Paired with students from Hillel Russia, the cohort experienced a week full of activities. One day, they met with representatives from the United States embassy; the next, they embarked on a nighttime tour of Moscow, including Red Square and the surrounding areas.
It wasn’t exactly sightseeing for Ukrainian native Julia Greenberg, but more returning to a place she hadn’t seen since she was 9.
“I was unsure how I would feel, whether I would feel connected to my Russian roots,” the 19-year-old senior said. “But being there was great. The people were very warm and welcoming.”
A majority of their trip was spent discussing with Jewish community leaders and government officials the topics of anti-Semitism, the organized Jewish community and media freedom in Russia. The group had anywhere from five to seven meetings in one day, sophomore David Kessler noted.
Outside the educational setting, the students ate dinner at the Russian participants’ homes, cooked meals for the elderly and visited a Jewish orphanage. They even squeezed in a bit of free time to wander the city.
For Kessler, Moscow, for the most part, was a place of extremes. “I was so overwhelmed by the size of the city,” he recalled. “It seemed like it was by far the largest one I’d ever been to. I never saw traffic like I saw there. I never saw such a disparity in wealth. There were expensive cars, but also people who lived in places that looked much worse than anything I’d ever seen in America.”
A history major at Stanford, Kessler attributed his interest in Russia to growing up in an area of Los Angeles heavily populated with Russian Jewish immigrants. Also, his grandmother’s brother, who was presumed dead during the Holocaust, was adopted by a family in Moscow.
Visiting Moscow changed Kessler’s perception of Jewish life in Russia, which was largely shaped by conversations he’d had with neighbors back in Los Angeles. “They made it seem like it was impossible to continue traditions during the Soviet Union,” he said.
Greenberg was “shocked by the Jewish revival” in Moscow. She said before her family left Russia, Jews worried about observing their religious practices.
“Today it was so much more open. People were connecting with their Jewish heritage.”
Still, students noticed many of Moscow’s Jewish buildings, with the exception of the very old ones, lacked a Star of David, Hebrew writing or any decorative expression of Judaism. Entering those buildings was like “going through airport security,” Kessler said.
But that didn’t detract from his experience.
“I’ve never seen Judaism practiced outside of America or Israel,” he said. “I always thought those were the primary places where Jewish life existed in the world. It was interesting to see Jews living in a different environment, feel connected to them and care about their welfare.”