KRYMCHAKS AND KARAIMS

HANUKKAH IN KRESHCHATIK

PRAGUE'S WINTER

AT MENORAH'S FOOT

Hanukkah events of the Kiev city Jewish community began in the evening on November 30 with a film festival "Hanukkah - 5763". The next day the holiday presented a big Hanukkah concert in the MIA House of culture with the participation of city amateur collectives. Then, after the established tradition, an annual meeting of the Council of city Jewish community was held. Chief Rabbi of Kiev and Ukraine Yaakov Dov Bleich made an opening speech. The meeting discussed forthcoming elections of a new Council staff, issues related to constructing a "Heritage" center in Babiy Yar.

The conference of leaders of 14 Ukrainian Jewish organizations to include all regional, city and local organizations of various activity has elected a coordinating and representative body - Council of Jewish organizations' leaders of Ukraine. The Council is not a legal person; all its members are elected chairman in turn.

Menorah towering in the center of a town house which walls are made of Jerusalem stone, a row of benches with plates bearing names of Jerusalem's central streets in Hebrew and Ukrainian, a silver bas-relief with panorama of David's tower... That's how a Jerusalem courtyard "Kikar Zion" looks. It was solemnly opened in the territory of Jewish agency December 5.

December 13 in Kharkov Leonid Kuchma walked along the road Nazis had driven the city inhabitants to the execution. President of Ukraine opened the memorial "Drobitsky Yar". Among those present were Israel's Ambassador Anna Azari, governor of the Kharkov region Yevgeny Kushnarev, people's deputies, sponsors of the construction, representatives of the regional Jewish community, pupils of Jewish schools, clergy of different confessions, city inhabitants.

A communal grave towering in the locality Paseka near village Yarun, Zhitomir region, is a bitter, taciturn reproach to human conscience. 60 years have passed, but people's memory preserves everything down to the smallest details... Such happenings are not forgotten, and the path leading to the burial mound remains clear. 588 people are buried there. At times people come here to honour the memory of those who died a martyr's death. Children come here to lay flowers and ask an eternal question "Why?"

Covering the Israeli-Arab conflict in world and home mass media is an acute and painful theme. Partial and biased approach to interpreting the events of recent years generates anti-Israeli and revives anti-Semitic moods in most "educated" countries. That's why an information seminar, the Embassy of Israel and WJC organized for journalists and community workers, became a necessary and long overdue step.

Jewish tradition is conveyed to every successive generation. Particular significance here goes to a family - interrelationship of parents and children, mutual commitments. The first commandment a father should do to his son is circumcision (Britt Mila). This rite should take place on the eighth day after boy's birth.