(Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, Krivoi Rog, Donetsk, and Kyiv) Report of a ...

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Boston. Beit Baruch offers conditioning classes, physical therapy, arts and crafts, and
other programs to its residents.
Ms. Kizhner stated that 43 of the current residents are suffering from dementia, 28 have
had strokes, and 16 have had heart attacks. Twenty-four have cancer. Eighteen have
diabetes, five of whom require insulin. (Some residents
suffer from more than one of these conditions.) Many are
bed-ridden. Eleven residents died in 2010, the eldest of
whom was 99; the most common cause of death was
cancer. Additionally, continued Ms. Kizhner, 15 people
left the facility in 2010 to join relatives in other countries,
most in Israel or Germany.
Alexandra Kizhner, the manager of Beit Baruch, is respected by
Beit Baruch residents and other members of the Dnipropetrovsk
Jewish community as well. She had emigrated to
Israel and worked in a senior housing facility there before
returning to Dnipropetrovsk.
Photo: the writer.
18. Adopt-A-Bubbe/Adopt-A-Zayde is an independent assistance program created
by Dr. Judith Patkin, the Executive Director of Action for Post-Soviet Jewry in
Waltham, MA. The Dnipropetrovsk organization supports elderly Jews in
Dnipropetrovsk itself and in 15 additional cities or large towns and numerous smaller
towns in eastern, central, and southern Ukraine. 30 However, the total number of towns
served has declined as Jewish populations in these villages have diminished to the
point where service calls are economically prohibitive. At any given time, said Yan
Sidelkovsky, 31 who, along with his wife Tanya Sidelkovsky, directs AAB operations in
the Dnipropetrovsk region, approximately 1,000 Jewish seniors are in their service
census. Elderly people who die are replaced by younger pensioners; the younger
pensioners may have greater needs because they do not receive the government
pension bonuses given to veterans of World War II. The program also supports some
working-age Jews who are chronically ill or handicapped, as well as some Jewish
families with young children in which the parents are unemployed.
The Sidelkovskys are assisted by local coordinators in most of the larger Jewish
population centers in which AAB is active; the coordinators receive modest stipends for
their work, but these stipends are less than full salaries. In some cities, volunteer
physicians also are enlisted in AAB efforts. The program attempts to address
30 The program also operates in several other cities. However, this report deals only with the actions that
are directed from its Dnipropetrovsk office. In addition to assisting Jews, Adopt-A-Bubbe also reaches out
to elderly Righteous Gentiles, i.e., those from families who helped Jews during the Holocaust.
31 Yan Sidelkovsky also represents the Boston Jewish community in Dnipropetrovsk. See pages 48-49.
Tanya Sidelkovsky was visiting one of the smaller AAB communities, along with Dr. Patkin, who was in
Dnipropetrovsk at the time that the writer spoke with Mr. Sidelkovsky.