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

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Notwithstanding the relatively large size (26,000 to 70,000 people) of the Kyiv Jewish
population, Jewish community life in the capital remains weak and lacking in spirit.
Kyiv, said one observer, is a city of Jewish offices, but almost empty of Jewish life, as
such. Rabbi Yaakov Dov Bleich, the Chief Rabbi of Kyiv and Ukraine, appears to be
absent from the country on more days than he is present, and no other individual has
emerged as a leader of Kyiv Jewry. The majority of Kyiv Jews remain aloof from all
organized Jewish activity. Not only is there little noticeable dynamic Jewish life in Kyiv
itself, but the capital seems to provide little stimulus or direction for Jewish life in the rest
of the country.
Jewish Education
56. The Orach Chaim day school (School #299), operating under the auspices of
Rabbi Yaakov Dov Bleich, is the oldest of five Jewish day schools in Kyiv. It currently
enrolls a total of about 200 pupils in grades one through 11, 78 a significant decline from
its peak enrollment of approximately 470. Boys’ and girls’ classes meet in separate
buildings, each a former preschool located some distance from the center of the city.
The general Jewish demographic decline is but one factor in the loss of pupils; the
remote locations of the buildings, their lack of modernity, a secular curriculum that lags
behind that of elite public and new private schools, the intensity of the Orthodox Jewish
curriculum, the requirement that all pupils be halachically Jewish, and the single-gender
education model are additional significant deterrents to greater enrollment. The need to
maintain four separate buildings (schools for boys and for girls, dormitories for boys and
for girls) imposes a major financial burden on the Orach Chaim system. The
dormitories now accommodate approximately 20 youngsters, whereas they previously
housed over 60 children.
Khariton Gilgur, the veteran and respected principal of the school, expressed doubt
about its future. The frequent and protracted absences of Rabbi Bleich, he said,
contribute to a sense of drift in several of his endeavors, including the school. Among
the most problematic issues is the “antiquated” state of the school buildings; 79 Mr. Gilgur
fears that they will fail periodic city inspections. A new stimulus to declare one or more
of the buildings unsuitable is that the municipality now acknowledges a shortage of
78 An additional 35 boys are enrolled in a related heder and 30 girls attend a related machon with an
intensive Jewish studies course. Seventy children attend an associated preschool. The heder is located
in a building adjacent to the synagogue, the machon is located in the girls’ school, and preschool classes
are held in an Orach Chaim dormitory building.
79 Most of the four buildings were constructed in the 1960’s of material that is “more sand than cement,”
said Principal Gilgur in 2009. The girls’ school, in particular, has an unattractive façade, covered in graffiti
and with several broken outer windows. Orach Chaim must replace 100 broken windows in its four
buildings every year, acknowledged Mr. Gilgur. (The damage appears to be perpetrated by common
vandals – “bandits,” as they are called in Ukraine - rather than by antisemites, Mr. Gilgur stated.)