David Harris
Honoring Her Mother and Father: 23-Year-Old Cincinnatian on JDC Fellowship in Ukraine Helps Jewish Teens
Halfway through her year of working with Jewish teenagers in Kharkov, Ukraine’s second-largest city, Karin Goitman took time to talk with me during a quick visit to the US with the Ukrainian teens in her care, who were participating in BBYO’s International Convention in Baltimore, Maryland, which attracted thousands of Jewish teens from across the US and the world.
At 23 years old, Sycamore High School and Miami University graduate Karin may seem a pretty typical twenty-something Cincinnatian. But she has a unique story: her parents, both Russian Jews born in western Ukraine, immigrated to Israel in 1991, and Karin was born in Israel in 1993. They moved to the US with her younger brother in 2002. Last year she was accepted in the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC)’s JDC-BBYO Global Service Fellowship, a unique cohort within the JDC Entwine Global Jewish Service Corps (JSC). As one of nine JDC-BBYO Global Service Fellows, part of a partnership between JDC and BBYO, Karin’s focus in Ukraine is working with local Jewish teens. Each year, a select number of JSC Fellows with expertise in teen engagement serve as JDC-BBYO Fellows creating and developing peer-led Jewish programming for teens in their communities and additionally engage teens in international BBYO programming.
Through support of the JDC, the Jewish Federation of Cincinnati and our donors have helped Karin travel overseas, and have helped Jewish teenagers and Jewish life in Ukraine.
Danielle: How you have changed as a result of being in the land of your parents?
Karin: The most important thing is the feeling of gratefulness. Before coming to Ukraine I knew I was privileged and lucky. Now I truly feel it. I feel grateful for the opportunities that I had much more strongly and deeply than before, and especially have a lot more respect for my parents.
Tell me more about your parents.
I believe my parents’ story is incredibly brave. My biggest hope is that people in the Cincinnati Jewish community will understand that their story is not necessarily out of the ordinary, almost all of the Russian-speaking Jews they will encounter had some level of sacrifice and bravery in their story. I now have a new level of understanding of my parents. I now live thousands of
miles away from them, yet I feel as if I’m getting to know parts of them I would not have otherwise.
How was it when your mother came to visit in December?
After close to 25 years of not visiting her hometown where she spent the first 21 years of her life, it was just incredible to share that with her. There are not many opportunities in life to be a part of such a meaningful experience for someone.
How does Ukraine feel to you, given your background?
My background of having Russian-speaking parents and being born in Israel has always played a major role in my identity. The Israeli part in particular I’ve always taken a lot of pride in. It’s one thing to hear from your parents, extended family, and family friends about their experiences; it’s a different experience to put those pieces together and actually live in the place where they all came from.
Where are you locating yourself on the “going native” scale?
There are a lot of aspects of my personality that are similar to theirs, and coming with the understanding of their culture I was already “native” in a sense. I would say now I am comfortable where I am and know which parts of the culture I would like to embrace.
Passionate about the Work: Jewish Teens and Jewish Revival
Can you tell me a story about the teenagers you’ve been working with?
Well it really struck me when I attended JDC’s Active Jewish Teens (AJT) second annual conference in Lvov. AJT is the Jewish youth movement in the Former Soviet Union region, including Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus, Georgia, and Russia. Within the JDC world we talk a lot about “Jewish revival” and “developing tomorrow’s Jewish leaders.” And Jewish revival starts with kids and teenagers, they have the energy to be excited about this and the generation of kids now are the ones we should invest in. This generation is not as heavily burdened by a society that lived through the Soviet Union and the trauma of the Holocaust. These kids are the first generation who could more openly practice Judaism and be openly part of the Jewish community.
When you are sitting in a room with over 250 teens and 30 staff from around the Former Soviet Union and the US and Israel, everyone excited and cheering “AJT,” you feel like you’re truly a part of a larger global community. It was an incredible moment to see a new generation of kids excited to be Jewish. I’m not sure what Jewish revival looks like, but that moment was Jewish revival to me.
That sounds great. What else did you get out of the experience?
Once we sent the teens to sleep, all the madrichim (counselors, teen club coordinators, AJT graduates, volunteers) went to the basement of the hotel. Everyone is drinking, talking, laughing, and singing. In true Eastern European style, a huge group of people sitting around a table and just enjoying each other’s company. There was this energy in the room, a group of people instantly connected by the work that we do. At that moment I wondered if I would have been with them during this conference, working in the Jewish community, had my parents never left Ukraine. It felt like it was inevitable for me to be there, regardless.
What will you miss most about Ukraine?
I will miss the Jewish community in Kharkov and the AJT community. I love the work I do here, and what I have been able to do during this year I would not have been able to do anywhere else. I will miss some of the people I met here that became my family. I will miss the sense of Jewish community not just in Kharkov, but throughout Ukraine and even the former Soviet Union region. I feel like I could walk into any Shabbat at a JCC in a different city and have friends and people that would offer to help and take care of me.
Thanks Karin. And when will you come home?
I will be home in September, just in time for the holidays!
Karin Goitman has flourished thanks in part to the Jewish Federation of Cincinnati. She attended Yavneh, now Rockwern, Day School, which the Federation partly funds, and was involved in BBYO in high school. While at Miami, she interned at the Mayerson JCC and also served as a Student Engagement Intern at Hillel, both partly funded by the Federation. She went to Israel after her senior year thanks to grants from The Jewish Foundation of Cincinnati, through the Jewish Federation’s JQuest program (part of the Partnership2Gether collaboration with Netanya, Israel). Together with teens from Netanya and other Cincinnati teens, she attended the JDC-Lauder Szarvas International Summer Camp in Szarvas, Hungary. She has frequently volunteered to give out Meals on Wheels at the JCC, for which she says her Russian often helped. To learn more about JDC Entwine and the Global Jewish Service Corps, please visit www.jdcentwine.org.
