Rebecca Irlin and Julia Belle Reyfman holding challah at the Russian-Language Shabbat Club.
Photo: Audrey Beeber David
After wondering about her children’s Jewish education, Viktoria Schrager says she now has a way of giving sons Sam, 3, and James, 2, a firm foundation in Judaism — Generation Я’s Russian-Language Shabbat Club.
The class, offered on Friday afternoons at the Jewish Community Center in Manhattan, is supported in part by a grant from Center Without Walls (CWW). Generation Я (Я means “me” in Russian) offers courses and events that help connect Russian-speaking Jews with the larger Jewish community. The Russian-Language Shabbat Club, which began in 2008, teaches 3- to 5-year-olds about Jewish practices through crafts, cooking, storytelling, and singing. A condensed monthly Russian-language class, Russian Tots, is offered on Sundays.
Funding for the grant to CWW, part of the Council of Jewish Émigré Community Organizations, comes from UJA-Federation of New York’s Commission on Jewish Identity and Renewal. UJA-Federation executive committee member Gene Rachmansky said the commission is proud to help “make the Center Without Walls one of the premier go-to addresses for Russian-speaking Jews in New York.”
Viktoria Schrager says of the Generation Я class, “It’s a gift … that [I] would never give up.” ♦
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