"There are generations of Jews in Ukraine who do not even know that they are Jews," Odesa rabbi

Intent continues a series of video conversations with clergymen from southern Ukraine, which aims to show as broad and complete a picture of religious life in the region as possible.

This time, the journalists visited Rabbi Menachem-Meidl Wolf, the rabbi of the Odesa synagogue at Station 9 of the Big Fountain.

The rabbi told about the challenges faced by rabbis in modern society, who in Judaism are not just priests, but a kind of judges, interpreters of the Torah and advisors on everyday life according to the Jewish scriptures.

"In the original, a rabbi was a person who was like a guide to Judaism. That is, people who are interested in Judaism, Jews, of course, who are interested in Judaism, who want to know what it is. How do they do that? They turn to a rabbi, who either directs them to the books or tells them what is in these books. This was the first function of the rabbi. The second function of the rabbi was in Jewish society: if there are any problems, desires, disputes, relationships, the rabbi solves these issues," Mandy Wolf explained.

However, in the post-Soviet space, and Ukraine is no exception, rabbis have acquired another function: to return Jewishness to Jews.

"There are many Jews in Ukraine, but not only in Ukraine, in the entire post-Soviet space, who had their Jewishness taken away from them. They could not be Jews. And this was for three or four generations. So today there are Jews walking down the street who don't even know that they are Jews, or they know that they are Jews, but they don't know what it means. That is why a rabbi, in addition to being a family psychologist, a child psychologist, an educator, and doing everything in a Jewish life, has a new task: to reconnect Jews to Jewishness, that is, to enable Jews who have had their Jewishness taken away from them to understand this and to decide for themselves whether they want to regain their Jewishness. Therefore, this is a question that is addressed to the rabbi today," Mandy Wolf emphasized.

Earlier, Intent had already visited Father Oleksandr Smerechynsky, the abbess of the Holy Archangel Michael Monastery of the UOC (MP), Seraphim Shevchyk. Archbishop Athanasius, the head of the Odesa Eparchy of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine.

Кирило Бойко