Eastern Europe's Jewish community lives in the shadow of the war between Russia and Ukraine – Interview with ajs President Yvonne Bollag and board member Rivka Lang on the situation in Belarus.

​

tachles: Yvonne Bollag, you have been President of the «ajs for the Jewish community in Belarus» since Soviet times. A lot has changed since then, following the fall of the Berlin Wall. What are the main goals of the ajs today?

Yvonne Bollag: It's about helping the Jews in Belarus, today with money. In the past, we mainly sent parcels and medical supplies, but now that is no longer necessary – they are well enough organized themselves. But our partner organization UBJOC (Union of Small Jewish Communities) wants to revive Jewish life in small communities, and our other partner organization Chesed Rachamim wants to maintain the Chesed Social Centre in Minsk, because it runs programmes for sick and disabled children and young people as well as the elderly.

​

Jewish communities do not necessarily fare badly under autocratic regimes in the East. In Hungary, for example. What is the situation in Belarus?

Rivka Lang: We recently asked UBJOC and Chesed whether there is open anti-Semitism in Belarus. The answers were the same: there is none, or certainly much less than here. They are also heavily involved in public commemoration of the Holocaust, no doubt also to counteract any anti-Semitism.

 

Yvonne Bollag: You want to raise awareness of Jewish culture by consciously going public. Every two years, Judaism is also brought closer to the population as part of a festival of national cultures, and this year the Jewish community was represented by a delegation of more than 120 participants. A platform was also organized with Jewish music, dance, culinary tastings and exhibitions of Jewish cult objects etc. In addition, they work well with the Israeli embassy in Minsk, involving it and maintaining close contacts with Israel.

 

Has the outbreak of the war in Ukraine changed anything for you?

Yvonne Bollag: No, not that we felt it directly. Corona definitely had a much greater impact on the people there. At best, many families were afraid that young people might be drafted into the military. However, the programs we support continue to run, even if there has certainly been a certain amount of unrest in everyday life. What has changed significantly for the ajs, however, is the fact that we can no longer travel to Belarus. The last time we were in Minsk was in 2019, before the pandemic.

 

Rivka Lang: People live more simply, it's more strenuous, and the small communities and Chesed Rachamim still need money for their activities.

 

Yvonne Bollag: What is probably a burden for many is that the Belarusian population can no longer leave the country because they now need Schengen visas, which are subject to strict quotas. It used to be different.

 

There are no official figures on Jews in Belarus. What do you assume?

Yvonne Bollag: The numbers vary between 20,000 and 50,000, depending on how people define themselves. But before the Second World War, there were almost a million Jews in Belarus.

 

Rivka Lang: Our estimate is that there are probably 30,000, maybe 40,000.

 

However, the community is rather over-aged.

Yvonne Bollag: Yes, there is a large ageing population; many young people are leaving. You can also see this in the small congregations, which invest a lot in Sunday classes and other programs for children and young people. But the pictures we receive in the monthly reports show maybe ten children, depending on the congregation. In Minsk, of course, there are more.

 

How did the Jewish community position itself during the uprisings against the Belarusian regime, even before the war in Ukraine?

Rivka Lang: From the people we know, we can't really say that there is unity and who is more for or against the regime. We suspect that opinions are not uniform there either.

 

Yvonne Bollag: But we deliberately don't ask explicitly because we sense that our contacts don't want to talk about it on the phone.

 

ajs focused on Belarus after the fall of the Soviet Union. Why?

Yvonne Bollag: The country was assigned to Switzerland by the Union of Councils for Jews in the Former Soviet Union after the opening of the Iron Curtain. The ajs had no connection there at the time and had to rebuild everything from scratch. Martina Frank, my predecessor, made the first contact with the Chesed Center in Minsk.

 

Are there many other organizations that help in Belarus, i.e. a network?

Rivka Lang: There are other organizations, such as the Joint. But we are not networked with them.

 

Yvonne Bollag: Joint primarily supports Holocaust survivors. There are fewer and fewer of these survivors and correspondingly less money, which is always a point of contention. But there are also other institutions, such as the International Education and Meeting Center (IBB) «Johannes Rau» in Minsk, which, among other things, has set up the Leonid Lewin Minsk History Workshop on the site of the former ghetto in Minsk in order to «create a good future by remembering the past». In cooperation with the IBB «Johannes Rau», the traveling exhibition about the Malyj Trostenez extermination camp was also brought to the University of Basel in 2018.

 

Are the needs of the general Jewish population for support greater in Belarus than elsewhere?

Rivka Lang: We don't see that they need more than others; they are perhaps simply in the fortunate position of being supported from abroad

 

Yvonne Bollag: Chesed Rachamim has been doing pioneering work in the treatment of disabled children and adults for many years. They are invited by the non-Jewish population as counselors because they invest so much in supporting the disabled and sick, for which they are now known, and because the public therapeutic facilities are so poorly developed. Chesed counselors provide therapy, run camps, meet weekly in groups.

 

Why should people donate money to the Jewish community in Belarus via ajs?

Rivka Lang: Because they need our help and solidarity.

 

Yvonne Bollag: The ajs was already looking after and helping the Jewish community in the Soviet Union before perestroika. But the Jewish community is now also trying to help itself and raise funds. It is remarkable that, despite its own scarce resources, it has also been personally sending its own money to Israel since October 7 to support relatives. She needs our help to rebuild Jewish life in Belarus. She has many good ideas and does a lot of good, investing a lot of energy in good work. Otherwise it would probably all collapse and end at some point.

 

Rivka Lang: It is also largely unknown that the same terrible events happened in Belarus during the Second World War as in Poland, but we know about the latter. When you hear these terrible stories locally and visit some of the many memorials, you automatically feel the need to help rebuild the communities.

 

Some projects are mainly funded by the ajs. Which ones?

Yvonne Bollag: There are projects that only exist thanks to our support, for example "Rainbow" for disabled young people and ESRA for sick and disabled children. This help is very much needed by the families concerned. Many of these families also live in very poor conditions. The state institutions for this are simply lacking.

 

Wouldn't it be better for them to emigrate under these circumstances, or does the ajs encourage this?

Yvonne Bollag: Many young people want to leave, but others want to rebuild something. How far that is possible remains to be seen. But we should help the Jewish community to build up their own country. That's why we don't encourage emigration. Besides, we don't have the financial means to do so.

 

How do you set your priorities, also with regard to the future of the ajs?

Rivka Lang: The future is always a big issue. At the moment, we are simply doing as much as we can and trying to raise money. We hope to be able to do this for as long as possible. Two Board members also speak Russian, which helped us a lot during the video conferences with Minsk. However, we could do with more support on the Board.

 

Have you had any contact with Ukraine recently?

Yvonne Bollag: No, we've never had any, and we wouldn't have the opportunity to. We limit ourselves to what we do and hope that nothing bad happens – the troops are on the border and Belarus is indirectly part of the war.

 

Rivka Lang: And we are always happy when our remittances arrive in Minsk. That hasn't been so easy recently either, because the controls at the Swiss bank have been tightened. But so far we have always managed to send our money to our two partner organizations.

 

So donors know exactly what they are giving money for?

Rivka Lang: Yes, and we also receive the budgets and reports from the small communities and from Chesed and know what they are spending money on.

 

How do you set your priorities, also with regard to the future of the ajs?

Rivka Lang: The future is always a big issue. At the moment, we are simply doing as much as we can and trying to raise money. We hope that we can do this for as long as possible. Two board members also speak Russian, which helped us a lot during the video conferences with Minsk. However, we could do with more support on the board.

 

Have you had any contact with Ukraine recently?

Yvonne Bollag: No, we've never had any, and we wouldn't have the opportunity to. We limit ourselves to what we do and hope that nothing bad happens - the troops are on the border and Belarus is indirectly involved in the war.

 

Rivka Lang: And we are always happy when our transfers arrive in Minsk. It hasn't been so easy recently because the controls at the Swiss bank have been tightened. But so far we have always managed to transfer the money to our two partner organizations.

 

So the donors know exactly what they are giving their money for?

Rivka Lang: Yes, and we also receive the budgets and reports from the small communities and Chesed and know what they are spending the money on.