From March 14-22, 2010, students from Hillel at University of Maryland Baltimore County will volunteer with the Jewish community of Odessa, Ukraine.

Previous posts from UMBC Hillel in Ukraine: Arrival in Odessa

Reporting from The Octoberskya, our hotel in Odessa… it’s day two in Ukraine.

The streets are starting to become more familiar. Initially, we were shocked by the contrast of seeing trolley cars, old buildings, drivers driving on the wrong side of the street, alongside well-dressed people wandering the streets. It all begins to settle in and become normal, a regular part of our everyday scenery.

We each set two alarm clocks for this morning, but somehow managed to oversleep. Luckily we were still able to finish breakfast only 10 minutes behind schedule.

First stop today was the Beit Grand Jewish Cultural Center, where we had the privilege to learn about the importance of the Center and meet the elderly from the Hesed. (Photos from this visit and our other service activities are below!)

The Hesed is a JCC program that not only gives food supplies or funds to empower the elderly to purchase materials, but also provides classes and entertainment to the Jewish elderly in Odessa. Students engaged the senior citizens participants by sharing experiences and learning some new dance moves. As many of us speak Russian, Yiddish and Hebrew, we were able to communicate very well!

Afterwards, everyone had some fun outside with the kindergarten students. During lunch, things got more serious. Professor Vladimir Dubovik, an U.S. foreign policy expert, gave a summary of the economic, political, and social situation of the Ukraine from its origins until present day.

Afterwards, our service work continued with a trip to the Odessa Hillel Center that is being renovated. Painting, cleaning, scrapping, amongst other things, left the place a lot tidier, and ready for day two of renovations.

After a hard day’s work, we had an amazing dinner at the Hutorok Ukrainian restaurant, providing students a feel for Ukrainian cuisine – kosher style, of course. This was followed by a reflection session, which left us thinking about what we had learned since the journey began, with interesting topics such as “should gender be defined as male or female?”, “is there a such thing as ‘Jewish Statehood’?” or “what does community mean to each of us?”.

More updates to come!

~ Luanna

* Pictures of our service so far! *

UMBC Hillel (www.umbchillel.org) joins the JDC in planning a short-term service trip to Odessa, Ukraine, Baltimore's sister city in the Former Soviet Union in March, 2010. We are thankful also to have the support of THE ASSOCIATED: Jewish Community Federation of Baltimore's Odessa Committee.