Boston CJP Delegation Visits Sister City in Ukraine

(lubavitch.com) The Boston-Dnepropetrovsk model is one of the most productive partnerships between two Jewish communities dedicated to helping a former communist city rehabilitate after decades of languishing under soviet restrictions.

This week, a Beantown delegation of the Boston’s Combing Jewish Philanthropies (CJP) visited Dnepropetrovsk, and spent time in several of the city’s outstanding educational and social services facilities that have been developed through this partnership, under the leadership of the city’s chief Rabbi Shmuel Kaminezki.

At the Bet Chana College’s Resource and Education Center, one among many of the CJP’s pet projects, visitors noted the progress among the Center’s special needs children as they interacted with them, painting Rosh Hashana art projects. Meeting with staff, they discussed the application of educational theory, and explored the various multi-sensory classrooms and playground.

In other serious business, the delegation met with community members to learn more about the Micro-Enterprise Project for Women. The initiative aims to provide women with greater financial independence, particularly through the support of female entrepreneurs.

Participants exchanged ideas to improve the venture and discussed its recent progress. Doris Gordon, who manages a similar project in Boston, lauded its success. “We’re always ready to help and support,” she pledged, “with both operating and new projects.”

David Benish, the recently-named director of ORT-CIS, met with the Bostonians and local community activists discussing plans to improve technology education in the city.

In all of their meetings, the CJP delegation was consistently gratified by the positive developments they saw. When they first visited in the early 1990s, the city was bleak on all fronts.

Today, visitors are thrilled with the dramatic change in the quality of life the city’s residents, both Jewish and non-Jewish are enjoying, crediting its remarkable growth and development largely to the inspired leadership of Rabbi Kaminezki.