Jewish tradition recommends doing good discreetly and assumes that good deeds do not need to be publicized. But sometimes, that's a crime. In a world brimming with the messages of the modern day, we hear the people who shout and not those who do. The organization Shishi Shabbat Yisraeli ("Israeli Friday and Saturday"), which helps young Russian-speaking immigrants integrate into Israeli society, definitely falls into the second category. So it's likely you've never heard of them, even though they have become a home and a family for thousands of young immigrants.
The founding director of Shishi Shabbat Yisraeli, Linda Pardes Friedburg, one of the best-known figures in the Jewish world, is the only one in the organization who is not originally from the former Soviet Union. However, as a high schooler in the U.S., she studied Russian and was active in the struggle U.S. Jewry waged to free Soviet Jews.
More than anything, she is a good listener, and that quality prompted her to establish Shishi Shabbat Yisraeli. In random meetings with young arrivals from Russian-speaking countries – some had come to her home to fix her children's trampoline, and others were there to assemble furniture – she heard the same hesitation about where they would emigrate once they had completed their studies in Israel.
"They didn't feel any connection to this place, and no one tried to remind them of it," Pardes Friedburg tells Israel Hayom. "In the 1990s I had the privilege of working in the Russian department of the Joint Distribution Committee. There was a project there that took care of immigrants from the FSU, 'fresh' immigrants who'd just gotten off the plane."
"That was how I first got to know the charming young immigrants who had come to Israel, some with their families and some alone – some as part of various programs and some on their own. Even then, I heard a lot of stories about difficulties, about encountering unexpected things in a new country, and the 'freak-outs' that they were having.
"Later on, I worked with different Jewish organizations and learned something amazing: Israel and the Jewish people invest so much money to physically bring immigrants to Israel, and it's bearing fruit – Jews are coming willingly and their initial excitement is immense. But then the young immigrants finish an initial absorption program, usually a few months long, and start a long, very tough battle for day-to-day survival. They are drafted into the army and serve with great success, and after they're out, and no one gives them a hand. They're working nights to go to school in the day, and they start asking themselves: 'Why am I here? Why not go back to my own country, or move to another country?'"
Q: These are questions of identity. Can anyone other than the immigrant himself answer them?
"We've found out something simple: people are looking for a community. Everyone comes from a different background, from different cities in the former Soviet Union, from different political outlooks and different professions. With all that difference, the immigrants are looking for the Israeli common denominator and find it with us. We emphasize the things that connect us and in particular develop and strengthen the sense that their place is here."
Linking leisure to values
Sociologists would tell you that a sense of belonging feeds from two basic things – knowledge and feeling. Shishi Shabbat Yisraeli fosters both. The best lecturers share their knowledge of Jewish history, Zionism, and the history of the state of Israel with the newcomers. But the knowledge itself isn't enough.
"We want every participant in Shishi Shabbat Yisraeli events to see themselves as part of the spectrum of Jewish existence, and understand that they're part of a long, important chain," Pardes Friedburg stresses.
"With us, they are exposed to aspects of Jewish identity. For some of the participants, it's really a first meeting, and our seminars are the first hear they hear the words [of traditional Shabbat songs] 'Shalom Aleichem Malachei Hashalom' or 'Lecha Dodi.' That's the foundation on which we try to build more and more layers and show them the Jewish angle of all sorts of areas – philosophy, ecology, art, and basically everything that touches these youngsters."
Q: The name Shishi Shabbat Yisraeli sounds like a commercial for a vacation in Israel.
"That's no coincidence. I thought that it would be best to take the immigrants on a sort of holiday outside the [everyday] framework, outside the commitments and pressures of their daily routine. The name hints at that and makes an offer: 'Come with me for something fun and Israeli.' That's the connection between leisure and values, between free time and Zionism."
Shishi Shabbat Yisraeli held its first activities in December 2010. The founders of the organization scrounged up immigrants who were interested in spending a weekend at a seminar in northern Israel. A total of 35 showed up but were skeptical and suspicious.
"The first participants were a little afraid of religious coercion, of the subsidized price and that someone would try and force them to espouse various beliefs. We picked them up by bus in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv and drove to a beach on the northern coast," Pardes Friedburg says.
"It was raining cats and dogs nonstop from the moment we got there until we left on Saturday evening. Everyone got wet over and over again, but it was a huge success. I won't forget the experience of the first seminar – singing together, a Kabbalat Shabbat ceremony, and an unusual bonding experience between us all, the organizers and the participants."
The next seminar was held about two months later. There were no free spaces left, and dozens had asked to be put on the waiting list. Pardes Friedburg and her friends realized that the format would work, and it looks like everything that's happened since then has proved it.
A supportive family
Like every family, members of the organization are quick to help whenever help is needed – in finding work, an apartment to rent, or providing advice on personal matters. "We're a supportive family, tolerant, accepting, and every new friend who joins feels good there from the very first moment," says Director of Operations for Shishi Shabbat Yisraeli Ilya Lipetsker.
"This family has 7,000 members and four branches [in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa, and Beersheba], and there have already been 18 couples who met at our activities and got married," Lipetsker says.
"More importantly, dozens and maybe hundreds have given up their plans to leave the country. At one of the first seminars, we hosted a group of immigrants who were studying medicine in Beersheba. They barely knew Hebrew and were working anywhere they could to support themselves. Since then, they've become a big part of Shishi Shabbat Yisraeli. Not long ago, I met them all at one of their weddings. What a source of pride it was to see them now! They're all prominent doctors, all senior in their departments and leaders in their fields."
Q: How does the small group of organizers behind Shishi Shabbat Yisraeli manage to do so much?
Pardes Friedburg: "We are an independent nonprofit that's based on volunteerism and contributions by members. We wouldn't be able to be as active as we are without support from the Jewish world, and we're thankful to the Pratt Foundation in Australia, the Genesis Philanthropy Group, and the Posen Foundation for their support, almost from our inception, and other foundations abroad that allow us to keep going. The Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Beersheba municipalities are also happy to cooperate. But our needs exceed our sources of funding, which also change every year."
"There's a real lack of partnership with Israeli companies. For example, a company that would be willing to donate a place for Shishi Shabbat Yisraeli to hold activities on a regular basis – something we don't have in any city – or resources to support activities to empower the immigrants in terms of their professions or volunteer activity. In my opinion, the immigrants are a completely strategic investment for Israeli society, but not many are willing to make that investment," she explains.
Q: The assistance the immigrants get from the Immigrant Absorption Ministry when they arrive isn't enough?
Pardes Friedburg: "It's a mistake to think that the initial aid solves everything. Young immigrants comprise 20% of all young Jews in Israel. They will affect and shape our country. It's so important for them to encounter good, accepting people, because they'll repay that treatment to Israeli society as a whole."
"Shishi Shabbat Yisraeli is a fixing something very wrong with [our] society because it makes up for the lack of interest by other entities and even private individuals. Sometimes a bus driver or a bank teller who is unfriendly to a young person who just arrived can set the tone for their future – they'll feel foreign and unwanted. The alienation leads to more alienation, and they'll be lost to everyone in Israel. We at Shishi Shabbat Yisraeli are doing the opposite.
"Unfortunately, support and a positive attitude toward Jews you're less familiar with have become rare. … I see in the ingathering of the exiles the unique beauty of the Jewish people, something miraculous and exciting.
"The test is learning to live together, all the tribes of Israel together. And if there is a tribe that just arrived and is feeling its way out in Israel, other tribes need to extend a hand. Every tribe brings amazing things from the Diaspora, and I believe that's how the Lord wanted it to be – so we would make an effort and take all these things on board and build something greater [than ourselves] together."
Q: What is your greatest success?
"In my opinion, it's our contribution to shaping Jewish identity, to the complicated internal process that almost every Russian-speaking immigrant goes through in Israel after a crisis that most of them describe as, 'There I was a Jew, here I'm seen as a Russian.' To illustrate that, I'll quote from a letter I received after one of our activities from Anatoly, a young lawyer from Russia who arrived in Israel a few months ago.
"This is what he wrote: 'Until this evening I thought that all the big revolutions in history had to do with industry and technological advancement. This is the first time that I understood the 'revolution of ideas' that the Jewish people, which I'm part of, brought to the world. … From now on, I see history differently. My Jewish identity will now be based on studying the past, to influence our shared future."
