From Little Odessa to ODESSA

“But Odessa is just a town like any other…the problem is that you are extremely biased…Well, fine. So I am biased, I admit it. Maybe I‘m even extremely biased, but parole d’honneur, there is something to this place!” Isaac Babel, Odessa.

Having been born and raised in a community/neighborhood know as “Little Odessa” (as least as it was when my family first immigrated and when I was a child- in the 70’s and 80’s), I have sat around many family dinners listening to stories, anecdotes, and nostalgia on ODESSA. Thus, getting off the airport at Odessa, a little over two weeks ago, was quite a surreal experience. I would have believed I had arrived anywhere but ODESSA. India, China, Rwanda, or Paris but not ODESSA.

At first sight the street I live on could be mistaken for a street in the heart of Greenwich Village, NY- I am surrounded by trendy cafes with people sitting drinking lattes and surfing the web, fashion stores that are my favorite stops in SOHO, cobble streets, and oh so fashionable pedestrians. However, with a second look, a bit deeper, you realize you are not anywhere near the streets of NY. Could it be the language of the store signs (Ukrainian) or the Russian slang that people walking by are using (making the language I have spoken all my life become almost indecipherable), or perhaps it is the huge German Sheppard eyeing me as I walk into my “dvoar.”

My first weeks in Odessa, have been a whirlwind of visiting and getting to know the Jewish Community of Odessa. It was immediately clear how diverse, vibrant, sophisticated and complicated this community is. The professionals who work in the over half a dozen Jewish organizations/institutions in Odessa, led, collaborated, and jointed together by the Joint, are more than impressive in their abilities as they are in their dedication to the Jewish Community here. It is wonderful to be around colleagues, similarly to myself, who view their job not only as a job but a lifestyle. The commitment, talent, and dedication of these professionals (and active involvement in all aspects of their community) is what creates and sustains the Jewish Community here.

The Jewish Community of Odessa is estimated between 30-45,000 out of a city of a bit more than a million residents. However, as the joke goes in Odessa, “everyone in Odessa has at least one Jewish grandparent”. This anecdote attests to the rich Jewish history of Odessa, which prior to the Revolution, nearly half of the residents were Jewish. Walking the streets of Odessa, I can almost imagine great Zionist leaders like Dizengoff and Jabotinsky walking on the same cobbles streets as I am now (specifically not removed in certain parts of the city for historical preservation). I can see Pushkin (only a resident of Odessa for 13 months, but one of the most famous residents with a large monument fundraised and built by the citizens of Odessa) and Babel sitting on a bench on Primorski Boulevard looking out into the sea and writing poems and stories about Odessa, herself.

In my few weeks here, I have already had dozens of experiences that have expanded my scope of what a Jewish Community can be and is. While Odessa has always had a large Jewish population and history, I find myself amazed and constantly reminded that organized Jewish life has only existed for a little over twenty years. Prior to that, Odessa as the rest of the FSU lived under the Communist Regime for almost a century.

Thus, the amazingly active Jewish Community here today is that much more precious and inspiring. In many ways the Jewish Community here is struggling with many similar challenges as the community I arrive from, as the populations have similar backgrounds. Fore example how to bring in and engage youth (teenagers), the next generation and future, who are unexplainably missing from the picture of services for many Jewish Organizations in Odessa. As well as, how to create local self-sustaining Jewish Organizations. On the other hand the Jewish Community here faces its own unique challenges both in terms of welfare and renewal, the greatest of which seems to be defining and shaping what the next twenty years of Jewish life in Odessa will look like.

ODESSA has always had an almost mystical hold on my imagination and heart. However, everyday that I spend combing the streets, sitting in restaurants, and meetings, I find myself discovering the real city. Slowly, the city that was once Little Odessa, or ODESSA to me is becoming Odessa…