Federation of Small Jewish Communities of Central and West Ukraine
We are bringing Light to the people of the Ukraine
www.fjc.org.ua
We are a division of
Federation of the Jewish Communities of the CIS – Commonwealth Independent States
The Federation of Jewish Communities (FJC) was established in November 1998 to revive the Jewish communities of the Former Soviet Union. We provide humanitarian aid and Jewish education, organize cultural events and religious services, and help develop Jewish communities and rebuild Jewish institutions.
Our main bureau represents member interests on the international front, and we also represent community members in government and institutional forums. The FJC, at all times, strives to develop and maintain good working relations with members of other faiths.
Since its launch we have posted over ninety rabbis and countless community leaders in central locations and have been recognized as an umbrella organization that represents and administers a variety of established funds and institutions that operate in the region.
Throughout seventy harsh years, the Soviet regime brutally crushed Jewish life across the USSR; thousands of Jews were murdered or exiled, while millions more were severed from their roots, heritage, and identity. Hundreds of flourishing Jewish communities were reduced to rubble.
Upon the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1991, a new era began, and the dire needs of the remaining Jewish communities in the post-Soviet world led to the formation of an organization uniting an unprecedented number of Jewish communities – The Federation of Jewish Communities of the CIS – FJC. This newly formed organization faced the enormous task of reviving Jewish life in hundreds of communities across ten time zones and thousands of kilometers, most of which struggled in some of the worst imaginable living conditions and had very little knowledge of the rich Jewish life and culture destroyed by the Soviet regime.
Over the course of 25 years, FJC played a prominent role in outreach to grassroots communities in 90 major cities and 290 small towns and villages in ten countries across the FSU – Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Estonia, and Latvia. FJC is leading an inspiring new chapter in the history of the third largest Jewish community in the world: local communities have been revived, synagogues reclaimed, and the spirit of the Jewish people restored. FJC is engaged in nurturing every aspect of Jewish life, from the urgently needed humanitarian aid to the renaissance of Jewish education, culture, and heritage.
