I, Inessa Vitkina, at a birthday party among my friends. I am the third in the upper row and my sister is the third on the left in the second row. Photo made in Chernovtsy in 2000.
We participate in all activities at Hesed. We even participate in "Purim-Shpil" there. We attend lectures, hobby clubs and lead an active Jewish life. There is a community of progressive Judaism in Chernovtsy that we attend. Every Friday we meet Sabbath there. We always cook for holidays. We've got recipes of the Jewish dishes and cook sweet and sour stew, stuffed fish and strudels and try to follow the kashruth. In our old age we've returned to the Jewish way of life and to our roots. We cannot say that we are very religious, but we find Judaism the most logical, humane and wise religion. We do not belong to orthodox Judaists, but we do belong to the progressive ones. We've learned Hebrew for over a year. We can't speak it fluently but we never miss our classes. We also study at the University of the Spiritual Heritage of the Jewish people. Our acquaintance wrote a letter there and they made me their regional representative. They send us tapes about Jewish history, traditions and culture. We have a group of people get together to watch these tapes and discuss what we learn. We work as volunteers at Hesed. We have five people to take care of. We visit them once a week and talk with them. We feel that we are needed here and that our life is just beginning.
