Hanukkah Celebrations at Jewish Communities by EJP Member Alexander Baron

EJP Member Alexander Baron shared Hanukkah Celebrations at Jewish community in Kazakhstan.

The Celebrations were called Masters of Light. These were names of Jewish community volunteers. The volunteers brought light into Jewish families.

On the first day of Hanukkah, the Jewish community honored its volunteers
Traditionally, the volunteers received letters of thanks and symbolic gifts. A concert program was organized in honor of the volunteers. It was emphasized at the evening that every activist is an integral part of the community. The culmination of the evening was the lighting of the first Hanukkah candle, which became a symbol of the light deeds that the volunteers do with their own hands.
The activists received congratulations from the head of the Jewish community of Kazakhstan – the chairman of the Mitsva Association and EJP Member Alexander Baron.

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• Volunteer work is a very valuable work, because it is based on kindness and cordiality. Volunteers work in different areas – charity, education and culture. It is very important that representatives of different generations participate in projects – adults pass on their skills to the younger generation, and children, growing up, bring up their children in the spirit of volunteering. This is part of our tradition, the foundation of community building. For almost 30 years of the existence of the Mitsva Association, a real institution of volunteering has been formed in the community, – emphasized in the congratulation of the head of the Jewish community of Kazakhstan, sent to the participants of the festive evening.
  The head of the “Rimon” community center noted that thanks to the volunteers during the quarantine period, the community kept all existing projects.

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• During the tightening of quarantine measures, our activists were able to transfer training sessions to an online platform, which not only did not lower the level, but, on the contrary, expanded the boundaries. Thanks to the Internet space, everyone connected to our classes, regardless of where they live.
• We decided to do this in order to emphasize the cohesion of the community: we have family traditions of volunteering are developing – coming to the community, an activist interests the whole family with our projects. Sometimes it happens that adults bring children, and sometimes vice versa – children lead by the hand parents. This is how our family projects develop