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VOICE: Community Building Initiative represents a collaboration between the Sabes Jewish Community Center (Sabes JCC), Jewish Community Action (JCA) and the Minneapolis Jewish Federation with the goal of engaging and connecting the Russian-speaking Jewish elderly community in the Loring Park neighborhood of Minneapolis. This neighborhood includes a number of federally-subsidized facilities that house a large of number of Russian-speaking immigrants.

With the current leadership of Lyudmyla Petrenko, Community Organizer, VOICE provides programming opportunities for the Russian-speaking populations at Booth Manor, Nicollet Towers and Loring 100 to address the key concern of this group: social isolation from the broader Jewish and general communities. These programs are intended to reduce social isolation, build connections with the broader Jewish and general communities, and help ensure that the stories of Russian Jewish immigrants are shared with others who may learn from them. By allowing Russian-speaking elders to keep both their bodies and their minds active, the programs also help ensure both the physical and mental well-being of a vulnerable population.
Programming over the past two years has included:

• Regular English as a Second Language and Citizenship classes
• Senior Fitness classes, held on-site at Booth Manor.
• Frequent Jewish holiday and music programming, which builds on a partnership between the Sabes JCC, JCA, and Temple Israel (which is located near Loring Park). These programs help reconnect Russian-speaking Jews with their cultural and religious heritage.
• Movie nights, with Russian-language movies and refreshments.
• Day trips and excursions (for those Russian-speaking seniors that are physically able to leave the neighborhood). These have included trips to the State Capitol, the Sabes JCC, and most recently a Lake Minnetonka boat cruise. Such trips help ensure that Russian seniors who are able remain active and involved in the community.

The residents feel like VOICE: Community Building Initiative, the new name of their program best reflects the program’s purpose - by participating in different events, community organizing and leadership development, they are able to express their communal voice and enrich their lives.

For more information on VOICE, contact Lyudmyla Petrenko at 952.381.3479 or [email protected].

Community Partners (click links below to visit partner websites)
Jewish Community Action
Minneapolis Jewish Federation
Sabes Jewish Community Center

The American VOICE of the Soviet Jews
A new film

They survived World War II and the Holocaust.
They outlived Stalin’s barbarism.
They experienced the Cold War—from the other side.
Now, they are rebuilding their lives, right here in Minnesota.
These are their remarkable stories.

PREMIERE!
Tuesday, June 8, 7 pm
Minnesota History Center
345 Kellogg Blvd. W., St. Paul
http://www.mnhs.org/historycenter/programs/lounge/

6 pm Gallery Tour - “Minnesota’s Greatest Generation: The Depression, The War, The Boom”
Post-screening discussion with filmmakers & members of local Russian-speaking, Jewish community
Free

Film Synopsis

The American VOICE of the Soviet Jews is a new feature-length film work that collects and preserves memories of local Jewish immigrants from the former Soviet Union, including their childhood, their academic studies and their professional lives, their Holocaust experiences and their service in Stalin’s army during the Second World War, the constraints of their post-war lives during the Cold War era, and finally, their emigration.

Interviewed in the film are Vladimir Posse, who marched in the 1945 Victory Parade in Moscow’s Red Square; Georgiy and Yelena Semashko and Evgeniya Merlis, who lived through the Ukrainian golodomor (famine); and Mera Sokolinskaya and Maria Reznik, who experienced Hitler’s siege of Leningrad—along with the unbelievable starvation, cannibalism, and human degradation it caused.

This ground-breaking film project records the life stories of the members of VOICE Community Building Initiative, which is led by Jewish Community Action and Sabes Jewish Community Center, and funded by Minneapolis Jewish Federation. But this film is not just an oral history project: The American VOICE of the Soviet Jews is a leadership-building initiative for VOICE participants, who played prominent roles in the creation of this documentary work, as well as playing prominent roles in the extraordinary events of the 20th century.

Film Info

The American VOICE of the Soviet Jews (2009, DVD, 60 min.)
Igor Dadashev, Director
Kamil Dadashev, Producer
Lyudmyla Petrenko, Co-producer
Music performed by Igor Dadashev, Emilia Flegel, Alexand Daylis, Matt Levitt


OTHER RELATED FILM EVENTS

Sunday, April 18, 10 am
PREVIEW 10 minutes of this great documentary at the Minneapolis Jewish Film Festival Short Competition: The American VOICE of the Soviet Jews: A Kitchen Story
Special guest Robin Washington (Editor, Duluth News Tribune) will discuss diversity in the Jewish community & how we go beyond awareness.
@ the Sabes JCC

May 6—June 24, 2010
“Profiling: exploring the faces of diversity within the Jewish community”
Visual work from 24 artists, including Victor Bloomfield, Igor Dadashev, & Kamil Dadashev, who photographed VOICE participants, will be on display at the Tychman Shapiro Gallery, Sabes Jewish Community Center

Opens May 6, 2010
Jewish Historical Society of the Upper Midwest Exhibit from the Archives
Lobby, Sabes JCC & online at www.jhsum.org

Sunday, May 23, 2010, 5:30 pm
Jewish Community Action’s Annual Celebration honoring VOICE Community Building Initiative & its groundbreaking film
@ the Sabes JCC


Brought to you by the Sabes JCC, Jewish Community Action, the Minneapolis Jewish Federation, the St. Paul JCC and the Jewish Historical Society of the Upper Midwest.