Lena Gribelnaya, 30, from Chernowitz, has worked as a counselor at Camp Ramah Yachad-Ukraine, also sponsored by Midreshet Yerushalayim, for the past 13 years. At present, she is working as a Hebrew teacher in her native city of Chernowitz. “The Learning Marathon this year gave me a boost of inspiration for my work with teenagers. Both lectures and discussions with colleagues were fascinating. I learnt so much, and reaffirmed my choice of Jewish education as a career.”
Miroslav Greenberg, 43, from Berdichev, a trained psychologist and a Berdichev Jewish Community School teacher, said that the Learning Marathon “provided me with a wonderful opportunity to meet colleagues with different points of view from all walks of Jewish education in Ukraine and have fruitful informal discussions with them on our work,” he said.
Participants in the Marathon took part in daily shacharit prayers led by camp counselors, a joyful Friday night service complete with singing on and a Shabbat morning service with egalitarian Torah reading. They attended Hebrew language classes, creative workshops, cultural activities, and studied topics including the history of Jews in the Carpathian Mountains, introduction to Kabbalah, modern Hebrew literature, the status of women in Judaism today and contemporary Jewish identity.
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Midreshet Yerushalayim, a network of schools, communities and family and summer camps, connects Jewish families in Ukraine with Israel, Judaism and each other, serving some 1,000 children, teens and adults of all ages. For 29 years, Midreshet Yerushalayim has been a part of the Schechter Institutes, an educational organization that offers pluralistic Jewish Studies and experiences to 85,000 people in Israel and overseas.