Purim...live from Petersburg!
Purim here in Russia was a wonderful experience. While many boisterous Russians were celebrating in their own way, we spent Purim helping organize activities at YESOD. The building was truly rocking over the weekend--on Sunday, we estimate that over 600 people came through the building as part of the festivities. We have lots to tell you about, so here we go...
The weekend started with the second installment of "Amerikansky Shabbat" at Hillel. This time, I took a page out of the Russian playbook, using a popular trivia local gameshow format called "Shto, gde, kagda?" (What, where, when?) The students were split into teams and, interspersed throughout the service, I asked the teams trivia questions about famous American Jews. The two winning teams got 11 right...see how many you can get correct by clicking here. Of course, the best part is the eating and shmoozing; Alyson made a nice spread of cookies, challah, and vegetables for the kids to eat. You can check out the pictures here.
Saturday night was a big Purim party for the community. At 300 rubles, the ticket price was deliberately steep, designed to attract a high-class crowd. As you would expect, the event was quite fancy, transforming the building into a fashionable, trendy club for the evening. The highlight for me was a hip-hop-inspired Purim production, complete with a fashion show as potential queens paraded in front of Achashverosh. I took a video of the show, which you can watch by clicking here. You don't need to know any Russian to enjoy the funky fashions and festive atmosphere!
Sunday was our big day to shine, as we played an important part in the chidren's carnival. I taught Purim songs, using my Hebrew school education to the fullest as I transliterated the Hebrew into Russian! Behind my head is that classic children's song, "La-Kova Sheli Shalosh Pinot" - you can imagine how awkward it is to explain to children that Haman's hat had three corners, and that's why we sing this bizarre song about a three-cornered hat! Or take the song on the lower left of the picture, "Leytzan Katan," about my little clown that dances with everyone...again, hard to explain to 5-year-olds. In general, the kids were far more interested in the face-painting, caricature artist, and the drums than my boring old singing station, but I found some babushkas who were interested, so I sang with them! Alyson helped the children make groggers using the classic "fill a plate with beans" method. It was a big hit.
The kids enjoyed our activities, then participated in an interactive show, before heading upstairs to the 3rd floor for a wide variety of classes: how to make butterflies out of tree bark (I think that's what they were doing), Latin dancing, balloon animals, magic tricks, etc. The grand finale was a huge inflatable city, which I called a "moon bounce on crack" -- we didn't have such things back in my day! The kids had a blast, which got me thinking that we Americans take fun for granted (think of Chuck E. Cheese, Disney World, Gym-boree, etc), but this was the first time I had seen Russian kids really enjoying themselves in an unfettered, boisterous way. We kept waiting for them to get off of it so we could go on it, but they were still going at 6:30, a full 3 hours after the event had started!
Yesterday evening was another large Purim party, this one targeted towards young adults. There were at least 200 people here for a performance, which had a cabaret theme and was enormously entertaining.
Take a look at some of the best pictures from the Purim festivities by clicking here.
One other note: you may remember that we were the first office our whole wing of the building (3rd floor, opposite from Hillel). In what was once a hinterland in the YESOD building, it's actually starting to get crowded these days! In December came the staff of MegaGym, the company that has rented out a significant portion of YESOD to set up a private workout facility. Now, as the YESOD JCC formally launches, programming staff are flocking to our wing. We now have a neighbor: Simeon Parizhky, who will run YESOD's educational department (officially called EITAN). Alex, the director of arts and cultural programming, has moved to the third floor, along with Yakov, who will be researching YESOD's audience and targeting specific populations. And, in a funny and strange situation that I won't get into on the blog, some of the Reform synagogue's staff has unexpectedly moved to our floor as well. We feel like veterans, with our office already set up and knowing our way around the building. In fact, we often find ourselves wondering, "Who the heck are these people that are suddenly taking over our floor?"
In the end, this year's Purim experience was enormously exhausting, entertaining, and educational. Again, a very different experience from our DC Minyan community: there was no big production made out of the mitzvot, such as mishloach manot (in previous years, we've received 20 or more of these nice food packages; this year, we were excited to get one!), reading the megillah, having a Purim meal, or matanot l'evyonim. Rather, the focus was on celebrating Jewishly through arts, singing, dancing, and merry-making. Through Purim, YESOD proved yet again that it can attract large and prestigious audiences, willing to pay real money for a high-quality Jewish programming on the holidays. The questions we will try to answer over the next four months, along with our colleagues at the YESOD JCC, are: How can we get these people to come here on a regular basis? Between now and Pesach, what events and programs can we hold that will keep crowds streaming through the building? What are people interested in, and, just as importantly, what programs are they willing to pay for?
Hopefully, finding the answers to these questions will be a lot easier than explaining why I'm singing about a three-cornered hat!
The weekend started with the second installment of "Amerikansky Shabbat" at Hillel. This time, I took a page out of the Russian playbook, using a popular trivia local gameshow format called "Shto, gde, kagda?" (What, where, when?) The students were split into teams and, interspersed throughout the service, I asked the teams trivia questions about famous American Jews. The two winning teams got 11 right...see how many you can get correct by clicking here. Of course, the best part is the eating and shmoozing; Alyson made a nice spread of cookies, challah, and vegetables for the kids to eat. You can check out the pictures here.
Saturday night was a big Purim party for the community. At 300 rubles, the ticket price was deliberately steep, designed to attract a high-class crowd. As you would expect, the event was quite fancy, transforming the building into a fashionable, trendy club for the evening. The highlight for me was a hip-hop-inspired Purim production, complete with a fashion show as potential queens paraded in front of Achashverosh. I took a video of the show, which you can watch by clicking here. You don't need to know any Russian to enjoy the funky fashions and festive atmosphere!
Sunday was our big day to shine, as we played an important part in the chidren's carnival. I taught Purim songs, using my Hebrew school education to the fullest as I transliterated the Hebrew into Russian! Behind my head is that classic children's song, "La-Kova Sheli Shalosh Pinot" - you can imagine how awkward it is to explain to children that Haman's hat had three corners, and that's why we sing this bizarre song about a three-cornered hat! Or take the song on the lower left of the picture, "Leytzan Katan," about my little clown that dances with everyone...again, hard to explain to 5-year-olds. In general, the kids were far more interested in the face-painting, caricature artist, and the drums than my boring old singing station, but I found some babushkas who were interested, so I sang with them! Alyson helped the children make groggers using the classic "fill a plate with beans" method. It was a big hit.
The kids enjoyed our activities, then participated in an interactive show, before heading upstairs to the 3rd floor for a wide variety of classes: how to make butterflies out of tree bark (I think that's what they were doing), Latin dancing, balloon animals, magic tricks, etc. The grand finale was a huge inflatable city, which I called a "moon bounce on crack" -- we didn't have such things back in my day! The kids had a blast, which got me thinking that we Americans take fun for granted (think of Chuck E. Cheese, Disney World, Gym-boree, etc), but this was the first time I had seen Russian kids really enjoying themselves in an unfettered, boisterous way. We kept waiting for them to get off of it so we could go on it, but they were still going at 6:30, a full 3 hours after the event had started!
Yesterday evening was another large Purim party, this one targeted towards young adults. There were at least 200 people here for a performance, which had a cabaret theme and was enormously entertaining.
Take a look at some of the best pictures from the Purim festivities by clicking here.
One other note: you may remember that we were the first office our whole wing of the building (3rd floor, opposite from Hillel). In what was once a hinterland in the YESOD building, it's actually starting to get crowded these days! In December came the staff of MegaGym, the company that has rented out a significant portion of YESOD to set up a private workout facility. Now, as the YESOD JCC formally launches, programming staff are flocking to our wing. We now have a neighbor: Simeon Parizhky, who will run YESOD's educational department (officially called EITAN). Alex, the director of arts and cultural programming, has moved to the third floor, along with Yakov, who will be researching YESOD's audience and targeting specific populations. And, in a funny and strange situation that I won't get into on the blog, some of the Reform synagogue's staff has unexpectedly moved to our floor as well. We feel like veterans, with our office already set up and knowing our way around the building. In fact, we often find ourselves wondering, "Who the heck are these people that are suddenly taking over our floor?"
In the end, this year's Purim experience was enormously exhausting, entertaining, and educational. Again, a very different experience from our DC Minyan community: there was no big production made out of the mitzvot, such as mishloach manot (in previous years, we've received 20 or more of these nice food packages; this year, we were excited to get one!), reading the megillah, having a Purim meal, or matanot l'evyonim. Rather, the focus was on celebrating Jewishly through arts, singing, dancing, and merry-making. Through Purim, YESOD proved yet again that it can attract large and prestigious audiences, willing to pay real money for a high-quality Jewish programming on the holidays. The questions we will try to answer over the next four months, along with our colleagues at the YESOD JCC, are: How can we get these people to come here on a regular basis? Between now and Pesach, what events and programs can we hold that will keep crowds streaming through the building? What are people interested in, and, just as importantly, what programs are they willing to pay for?
Hopefully, finding the answers to these questions will be a lot easier than explaining why I'm singing about a three-cornered hat!
posted by Matt Fieldman at 11:58 AM
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