In the final days of October, the leaders of the student council of the Levi Yitzchak Schneerson Jewish Lyceum No. 144, the leading educational institution of the Dnipro Jewish Community, organized a major celebration at the “Beit Baruch” Home for the Elderly, a unique social institution of the Dnipro Jewish Community.
The lyceum students arrived together with the Deputy Director for Educational Work, Tetiana Sirotkina, and brought a specially prepared literary and musical composition for the meeting. It was dedicated to the 84th anniversary of the beginning of the Holocaust in Dnipro and the 82nd anniversary of the expulsion of the Nazis from our city. The performance made a deep impression on the residents of “Beit Baruch,” who did not hide their emotions and even tears.
In turn, the creative collective of “Beit Baruch” presented their own composition, focused not so much on the memory of the past but directed towards the future – glorifying the future victory and prosperity of a united, strong, independent Ukraine, in which the current lyceum students will have the happiness to live when they grow up.
“It is very symbolic that our children carefully preserve the memory of the past, respect and love their elders, while the elderly are oriented towards the future, perceiving the children as their continuation, as a victory over the passage of time,” said Rivka Lazareva, a social worker and head of the “Beit Baruch” creative collective. “It is no wonder that this feeling of unity gave a charge of optimism, and the celebration concluded with a joint performance by everyone of the beloved song ‘One Viburnum by the Window,’ to which everyone danced, even those who move with great difficulty using walkers, because this is the very essence of our meeting.”
Another important element of this meeting was the presentation of gifts to the residents of the “Beit Baruch” Home: paintings with wise sayings, which the lyceum students had created during the celebration of Sukkot (more details here). Representatives of the lyceum brought and solemnly presented these to the director of “Beit Baruch,” Malvina Ruvinska.
“This is a very beautiful and important gift, made with love, and therefore even more valuable,” noted Malvina Ruvinska. “Our connection with the Jewish Lyceum is very deep and important for both the younger and the older generation, because we are one big, close-knit, and united Jewish family – our entire native Dnipro community under the leadership of Chief Rabbi Shmuel Kaminezki.”
