A bar mitzvah seminar in Ukraine was designed to instill Jewish pride in students.
The Ohr Avner Chabad Day school in Ukrainian city of Zhytomyr hosted a seminar last week focusing on the bar mitzvah.
The seminar included lectures, educational exercises and excursions, including a visit to the grave of Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov in Medzhibozh for students from Ukraine and from former Soviet and Baltic countries.
“You need to always be proud that you are Jews,” Rabbi Shlomo Wilhelm, chief rabbi of Central and Western Ukraine and a Chabad Lubavitch emissary to this region, said at the opening of the seminar. “Don’t ever change your name or traditions. Move side by side with your people.”
The largest Jewish educational network in the former Soviet Union is sponsored by the Ohr Avner Foundation.
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