Tiferet Odessa (Тиферет Одесская Община Консервативного Иудаизма)

Today, less than thirty years after the fall of the Soviet Union, Jewish life is making a comeback in Ukraine, including Masorti Judaism. Masorti’s blend of traditional Judaism along with modern values resounds strongly with many people in Ukraine. For those who grew up in the egalitarian Soviet youth movements, it seems only natural that religious and synagogue life should also be egalitarian.

Kehillat Tifereth, the Masorti/Conservative Community in Odessa is housed in a large apartment in the center of town, and is supported by its community of over 100 members. The congregation holds regular Shabbat and holiday services, has a chapter of the NOAM youth group and also holds Hebrew school classes for the children.

Located on Ukraine’s southern Black Sea port, Odessa has been the site of both the greatest feats and the greatest tragedies of European Jewish life in the last century. While on one hand the city was the home to many of the founders of Zionism, from Bialik and Jabotinsky to Ahad Ha’Am and Dizengoff, on the other hand, much of the city’s Jewish population was wiped out in the Holocaust, with Odessa being the scene of the single largest massacre of Jews to take place in WWII. Likewise, practicing Judaism was outlawed in Odessa and the entire Soviet Union.