The Moscow Jewish Community Center hosted a delegation from the Jewish Federations of North America - the largest Jewish charitable organization in the world, uniting 157 Jewish federations in the United States and Canada.
As part of a summer mission involving Jewish federations in Russia and Israel, more than 120 heads of Jewish organizations and sponsors from over 30 cities including New York, Chicago, Miami, Los Angeles, Houston and San Francisco, participated in a discussion about the role and prospects for Jewish philanthropy in Russia.
The president of the corporation "GMR Hospitality Planet" Merab Elashvili opened the discussion. He emphasized that the tradition of philanthropy in his family is closely connected with a conscious choice, based on the precepts of Judaism and Jewish family values. Mr. Elashvili noted that as early as 1990, when he achieved his first notable success in business, the Elashvili family began to help needy Jews and religious communities.
Currently, charitable programs initiated by Mr. Elashvili are being implemented in Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, Israel, Cyprus and the USA. The programs are supported by the special "GMR Planet of Kindness" fund whose work is multidimensional. The Foundation supports the construction of synagogues, yeshivas and mikvaot, donates Torah scrolls, sponsors the training of rabbis and Jewish religious education for children and adolescents.
According to Mr. Elashvili, he supports religious initiatives, carried out mainly through Chabad-Lubavitch for he has seen that through the initiatives of Chabad-Lubavitch Jews are able to preserve their Jewishness and actually fight assimilation. The future of Jewish charity depends on this and in Russia, Jews see charity not only as a good deeds but as inseparable part of their religious consciousness.
The Elashvili and Shamilashvili families have played a significant role in charitable activities. Amongst their activities are those that commemorate the memory of the patriarch of the family, Isaac Elashvili, who died tragically in 1977. In his memory, “Ohel Yitzchak” was erected in the "Triumph Palace" residential complex near Moscow’s Leningrad Prospect. Ohel Yitzchak has became a center of Jewish religious life for Georgian and Ashkenazi Jews in north-west Moscow.
Renowned internet expert and blogger Anton Nosik emphasized the uniqueness of Russian philanthropy, which had to be created from scratch. “We could not just pick up and start giving money to those same organizations, synagogues and hospitals that helped our parents and grandparents since, during the Soviet times, the tradition of making donations was completely lost,” explained Mr. Nosik. “The only thing we could do is to create guiding principles for ourselves, to establish the rules and work according to them,” he said.
According to Mr. Nosik, the most successful projects were those that involved maximum transparency in the collection and distribution of funds. For example, the charitable internet foundation Pomogi.org, founded in 2005 by Mr. Nosik and Sarah Nezhelsky, publishes the names of everyone who supported the site and provides direct targeted assistance to seriously ill children and large families.
Mr. Edward Kaufman, a member of the Board of Directors of Alfa Bank, agreed with Mr. Elashvili that Jewish observance is the most important source of identity for Jews. He also talked about how, while working at the major Swiss bank UBS, he even created a Jewish prayer room in the premises of the Moscow UBS office.