Life According to Lauren.: Live Beautifully for the Next 100 Years...

The following article was just published in the paper of my hometown Jewish community about my trip to Moldova. I was given a generous "500 words," but could have easily written for 5,000.

I think it's important to share this incredible and resilient community's story, especially with the American Jewish community.

Also, this article will surely give my Jewish mother some bragging rights in her mahjong circle.

"As the director of engagement for Penn State Hillel, I have the privilege of accompanying groups of Penn State students
on short-term service projects. This year, I was assigned a spring break trip with the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) to Kishinev, Moldova.
Moldova is a small country in eastern Europe, sandwiched between Romania and Ukraine. It became independent from the former Soviet Union in 1991. In the Jewish community, it is best-known as the site of the horrible “Kishinev pogrom” in 1903. Before World War II there were 77 synagogues and about 70,000 Jews in Kishinev. Today, there are about 15,000 Jews and only one synagogue.
Needless to say, our group was not sure what to expect of Moldova and the community with which we would be working. Shortly into the week, we learned that Moldova was a unique place, with a very special Jewish community.
We learned about the challenges that the Jewish community faces in Moldova. Approximately 66% of the Jewish population is suffering from economic hardships. The general population is getting older, and a significant portion of the young population moves away to find jobs elsewhere. Also, crime is on the rise, as is anti-Semitism. In 2009, a public menorah was taken down by a church group chanting anti-Semitic slogans, and in 2010, a swastika was painted on a synagogue.
With all of these challenges, the Moldovan Jewish community is growing and is very future-oriented. We had the opportunity to visit the Kishinev Jacobs Jewish Campus, built in 2005, which is the hub for Jewish life and sponsors many of the JDC initiatives.
This campus houses the Kedem Jewish Community Center, the Jewish Family Services, a Hesed welfare center, a Hillel student center, the Center for Training and Professional Development, a Jewish pre-school, and the Haverim club for Jewish youth. All of these JDC programs help to envision a bright future for the Moldovan Jewish community.
Our group’s project for the week was painting one of the four welfare centers in Kishinev. The JDC serves over 1,700 elderly clients, providing them with food cards, medicine, home repairs, and social activities. The building that we painted will provide greater resources to the clients, including psychological care, social opportunities, and even a beauty salon.
Perhaps the best part of the week was spending time with our Jewish peers. They were warm, welcoming, and optimistic about their futures. It was inspiring to see such vision and leadership in the youth. A particularly memorable moment was spending Shabbat together and learning that our traditions are the same.
This trip certainly exemplified the Talmudic concept that “all of Israel is responsible for one another.” While we live in very different places, we now feel a part of one global Jewish community. This trip was very meaningful to our Penn State group, and we will always have a place in our heart for our Moldovan Jewish community.
To learn more about the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), visit www.jdc.org."

This is a memorial to those who perished in the 1903 pogrom. While this is a sad reminder of the past, our tour guide told us that the Jewish community sees HOPE in this picture, because the building in the background is actually a maternity ward, symbolic of the future.

Our group's project for the week was painting the inside of a building. The building will be used as a welfare center for elderly clients. In addition to providing basic necessities, there are plans to put in a beauty salon and therapists' office.

This is the inside of the only synagogue left in Moldova. We went to an orthodox service here on Saturday morning.

On International Women's Day, our group split up and went with our Moldavian peers to visit some of the elderly clients that the JDC serves. The JDC provides relief in the form of food tickets, medical care, home repairs, and social visits.

The picture above is not from my visit. The couple that we went to visit did not want their picture taken because they were so embarrassed that they were living in such conditions. Both the husband and wife worked hard all of their lives (and both had master's degrees), but when they retired, they were not given the pension money that they earned. They were forced to move into a very tiny apartment (one room) with barely enough money to live each month. The woman hasn't been out of the apartment in 6 years because she broke her hip and cannot go up and down the six flights of steps. Before we left, they said that their wish for us is that we would never again see such poverty. It was very powerful.

In addition to helping at-risk people, the JDC also has many programs for individual's personal enrichment and community-building. The picture above is from an English class that we visited. The adorable gentleman on the left wished us a life of "health, wealth, and happiness!"

Shabbat with our Moldavian peers. They went above and beyond to make us feel welcome and special in their community. Throughout the week, we went bowling, went out to eat, had meaningful conversations, and even watched Black Swan together (yes, you read that right... Black Swan).

The former soviet union celebrates "International Women's Day" on April 8th. On this day, women are given flowers from husbands, boyfriends, fathers, sons, etc.

Hey American boys, take a hint!