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Combating "professional burnout", sharing experience and improving teamwork are the main tasks of seminars for employees of the organization, the overall result depends on their coordinated work. For people who work for the well-being of other people, and in our case - respected clients, such events are not only pleasant, but also necessary. And thanks to the assistance of our main benefactor, the American Jewish United Distribution Committee "Joint", it is possible. From April 13 to 17, employees of the Khmelnytskyi Charitable Foundation "Hesed Besht" stayed in one of the powerful modern Jewish centers of Ukraine - the city of Dnipropetrovsk, which is rich in both monuments of Jewish culture and flourishing Jewish life in all its spheres.
It is not necessary to talk about the importance of the Dnipropetrovsk region in the life of the modern Jewish community: almost fifty thousand Jewish residents, among whom there are many very influential benefactors, during the period of independence were able to destroy the impressive infrastructure, revive the former glory and, in some way, even increase it. The first object visited by the people of Khmelnytskyi and representatives of regional structures of the Foundation was, of course, the Menorah Community Center. Here the guests learned the history of the Jews of the former Katerynoslav, visited the Holocaust exposition and the exhibition of ancient times. After the "history lesson", the guests met with the chief rabbi of the region, Shmuel Kamenetsky. The audience on the 18th floor of the "Menorah" allowed to learn from the venerable spiritual mentor about the situation in the religious sphere, to ask interesting questions. The meeting brought many positive emotions and an unprecedented spiritual uplift. After a joint photo with the rabbi at the bird's-eye view of the Center's observation deck, the guests moved to the hall of the Institute for the Study of the Holocaust in Ukraine "Tkuma". (additionally on the website "Tkumy") For the first time, the guests were able to visit an organization with which correspondence cooperation has been ongoing for many years in a row. The Holocaust Memorial Museum in the "Thiya" Community Center uses materials (films "On the Eve of the Catastrophe" and "Holocaust in Ukraine") created by "Tkumo" on field and stationary excursions. In turn, the Hesed Besht Historical Society for many years in a row provided the Institute with information about the events of the Shoah in the Khmelnytskyi and Ternopil regions. Here, the guests saw the objects from which the Institute began, and got acquainted with its work.
Finally, the guests were shown the "Golden Rose" synagogue and Pchelkin's house. The visit to Minora demonstrated to the people of Khmelnytskyi how the community is able to take care of the past and build a path to the future. The community center "Thiya" in Khmelnytskyi and the community centers in Kamenets-Podolskyi, Starokonstantynov, and Ternopil are far from "Menorah" even in terms of total area, but they are almost indistinguishable from it in terms of robot forms and semantic content.
Dnipropetrovsk is famous for its industry. For familiarization purposes, employees of the Hesed Besht HBF visited the advanced enterprise "Interpipe", where they practically participated in the production of blanks for steel pipes, as well as the aerospace museum, where they learned about rockets and satellites of the Earth, which were produced by local specialists.
Beit Baruch, a social Jewish institution for the elderly, introduced the guests to both its material and methodical base and its clients. In "Hesed" they know that there is no trouble for someone else, so when I got to this center, everyone felt themselves, so to speak, "in their own plate". Our people were happy to communicate with the residents of Beit Baruch, sing songs in Yiddish, wish them good health, and strongly pinch the tired hands of the hospice residents. They, in turn, willingly shared all their "news", stories from life and simply communicated with new people, of whom there are not so many here. In light of the fact that Khmelnytskyi is building its own Center for Rehabilitation and Regional Development, the visit to Beit Baruch was very useful for our employees.
The cultural component of the seminar made it possible to go on a sightseeing tour of the garden, visit the aquarium and go to the village of Petrekivka, which is famous for its own painting technique. In the painting museum, guests not only learned about the history and peculiarities of this technique, but also tried themselves in the role of artists. The master class, which turned out to be not so simple, introduced the technique of drawing with a finger, a cat brush, and a kvachik. This example will be useful to the creative workshops of the Hesed Besht Children's Fund, which are always striving to learn new techniques and methods. At the same time, not a single cat in our region will be spared.
On the way back, the employees visited the grave of Rabbi Nachman in Uman. The last point of the seminar was symbolic and was designed to give people strength, hope and spiritual upliftment. After all, there are new working days ahead, new heights and active use of ideas and experience gained at the seminar.
