With the support of The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), Jewish communities in the Baltic States of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia took part in what has become an annual tradition -- the Limmud Conference, a grassroots education forum designed to provide Jews with unique educational learning opportunities. Below, Andres Spokoiny, JDC Country Director, the Baltic States and Poland, reflects on this year’s Limmud Baltics conference.

For the fifth consecutive year, the Limmud Baltics conference was held in Lithuania. More than ever, I return from Limmud with a deep sense of accomplishment and with enormous pride about how JDC and its partners are helping local communities to renew and transform Jewish life in that part of the world.

A staggering 1,200 participants registered this year for the event. Indeed, the small communities of the Baltic States and JDC pulled together the largest Jewish event in continental Europe today. Just to grasp the enormity of this accomplishment, one could say that, proportionally, it is as if somebody would have managed to mount a conference in the U.S. with half a million participants. The program for the 250 children who attended was, in itself, bigger than most summer camps in the region! But figures alone, as impressive as they are, don’t tell the whole story.

The conference is a unique venue, where people from all walks of community life come together to study, learn, and discover the joy of Judaism. It is a place where one discovers that, as the Bible says, Judaism "is not in the heights of the sky, nor in the depths of the sea; it belongs to us and to our children". It is a place where everybody can learn, grow, and be enriched, while also teaching and enriching others; it is a community journey, as well as a personal one, towards taking ownership of our Tradition; it is a place where all expressions of Judaism can be found. Over 150 workshops were conducted on topics as varied as the colors in the kaleidoscope of Jewish diversity: from Yiddish to Jewish music, from prayer to Israeli cinema, from the philosophy of Maimonides to Russian Jewish humor, from Talmud to Middle East conflict… The tremendous selection demonstrated the incredible richness of our Jewish culture.

And yet the biggest achievement is that the conference is truly a grassroots event, organized by the people for the people. These are the men and women of the Jewish communities of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, who rose up to the challenge of rebuilding Jewish life in a part of the world that has seen so much tragedy.

In many cases the lecturers—all of them volunteers— are people who have only recently discovered that they were Jewish. In one of her works, the acclaimed Ukrainian-Israeli poet Zelda wrote, "Every man has a name." And indeed, each one of the 1,200 Limmud participants has his/her own wonderful history of how they rediscovered their roots and reconnected with the enormous meaning that one can find in being Jewish.

After the combined effect of Nazism and Communism almost annihilated any vestige of Jewish life there, those men and women, young and old, show the miraculous resilience of the Jewish people. They show that our enemies will never prevail, for our spirit is stronger than hatred. Just a few years ago, many considered those communities lost. Now, with amazing and lovable chutzpah, these people took revenge on history and made the tiny communities of the Baltic States into a renewed center of Jewish learning and a model for other communities to follow.

From a community building perspective—which is one of JDC’s main goals in the region—Limmud responds to many important objectives: It attracts young adults, young families, and the emerging middle class, which are critical age groups for making the communities self-sustaining; it encourages people to take ownership of and participate in community life, since Limmud is being run purely by local volunteers; it exposes local Jews to the diversity of Jewish Life; families bond; it grooms young leaders and it adds deep and meaningful Jewish content to community life. Above all, it makes communities confident in their own strength and ability to face the challenges of rebuilding their communities.

The sights of Limmud are many, and I truly wish you could have seen them through my eyes—the huge hall lit only by Havdalah candles, where 1,200 voices sang together; the packed lectures rooms; hundreds of smiling faces. Limmud is a Jewish success story, and it is also the result of a multiparty partnership between JDC, the Baltic Jewish communities, and the Los Angeles Jewish Federation, which supports and funds this endeavor within the LA/Baltic Partnership. It also relies on the valuable cooperation and inspiration of Limmud UK. Indeed, a delegation from LA came to Limmud and saw firsthand what amazing impact its support is having.

As I come home and embrace my young children, I feel that we have done something that will make them very proud one day. It is in these particular moments when I feel that working for JDC gives me the unique privilege of seeing Jewish history in the making. I thank you for making that feeling possible. And above all, I send you the warmth and the gratitude of the thousands of people whose lives are being transformed in the Baltic States.

For more information on the Federation’s support of the Baltics, please contact Lesley Plachta at (818) 464-3211 or LPlachta@JewishLA.org.