What Does It Mean To Give?

Last week, I had an unbelievable birthday gift.

I was joined in Moscow by more than 100 American Jews from 35 different cities as part of JFNA’s Campaign Chairs and Directors Mission.

The visit was special to me.

These are my people.

It is my job (along with my amazing colleagues) to introduce the world I grew up in to the world I’m living in now.

Some of the guests had been to the FSU before, some had not.

I was worried. We had less than 8 hours to make them feel the way we feel about this special part of the world.

I shouldn’t have worried.

Our clients did it for us.

Bella

This is Bella. Bella is 79 years old. Bella lives on a pension of $415 a month in a city that is as expensive as New York (if not more so). That’s less than $5,000 a year. Through our hesed welfare centers, JDC provides Bella with 18 hours of home care a month (4.5 hours a week) and meals on wheels. This is how Bella survives.

Before we bring guests to visit a client, someone from JDC staff always visits. We want to make sure that the client is up to visitors. That it won’t be an intrusion, a burden. Many of our clients enjoy visitors, but some don’t, and we want respect that.

So, before we brought Americans to meet Bella, I went to meet her.

We talk sometime talk about scents and how that impacts your impression. When my colleague Dov talks about the FSU he recalls (and sometimes shares with the audience) the scent of a Russian perfume, particular to the elderly, that always brings him back here.

When I walked into Bella’s building, it was a different kind of scent that hit me. The entryway reeked. It was noxious. I can’t tell you what it was, but it burned my lungs. I held my breath as I walked up several flights of stairs to her apartment. Not an easy task. Though there was an elevator, I didn’t trust it. I expected the worst.

But, when we entered Bella’s apartment, I didn’t find the worst. Though it was old and shabby and tiny, it was tidy, thanks to the homecare worker, and it was a home, thanks to Bella. The walls were covered in photographs, and almost every surface was covered with handmade lace, which Bella still crochets.

Bella welcomed us with open arms and told us her story. Born in Moscow during WWII, she was evacuated to the east with her mother and brother. Her father was killed during the war, but her mother remarried after they moved back to Moscow.

Bella was trained as school nurse, married and had a son. Bella lost her mother and husband some time ago and her brother about five years ago. She was a school nurse at a prestigious school her whole life and glows when she talks about her students and colleagues. She proudly shows off a book commemorating 50 years of the school and points us to the page that honors her.

Bella lost a leg to diabetic gangrene in 1994. This forced her retirement, and she has been housebound since then. She has a wheelchair, but it doesn’t fit in the small elevator, and the only times she leaves her apartment is the one time a year she manages to scrape together enough money to pay a neighbor to take her to the cemetery to the graves of her mother and brother and husband.

Bella’s son moved to Canada years ago. Though he begs her to come live with him in his daily phone calls, Bella feels unable to leave Moscow, her home for almost 80 years. Like many elderly in the FSU, Bella is physically and psychologically unable to leave. As someone who worked her entire life, Bella dreads becoming a burden on her son and his family as they start a new life in the west.

Despite her story, a visit to Bella lights up your day. She greeted me with a smile and left me with a kiss. She braided her long white hair with a ribbon to dress up for her visitors. She’s someone who has every right to be sad, to be depressed, to be angry, but that’s not what you see. You hear the joy in her life, the pride in her work, and the gratitude to hesed for the help that keeps her alive.

I meet a lot of clients, but Bella is special. When I wrote notes on my visit, I said “I love Bella. She makes me smile. I want to go back.”

Unfortunately, the day of the CCD visit, I did not get to go back to Bella. I was a little jealous of my colleagues and guests. I wanted to see her again. And I hoped that those that visited her would see just how amazing she was.

I didn’t have to worry. Bella didn’t put on a show for me. Bella IS someone special.

Jim Breslauer from Long Beach, California went to meet Bella.

I met Jim the night before at dinner, and I knew he was someone special too. The MC for the evening, he gave me the best introduction I’ve ever had and the most entertaining logistical wrap up I’ve ever heard.

When I saw Jim the next day, he told me the story of his visit. When he walked into the apartment, he looked for a connection. He wanted to bridge the gap between Long Beach and Moscow. He saw a collection of small elephants and asked the translator to ask Bella about them and to tell her that his wife collected elephants as well. Without hesitating, Bella wheeled over to the display case and selected a small glass elephant, which she gave to Jim. Jim tried to resist, but Bella insisted. The translator explained — you need to take it. In Russian culture, when offered a gift, it would be a huge insult to reject it. Bella’s gift touched Jim. She made the connection. Moscow and Long Beach had something to connect them.

This in itself is a nice story. Even us cynics at JDC who see hard case after hard case teared up a little when we heard it.

But there’s more. As I told you, Jim is special too.

Before the group left Moscow, they all gathered together with the scholar in residence. The scholar asked them to talk about something that touched them during their time in Moscow and how they would bring that experience home with them.

Unsurprisingly, Jim was the first one to stand up. He told the story of Bella. And then he closed with these comments (Jim I apologize if the quote was not exact — it took me a minute to get out my pen and paper, but I think I captured the spirit of what you said): “Sometimes I wonder how to react to people in my community who say they don’t have enough to give to others. Now I know what to say. I will tell them about Bella. A woman who has nothing, really she has less than nothing, but still managed to give me something.”

I don’t think I can end this story any better. No words are more meaningful. We all have the capacity to give.