Euroasian Jewish News

Anniversary Salutations to Boris Esterkin

Today is the 75th anniversary of Boris Lvovich Esterkin, the Chariman of the Zaporizhya Jewish Community. There has been no important event in the last twenty years for the Zaporizhya Jews which was not organized or actively aided in by Boris Esterkin. He helped return and and reconstruct the synagogue in the city center, create a Jewish school, restore community life, and a great many more things. From the very first Jewish Culture Club, which then had had to be allowed by the Communist Party Municipal Committee, and up to the creation of a normal municipal Jewish community with many programs for aid to the Jews. Not all communities were so lucky to get someone with a formed Jewish self-consciousness, a true professional in his work, who knew Hebrew and Jewish history and culture deeply as a community leader.

Boris Esterkin is a known journalist and TV anchor from Zaporizhya, a connoisseur of Hebrew, well known to everyone in the city. This charismatic, kind, and wise Jew was elected by the Jews of Zaporizhya as the indisputable leader, as a talented organizator. Time showed he was a good choice – the achievements of the Jews and Zaporizhya were no less than the achievements of the Jews of Kyiv and Dniepropetrovsk, smaller only because of the size of the city itself.

The Ukraine-Israel Society did much more for good publicity of the Jews' homeland than their colleagues in other cities. The Zaporizhya Jewish Readings are a long-standing academic program for scholars involved in Jewish Studies, are known far beyond Ukraine's boundaries, and publish yearly proceedings.

The creator of all of this is a proud and independent, a talented and responsible, an incorruptible, honest, and respectable – in short, an exceptional Jew, Boris Lvovich Esterkin.

On this day of his anniversary, we, his friends and comrades of many years, wish him, his wife, his son and daughter, and all his grandchildren great happiness and luck!

Mazel tov, Borya! Bis hundert zwanzig!

Igor Kuperberg, VAAD Ukraine Deputy Chairman