"Last" of the Sub-Carpathian Jews

Shimon putting on tefillin for his morning prayers while his Christian wife wakes up from bed. His mother told him he was Jewish only after he grew up, so he did not get any Jewish education, but he's trying his best to keep the traditions.

Alexander is the shochet (ritual slaughterer) of Mukacheve, and the last active one in the region. There aren’t many people who eat kosher around so he is thinking to move somewhere else, probably to Israel, where he could get more work.

In the Jewish cemetery of Khust: “She always acted with care, and read the book of Psalms with love. She married her daughters to students of the Torah, and always lend a helping hand in the house. She honoured Tisha b'Av with all her strength, and as a righteous woman went straight to the world beyond...”

Irshova has no Jewish community today, so there is nobody to keep the key to the old cemetery. The combination of numbers that opens the padlock is scribbled by the gate, but to be able to read it one needs to know gematria, the Jewish method of interpreting letters as numbers. 
















Aaron bakes challah in his Brooklyn Bakery in Uzhgorod. He grew up in a Jewish neighbourhood of New York and then moved here with his wife. He is fascinated by the region's Jewish heritage, and looks forward to showing his father that it is still possible to live a Jewish life here.

A religious Jew prays his morning prayer in Kolochava. He has been sent to help the local rabbi during holidays by Chabad, a Jewish religious organization whose mission is to bring Jews together and closer to God.

Vova, the president of the Jewish community of Khust, carries the Sefer Torah (Bible Scroll) during the shabbat prayers.

Jews gather in Mukacheve for the ritual of Tashlich. On the first day of the year, it is tradition to go to a river (or to a lake, as long as it has fish in it), and cast the sins and misconceptions of the past year into the water.


Source H/T Mottel