CJP's Partnership with Dnipro

For more than thirty years, CJP has been in partnership with the Jewish community of Dnipro, Ukraine. Through comprehensive assistance — including healthcare and medical training, crisis support during uncertain times, economic advancement programs, and exchanges and missions — we’re building a thriving Jewish community and creating a brighter future in Dnipro.

In the early 1990s, once Jews were able to freely leave the Soviet Union, American Jewish organizations who had invested considerable resources and effort advocating for Jews to be able to leave the USSR, saw a need to also invest in revitalizing Jewish life in the former Soviet Union. CJP and the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) launched the Dnepropetrovsk Project, now called the Dnipro Kehillah Project (DKP) to help rebuild Jewish life in Dnipro, Ukraine, a city that had been “closed” for decades. The DKP was part of a nationwide movement to link American Jewish communities with their counterparts in the Former Soviet Union. This large-scale work was organized by the National Coalition Supporting Eurasian Jewry (NCSEJ), then known as the National Conference on Soviet Jewry. Those in The National Conference suggested a partnership between Boston and Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine. In May of 1994, the first official delegation from Boston travelled to Dnipro. Since then, the partnership has developed into the Dnipro Kehillah Project, which provides critical support around medical needs, elderly care, special education, family support, and community revitalization.

Under Soviet rule, Jewish life in Dnipro, Ukraine was suppressed. Following the fall of the Soviet Union, the Jews of Dnipro began to reconstruct and revive their community.  Around the same time, the Greater Boston Jewish community stepped forward to partner with Dnipro, and together they worked to address poverty, access to health care, special needs education, and care for the elderly, while building interpersonal connections between our two communities.