Get News Updates
Logout
Mobile
Tablet
Profile
November 30, 2012
Home
SUBSCRIBE
News
Opinions & Commentary
CLASSIFIED ORDER
Advertising:
Community
INDEX
Arts & Entertainment
GENERAL
Guide to Boston
DINING & ENTERTAINMENT
News
Archives
SYNAGOGUES
About Us
MARKET PLACE
Poll
Top News
Local News
Israel News
Suggest a story topic
Candle Lighting Times
Submit feedback
Russian-American Jews find their
past – onstage
Where's the story?
Should the MBTA be allowed
to run ads critical of Israel?:
Yes, we enjoy freedom of
speech in this country.
Maybe, if they are factually
correct.
No.
‘Doroga’ helps cast, audience reconnect with roots
I’m not sure.
By Alexandra Lapkin
Advocate Staff
6 Points Mentioned
“Doroga,” a theatrical
production about immigration from the former
Soviet Union, is not just a play. It is a project
in which young Russian-American Jews
investigate their family history and reconnect
with their Jewish roots.
Produced by Anna Zicer, directed by Ben
Sargent and co-created by the cast, “Doroga” is
composed of a series of vignettes about the
actors’ personal family stories with a focus on
immigration. Brandeis Genesis Institute will
stage the presentation at the Carl J. Shapiro
The Brandeis Genesis Institute will stage Theater in Waltham on Dec. 8.
“Doroga,” above, at the Carl J. Shapiro
Theater in Waltham on Dec. 8.
“Moving from place to place is such a Jewish
concept. People who’ve immigrated always
have that immigrant inside them. That’s why we use suitcases throughout the
performance, to show that we carry that experience with us wherever we go,” said Zicer.
Vote
Simchah-Celebration
Sharing your Simchahs – Celebrations
with the Community
Community
Klein, Coben receive
Technion award
WALTHAM – Roger Klein and Rachel
Coben were honored...
Calendars
Community Calendar
Singles Calendar
Candle Lighting Times
Zicer founded The Lost & Found Project, an
experimental theater troupe, with sponsorship
from the Council of Jewish Émigré Community
Organizations (COJECO) when she realized that
a wide gap exists between the American and
Russian Jewish communities. She decided to
bridge that gap with the theater performances.
“Theater is my passion and I realized that it is
the best tool to investigate and make changes
in this community,” she said. In addition to
working as a Jewish community educator,
Zicer, who graduated from the American
Academy of the Dramatic Arts, is an actor and
drama instructor.
BOSTON 3:59
FALL RIVER 4:01
LOWELL 4:00
SPRINGFIELD 4:06
WORCESTER 4:03
PORTLAND, MAINE 3:53
MANCHESTER, N.H. 3:59
PROVIDENCE, R.I. 4:02
Ruvym Gilman, Mariya King, Boris
Zilberman and Ruslan Verkhovsky star
in “Doroga.”
PHOTO/ANNA ROZ
Zicer came to New York City from Israel five
years ago, as an emissary of the Taglit- Birthright Israel: NEXT program, to engage with
the immigrant community from the Former Soviet Union (FSU).
“I realized that Russian Jews do not have the kind of a connection to Judaism that
American Jews do. Instead, Russians tend to relate to their roots through family stories
and culture,” said Zicer. She noticed that the two communities were segregated, with the
majority of Russian-speaking immigrants living in South Brooklyn, an area known as “Little
Odessa” in Brighton Beach.
ERUV STATUS:
BOSTON 781 446 9797
MALDEN 781 322 5686
SHARON 781 695 0505
Cooking
Staying stuffed
...
Parenting
Holding on a little longer
Advertise
REAL ESTATE
Contact Us
CLASSIFIEDS
Odessa” in Brighton Beach.
Zicer said Jews from the former Soviet Union, who did not have exposure to Judaism,
have difficulty relating to Judaic customs and traditions.
“Jewish means going to the synagogue and Russians don’t connect to that. The cool thing
about Russian immigrants – they don’t want to be told what to do anymore,” she said.
Russian-speaking Jews created their own assimilated culture while living in the FSU.
According to Zicer, “Although I don’t want to put the whole community in a box, every
family is different, but when a Russian-Jewish kid has a bar mitzvah, it’s about going to a
restaurant with his family. We put Christmas trees up next to Hannukiah.”
Zicer, whose family immigrated to Israel from Russia when she was 2, said all Israeli
children research their family history as part of the school curriculum. When Zicer learned
that many Russian-speaking immigrants in their 20s and 30s did not know much about
their heritage, “I wanted to introduce young Russian Jews to their own Jewish past,” she
explained. “This was a theatrical lab. The cast spoke with their parents and grandparents,
really dug deep. All of us have those black-and-white photographs. Our job was to bring
color and meaning to them.”
Through that process, one actor found out that his great-grandfather was a rabbi, and two
cast members learned their greatgrandparents come from the same shtetl.
When Zicer began to put together the cast of Lost & Found, she auditioned Jewish
immigrants from the former Soviet Union, born in the 1970s and 1980s. Some of them did
not have professional acting experience, but “they were so good and dedicated, we
decided to take that risk,” she said.
At the outset, neither the cast nor the audience had high expectations. “This is not a
Broadway production. This is ‘samodeyatelnost’ [a term once used in the Soviet Union for
amateur performing arts]. We simply wanted to put the truth on stage. At the end of each
performance, people came up to us because they were surprised and amazed. The actors’
parents would say, ‘We had no idea you remember so much about immigration, you were
so young.’ It’s wonderful that we brought out all these emotions,” Zicer said.
Most of my memories from the day my
twins were born, almost...
Singles
Dancin’ around the
awkward
Whilst on the dance floor at a recent
wedding I attended, a...
More Features and News
Weather
Current
weather in
your town or
anywhere in the
world.
Lottery
Numbers
Are you a
winner? Find out
here.
News
Stay up to
date with
headline updates
throughout the
day.
“I wanted to bring this play out of Brooklyn into Manhattan. Americans who came to our
Money
Matters
Track the
markets and
your own
investments in
performances afterward told us that they understood Russian immigrants better,” Zicer
said.
our money
section.
Lost & Found first performed “Doroga” at the Jewish Community Center in Manhattan to
show the production to a more diverse audience.
After a row of sold-out shows, Zicer upgraded to the smallest venue in Manhattan she
could find: the Gene Frankel Theatre in SoHo. The word about “Doroga,” she said, spread
quickly: “More people kept coming to see us and we had to add chairs to accommodate a
growing audience.”
The National Yiddish Theater- Folksbiene discovered “Doroga” and decided to take on the
affiliate role, with Bryna Wasserman providing artistic direction.
Zicer said she likes the fact that “Doroga” gives audience members an opportunity to ask
questions and investigate their own family history.
“Life is always going to change, whether we are ready for it or not,” she said. “We have to
know where we come from and pass it on to the next generation.”
Visit www.brandeis.edu for more information about next week’s show.
Newspaper web site content management software and services
Sports
Scores
Live
updates of scores
and odds on your
favorite teams.
Crosswords
Play our daily
puzzle to kill time
between projects.
Sudoku
Keep your
brain sharp
with your favorite
Japanese number
game.