We Have a Dream...

Who are we? We are about 2500-3000 immigrants from the former Soviet Union, the Empire that captured and treated over 250 million people of over 100 different nationalities as slaves.

From local and national newspapers and magazines, the American people know that refugees from the former Soviet Union are Jewish people. Yes, it was so at the start of immigration, about 25-30 years ago. But even at the beginning, there were many mixed families with a non-Jewish husband or wife.

The first refugees came to Kansas City 25 years ago through Jewish organizations. Up to date, Jewish organizations resettled about 2000 people, from whom about 30% (or more than 600) are non-Jewish.

In the last 10 years, many hundreds of non-Jewish people from the former Soviet Union came to Kansas City through the Don Bosco Center, different churches, and some without any help. Only counting Armenian people who fled from Soviet Pogroms, there are more than 300 people.

There are many mixed families between Jewish and completely non-Jewish spouses, involving ethnic Russians, Ukrainians, Armenians, and other nationalities.

From a religious point of view, of 2500-3000 immigrants, about 1500 have Jewish roots, about 1000-1500 people have Christian roots, and about 500 or more have other roots. From 2500-3000 immigrants a few dozen are going to churches or synagogues on a regular basis; perhaps over 95% do not go at all.

Even among immigrants who have an interest in religion, a majority does not believe in God. For 74 years (1917-1991) the Soviet Government struggled against religion. Clergymen of all religious denominations were reprised or killed. Few "obedient" clergymen were left in few open religious temples in a proportion of one church and one synagogue per town or large city. There was not any law that prohibited read the Bible, but distribution of the bible was against the law.

Without the Bible, without God, we are what we are now: just a bunch of Russian-speaking people without any spiritual life. In 20-40 years this crowd will dissolve in the American "melting pot."

We have a dream that in 5-10 years at least half of the members of our community will be members of religious congregations of any denominations.

We have a dream that a few hundred Russian immigrants will go to existing churches or synagogues of their choice on a regular basis and after services will come together to read and discuss the Bible, to watch movies, and to do many other interesting things together.

We have a dream to spread our rich, multi-century deep Russian culture to American people.

We have many famous scientists, artists, singers, and musicians, many of whom live in Kansas City and five of whom work for the Kansas City Philharmonic Orchestra. In March the Kansas City Lyric Theatre will debut the opera "Eugin Onegin" by Chaykovsky in Russian language. Almost every day Kansas City classical radio station KXTR 96.5 broadcasts music of many famous Russian composers.

We have a dream to be actually free people.

How many of us share this dream, struggle for this dream? Not too many now, but we are here.