Studying Hebrew in St. Petersburg using JDC-distributed cards

Katya V., a 12 year old girl from St. Petersburg, begins her study of Hebrew with the aid of American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC)-distributed alphabet cards. Exactly half a century after its exile, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) once again set foot on Soviet soil amid the prevailing atmosphere of glasnost. Though a devoted thread had risked everything to sustain a thread of Jewish life, the final collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 revealed a Jewish cultural wasteland imprinted by 70 years of repression. Alphabet cards such as these were used in education programs designed to help revitalize Jewish life and learning for a new generation.