"It has the kind of walls that keep in the cold of winter and the heat of summer," says Bershad Jewish community President Yephim Chaim Vigodner (far right) breathing a good-natured sigh as he surveys his 200 year-old synagogue. The roof and floor sag. A pair of old tefillin (leather phylacteries) grows mold in the rotting podium. Rusty matzah-making machines and decaying volumes of Talmud litter the women's balcony. Yet, miraculously and mysteriously, the synagogue exists, surviving the Cossacks, pogroms, Nazis and Communists. During World War II, the Jewish population of the ghetto surrounding the synagogue swelled to nearly 30,000, as the Rumanians, Moldovans and Ukranians shipped their Jews to this shtetl (Jewish village) seven hours from Kiev.

Today, of Bershad's14,000 inhabitants, 100 are Jews. On Shabbat, 20 of those healthy enough among the remaining community kiss the centuries-old mezuzah on the synagogue doorframe and gather on the creaky benches before the original ark. The problem is that after decades of Communist repressions, no one in the community can read Hebrew or recollect Jewish prayers. The last rabbi left in 1956. One frigid Friday night, an out-of-town visitor occasions a larger crowd than usual. Huddling with them, he teaches ancient Jewish melodies without words – for some, it is the first service they have ever seen. The community and synagogue seem to shed layers of dust and for an instant, their voices rise to the sky. Ironically, it may have been that very same dust which enabled them to hide these many generations. As Yephim says, "Perhaps we were humble enough to be spared."

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