Andre Krug

Yury Gopshteyn, a member of the Kehilat Re'im Board and of the Klein Branch Board, Andre Krug, Director of the New Americans Outreach Program, and Victoria Fraykin, Outreach staff, accepted the award for the, Children's Jewish Concert Series,operated by Kehilat Re'im, the New Americans Outreach Program housed at the Klein Branch.

Because Russian Jews see Jewish identity as ethnic, they bequeath their children a Judaism with "nothing really attached to it," says Andre Krug, director of services for New Americans at the Jewish Community Centers of Greater Philadelphia.

For those working to cultivate Jewish identity among Russian American Jews, they craft strategies to appeal to their specific concerns.For example, Krug has drawn many to Jewish events by focusing on culture and rejecting fees for services.

"I don't really follow hockey that much," said Andre Krug, who is the director of the Klein Branch of the Jewish Community Center in the Northeast.
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"They blamed Clarke for that," Krug said, laughing.

Because Russian Jews see Jewish identity as ethnic, they bequeath their children a Judaism with "nothing really attached to it," says Andre Krug, director of services for New Americans at the Jewish Community Centers of Greater Philadelphia.

For those working to cultivate Jewish identity among Russian American Jews, they craft strategies to appeal to their specific concerns.For example, Krug has drawn many to Jewish events by focusing on culture and rejecting fees for services.

But it's not the sort of poverty where you worry about where your next meal is coming from, explained Andre Krug, director of Services for New Immigrants at the Jewish Community Centers Klein branch in Northeast Philadelphia.

"Everything is relative," he said.

He explained that the feeling of poverty among the immigrant elderly is modified by two major factors.

The first is that many have children who have also immigrated to the United States and are always willing to help out.The second is that American poverty pales in comparison to the poverty experienced anywhere in the former Soviet republics.

Krug, who was born in Ukraine, offered a personal example.

In 1979, his grandmother was given permission to immigrate to the United States, but she almost didn't make it because she was finally in line to receive a refrigerator from the government.She chose to immigrate, and, needless to say, she owns a refrigerator.

"If you tell her that she lives below the poverty line, she is going to roll her eyes," he said.
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Many of these Jews, especially those who were in their prime working years, came to this country with a high education level and succeeded in technical fields, such as computer programming, according to Krug.

The majority of Philadelphia's former Soviet Jews live in the Far Northeast, but some 10,000 have moved into Bucks and Montgomery counties.

"Everybody who has two pennies to their name moved to Bucks," said Krug.

This migration is not driven by the thirst for the prestige of living in the suburbs, he continued, but by the idea that the school systems are better.

"It is the natural reaction of a Jewish parent," he said.

Andre Krug,Director of Services for New Americans,Jewish Community Centers