Shul News & Notes

On Sunday, Feb. 1, Rabbi Suzan Lipson led congregants, members of the Unitarian Universalist Church, and other guests in the shul’s second annual Women’s Tu B’Shevat Seder.

Each of the tables in the community room was laden with examples of the seven species, including fruits, nuts, grains, wines, and carob, all native to Israel. We read the Haggadah aloud, and celebrated the New Year For The Trees in a warm, spiritual and communal atmosphere.           SMBloom photo

In 2019, when Lasha Shakulashvili was a graduate student at Tbilisi State University, he stumbled onto Yiddish posters in the National Archives of Georgia from 1910 that were announcing theater performances. Almost nothing had been written about Ashkenazi Jewish heritage in Georgia, and Shakulashvili was eager to find out more.

Born in Tbilisi to Christian parents, he was raised in part by a Jewish nanny who taught him Russian and Yiddish. That early exposure set him on his scholarly path and instilled in him a love for Yiddish and Ashkenazi culture.

That persistence led him to write a dissertation on his findings on the role of Yiddish theater in Georgia. When he began speaking publicly about the long-lost Yiddish theater, actors and directors reached out. A question emerged: Could the theater be revived?

A century after its last performance, the Tbilisi Yiddish Theater reopened in 2023. Although Shakulashvili has since stepped back from the theater, his research has paved the way for recovering the forgotten Yiddish culture of Georgia. He is now based in Israel, but spends the spring semester teaching in Tbilisi.