STARS

Sunday is STARS class day.

STARS - Student Torah Alliance for Russian Speakers.

It is a program organized throughout Russia, where, basically, kids get paid to learn.

When we first started, we looked at the requirements. Among other things, the teachers must be people who keep Shabbos and are fluent Russian speakers. There is exacly one person in the city who fits that description - and that's Yisroel. So he teaches some classes, I teach some through a translator, we show some speakers over video, and an older man in the community fills in the rest. He is a fascinating perosn - but more about him some other time.

It's very exciting to have young people coming together to learn. We started earlier this year, and it's amazing to see how much the students have learned since then.

We will be having a trip to Israel in the summer, but, of course, they need to come to classes before then. The deadline for signing up for the trip is this week, so we have extra students this week.

Lunch time. More later, hopefully.