Celebrating Israel in Livingston
A Russian Jew rediscovers her background through action
It might be her background that propelled Inna Yelisevich into activism.
As a Russian Jew, she knows antisemitism. As a mother, she knows what she wants for her children. As a Jewish mother, she knows that her children, their friends, and other Jewish kids should be offered the opportunity to learn about Israel. And as a longtime Livingston resident, she knows what she wants in her town.
Because she is not someone constitutionally capable of sitting around waiting for somebody else to do something, she’s brought a chapter of Club Z, a California-based Zionist youth group, to Livingston and Short Hills, and she leads a small group of women who have put together Livingston Celebrates Israel for the last three years.
Livingston Celebrates Israel throws a big party in town to mark Yom HaZikaron and mark Yom Ha’Atzmaut. This year, it will be Wednesday, April 22, starting at 4. (See box.)
So how did this happen?
Ms. Yelisevich, her parents, and her brother landed in America on July 3, 1991. The next day, she said, they were terrified, because it sounded like a war had begun. But it wasn’t war, it was fireworks.
Inna was 9 years old and knew almost no English. Her parents had taken a few lessons — as it turned out, in British rather than American English — and taught her a few seemingly random words. “I could say the names of utensils, I knew a few songs, I could count to 10, I knew some animal names, and I knew hello and goodbye, and that was it.”
The family went to Queens, where they could stay with Inna’s uncle, her father’s brother. The family was Ashkenazi but had fled to the Central Asian republics that were part of the Soviet Union during the Second World War; Inna’s father was born in Tajikistan and she was born in neighboring Kurdistan. Her uncle had married a Bukharian woman and they lived in the Bukharian community in Rego Park and Forest Hills.
So that’s where Inna went to school. She’d finished second grade in the Soviet Union and because of the vagaries of cutoff dates in two entirely different educational systems ended up in fourth grade in Queens. “I didn’t know a lick of English,” she said. “I would stare at the teacher all day, with my mouth wide open, copying words down in my notebook for my mom to explain to me.
“One day the teacher called my mother — who didn’t speak much English either — and she said, ‘You know, your daughter just sits and stares at me with her mouth open all day. Like this.’ And then she opened her mouth, to show my mother what it looked like.
“She knew that I didn’t speak English because I got pulled out of class for ESL,” English as a Second Language. But didn’t care. “She told my mother that I was retarded,” a word that it was acceptable to use back then, although even back then it hurt.
“Now I’m on the board of education in Livingston, I’m an accountant, and I do so many other things,” she said, but that long-ago sting, or at least its memory, remains.
That was fourth grade, when she and her family lived with her uncle. In a few months the family was able to rent its own apartment, on the other side of Queens Boulevard. Inna changed schools, and things got better. “By fifth grade I knew enough English to get by, and after that it was smooth sailing,” she said.
Ms. Yelisevich went to Forest Hills High School, and then to Queens College. She majored in accounting, not because she particularly liked it, but because she knew she could find a job with that credential. And she did — she worked in the corporate world until recently, including eight years at KPMG.
Then a round of corporate restructuring and layoffs soon before October 3, 2023, ended Ms. Yelisevich’s time at KPMG. She was upset at first, but soon the truth that she wanted “to do something more meaningful” was becoming clear. “And I was getting more and more involved in the Jewish community. I had never connected to Jewish life until I had kids.”
When she lived in Queens, in a neighborhood so Jewish that “there is a synagogue on every block; there are so many that you trip over them,” neither she nor her parents felt drawn to any of them.
She was married then, to “a Russian Orthodox man, who wore a cross, a very proud Russian, a 10th-generation Muscovite — I found out that that’s a status thing. But one thing I said when we were getting married was that ‘I am Jewish, and you are Russian Orthodox, but no matter what else happens our kids are Jewish.’”
They made the move — it’s a short physical distance but can be a much bigger emotional one — over the river from New York to New Jersey to live in Jersey City. That was in 2004. The couple had three children together; when the oldest was 4, the next was 2, and the baby was still a baby, they divorced.
Ms. Yelisevich has been in Livingston since 2009.
“It was a crazy time, but I started taking my kids to Jewish things,” she said. “I found Chabad — I think we started with a menorah-building there — and at this point Chabad is our extended family. I talk to the rebbetzin almost weekly. I don’t feel that we became more religious, but we definitely connected, and that was the most important thing. The children go to Chabad Hebrew school.
“What you make of it is up to you, but you have to connect to the Jewish community.”
Ms. Yelisevich is remarried now; her husband, Vyacheslav Levin — he goes by Slav — is Jewish. “I said that if I ever got married again, it would be to someone Jewish, and I did. He is from Minsk, in Belarus. His family stayed in Eastern Europe, and a lot of them died in the Holocaust.” He came to this country when he was 18 and moved to Brooklyn. “He is wonderful,” his wife said.
They met because her friends insisted that they meet. He was divorced and had a 5-year-old. “Nobody rushed anything, and we had more playdates than real dates,” she said. The kids got along immediately. They married, and had two more children together. “Nobody says the word ‘step’ or ‘half’ in our house,” she said. “They are all brothers and sisters, and we’re Momma and Poppa to everyone.
“Our youngest son just turned 5, and our oldest daughter is 15.”
So there she is in Livingston, with a Jewish family. “My children are such proud Jews. They inspire me. There’s no turning back now. I wanted them to know more about being Jewish than I did, and I learn from them.
“I am beyond grateful for all of this. It’s better late than never.”
Ms. Yelisevich’s day job is as a real estate agent, but she also works part-time for Club Z. “It’s a Zionist organization for teens,” she said. “It teaches them 3,000-years-plus history of Jews and Israel, about Jewish culture. It’s not about religion — that’s what Chabad Hebrew school does — but it supplements what they learn there. It focuses on fact-based information.
“It’s been around for about 15 years. It started in California’s Bay Area, because apparently antisemitism there was way worse than it was here.”
She finds echoes of her own life in Club Z’s founder. “Masha Merkulova didn’t know that she was Jewish until she was about 15 years old, in the Soviet Union, and she went to get a passport,” that ironically named document that all Soviet citizens approaching adulthood had to get. It didn’t allow them to travel.
“I assume, based on her name, that her father was Russian Orthodox. She has a very Russian-sounding name. When you fill out the passport application, you have to fill out your nationality.” Jews are labeled as Jews, but Ms. Merkulova thought she was pure Russian, and checked that box. “And then the passport lady said, ‘I know your mother. She is Jewish.’ Masha was like, ‘What do you mean I’m Jewish?’ She ran home and asked her mom.
“This was often the case. I think that sometimes Jewish people married non-Jews intentionally, so they would not have a Jewish identity.”
Clearly that didn’t work with Ms. Merkulova. “I’ve met her, and she’s the biggest Zionist I know,” Ms. Yelisevich said. “She is a powerhouse.”
Club Z is based in California, but “I selfishly brought it to New Jersey because I wanted my teens to have it,” she said. Hers is the only chapter in New Jersey, but she hopes that others will begin as well. And, she stresses, despite the Soviet Jews behind its creation, “it’s not just for Russian Jews,” she said. “Not at all. It’s for everybody.”
Club Z is for eighth- through 12th-graders. It meets once a month, and although it’s somewhat social, it’s mainly educational, Ms. Yelisevich said. It also offers another, more intense track that meets more often. “The idea is to be sure that kids learn fact-based history — where they come from, Jewish culture, developing self-confidence and pride, connecting to like-minded peers in their communities, and developing their own networks,” she said.
It’s online at clubz.org.
Ms. Yelisevich seems to be a woman of unstoppable energy. Aside from everything else, she and her husband also run a weekly community group called Chess & Bagels. It’s for chess players of every level, she said, and it draws an average of 50 people every week. “I get fresh bagels from a local bagel shop every time,” she said.
Ms. Yelisevich and her friends Suzy Lugashi, Shyella Mayk, and Joana Rothenberg also collaborate on Livingston’s Yom Ha’Atzmaut celebration. It had been going on indoors on a smaller scale for about seven years when they started working on it about three years ago, Ms. Yelisevich said. They expanded it, took it outdoors, “opened it up to local businesses, and now, with a bigger budget, we can do more.” Last year more than 2,000 people participated; they hope for an even bigger crowd this year. “And it’s not just Jewish people,” Ms. Yelisevich said. “There were some Asian and Indian families. It is a free community event, and it is open to everyone.”
This project is not undertaken casually. “It was approved by the town council, and we work with the police department,” Ms. Yelisevich said. “We had a police presence, we had a local off-duty cop who we paid, and we had local volunteers. We have snow fencing” — that’s the kind of portable fencing that doesn’t provide heavy-duty security by itself but demarcates the area and makes it easier to keep it safe.
“Last year, we had Kosher Dillz perform. It was great. This year, we will have a full band, five musicians with instruments. It’s an Israeli band, called the Shuk. It’s very upbeat Israeli music. It will be a concert.
“We will have an inflatable slide, other activities. We have a teen corner. There are so many fun things happening!
“We have sponsors, and we are asking all our sponsors to have a fun activity at their table. It makes the day fun for the kids, and it gives the sponsors exposure for their businesses. It’s a win-win for us.
“Everything is run by volunteers,” she said. There’s the core group of planners, and then there are the volunteers who help out on the day.”
The celebration, at the Livingston Gazebo, is from 4 to 7:15; then everyone will cross the street to the town’s municipal building and gather around its flagpole. “Then we will sing the Star-Spangled Banner and then we’ll sing Hatikvah while we raise the flag of Israel,” Ms. Yelisevich said.
“Not many towns can do something like this. I am beyond proud and humbled that we can do this here in Livingston.”
Who: The Livingston Celebrate Israel Committee
What: Invites the community to Israel’s Independence Day Festival
Where: At the Livingston Gazebo
When: On Wednesday, April 22, from 4 to 7:15; a flag raising will follow at 7:30
How: Registration is necessary. Email livingstoncelebebratesisrael@gmail.com
How much: It’s free!
And also: Sponsors are welcome; email livingstoncelebratesisrael@gmail.com for information.
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