Hatikva Donetsk
We are an independent community of Bnei Noach in the city of Donetsk.
We are an independent community of Bnei Noach – “Hatikva” in the city of Donetsk. We initially gathered together as a group of people seeking G-d who were not satisfied with Christianity, with teachings from the Far East, and – it goes without saying – with western post-Christian culture. In the fall of 1997 we became the first Jewish Messianic community in the Ukraine. Our study of both written and oral Torah gradually clarified our approach, and we moved away from Messianic Judaism and towards Judaism. When we began to understand that Judaism does not need any new external ideas, many of our members moved to the Holy Land, and non-Jews, who were the majority of the group at the time, could not picture themselves living outside the Jewish religion. By the year 2002 we had completely abandoned the messianic way and we formally registered as a Bnei Noach community (the first group in the former Soviet Union to do so). We define our approach as Judaism for Gentiles, which is based on a balanced combination of two principles:
(1) The Jewish nation was chosen by G-d to fulfill a historic mission which has not yet been completed.
(2) The Holy One, Blessed be He, desires absolute acceptance of the law of truth and love by all the people in the world and not only by the Jews.
In meetings on Shabbat we discuss the weekly Torah portion and the commentators, we sing Hebrew and Russian songs, and we read from the Siddur. We celebrate all the Jewish holidays while we try to understand their philosophical significance for humanity as a whole. We concentrate on the subject of family life.
We feel that the Bnei Noach movement is very important and real. We are sure the movement will continue to develop, and we hope to have practical hope from rabbis.
Our main mission is to bring the light of Torah to the world through the way we live.
Our website is: http://www.hatikva-ua.com