A Father and Son Journey in Poland

June 18, 2023 – A father, Igor Mikhaylov, took his Bar Mitzvah age son, Ilan on a trip to Poland in the Spring of 2023. They were spurred by Ilan’s Bar Mitzvah project at Temple Judea in Los Angeles, CA in November 2022. Ilan ambitiously raised funds for the Janusz Korczak Childcare Fund of Friends of Jewish Renewal in Poland for Progressive Judaism supporting Spynka. The support for the network of 90 Day Care Centers called “Spynka” was one of many encounters with the Poland of today, which is offering refuge to Ukraine’s women and children. Father and son visited remnants of Warsaw’s Jewish past in the former area of the Warsaw Ghetto. They celebrated a Progressive Jewish Passover Seder with Rabbi Matti Kirschenbaum and Hania Gawronska-Spiewak, and 80 other Jews. Yes, they went to a soccer game!

The narrative of Igor’s life was that he was motivated to help his grade school classmates in the early Spring of 2022 with body armor to defend the city of their youth, Kyiv, Ukraine. He brought that armor to Poland, and it was transferred to his friends.

A part of the Mikhaylov family that originates in the Ukrainian region of Podolia, which comprises the modern-day Khmelnychchyna, Zhytomyrshchyna, and Vinnychchyna. The current events of the past year and a half sparked both interest and a call for action to help in the region that once was the Pale of Settlement, which contained the largest and most vibrant Jewish population in history. The bonding of father and son on their tour of Poland was meant to explore and deepen their understanding of Eastern Europe. Not only did they trace elements of the rise and tragic fall of its Jewish Communities it developed their family narrative.

Igor Mikhaylov, Engineer and member of the Board of Directors of Friends of Jewish Renewal in Poland/Beit Polska, born in the Ukrainian Republic of the Soviet Union, emigrated as a refugee to the United States in 1989.

Ilan Mikhaylov completed his Bar Mitzvah and is a student and soccer player.

*This webinar was carried out in Polish and English simultaneously.