Growing up in Minsk from his birth in 1974 until the end of the 1980s, Grisha Abramovich was unfamiliar with Judaism. He only knew about eating matzah and dipping apples in honey on Rosh Hashanah, and these things he learned clandestinely from his grandfather who kept a “secret synagogue” in his home 50 miles outside of Minsk.

Today Grisha Abramovich is a Reform rabbi from Minsk working for the World Union for Progressive Judaism as he travels the Republic of Belarus spreading Yiddishkeit in a country whose centuries-old Jewish population was decimated in the Holocaust. Before World War II, the vast majority of the inhabitants of Minsk was Jewish, its population reaching more than 50,000. Dating from the 5th century, the city produced famous rabbis, great thinkers, poets, writers, musicians and journalists who enriched daily life in this vibrant Jewish Mecca, which had, in the 1930s, 83 synagogues and prayer houses in which Jews congregated.

Rabbi Abramovich, who is living in Salem this October, is visiting temples here, in Boston and New York, speaking to audiences and telling them what he does. In Minsk, he is the rabbi of three synagogues; and throughout the country he travels to another dozen houses of worship. In truth, of the 15 communities he presides over, none have synagogue buildings; they are all housed in other facilities, such as Jewish Community Centers.

As Abramovich, a fifth generation Minsk Jew, makes his way through the North Shore, connecting with communities in Peabody, Lynn, Swampscott and Marblehead, he speaks of a slowly regenerating Jewish population which now numbers 20,000 in Minsk and a total of 50,000 in the entire country. While there is no longer government-sanctioned anti-Semitism, “we still feel pressure in everyday life,” Abramovich said. He speaks sadly of two Holocaust memorials in central Minsk, commemorating 100,000 Jews who were killed, defaced with swastikas several years ago. The perpetrators were never found.

To live on the same soil where such horrendous mass killings, torture and suffocating ghetto life existed escapes no one living in Belarus today, Abramovich said. Throughout the country, 800,000 Jews were slaughtered, reducing its population to two percent of what it had been. The country as a whole lost 2.3 million souls. “No single family was spared and nearly all synagogues were destroyed,” he said.

Today’s Belarus government is more sympathetic to its Jewish population.

“We commemorated 65 years of the final destruction of the Minsk ghetto in 2008,” Abramovich said. “Our president delivered a speech about Jews who died and those who resisted.”

Despite what the country has endured, today’s Jews are largely apathetic, but there is positive growth, Abramovich said. The Reform movement numbers 7,000. Orthodox and Chabad together number 12,000, he said.

After 70 years of Communist rule, where religious observance was prohibited and atheism taught, the statistics are understandable. So Abramovich attempts to engage people culturally and through lifecycle events. He is encouraged by the increasing number of lay leaders and volunteers who assist him. In many places, it is they who lead services, and the numbers of affiliated are growing. In 1993, he began his work with 25 Jews in Minsk. Today there are 1,000 who meet regularly in the JCC office. And every Jew he meets “comes with stories.”

One community Abramovich serves in Minsk, he calls “sheket,” silence. These are hard of hearing and deaf Jews who conduct services in sign language. Although he acknowledges that a family donates funds for that synagogue, he is seeking “twinning” opportunities in the U.S. to raise additional funds.

In the country where once every other citizen was a Jew, there are now no shops in which to purchase kipot, tallit and other articles of Judaica for a bar/bat mitzvah, Jewish wedding or holiday. He is delighted to have accumulated some of these items to bring home with him.

Rabbi Ken Weiss (see sidebar) wrote of his impressions upon exchanging places with Abramovich this month. Here are some of his thoughts:

So many experiences, so many impressions —

— there is Jewish joy here. Sukkot was beautiful because many Jews came together to celebrate it. Sitting in the World Union Office, I’m looking directly at the sukkah built on the small patio outside this window — for all the world to see.

— there is Jewish life here. Enthusiastic and devoted volunteers coupled with a small, utterly devoted professional staff bring Judaism to life every day.

— this past weekend in celebration of Simchat Torah, we were at a retreat in the greater Minsk area. Some 25 Jews from perhaps 10 different Belaurus communities gathered for study and prayer and seminars on various Jewish subjects. There was also music, lots of music (provided by ‘Netzer.’

— teenagers with wonderful musical talent and great enthusiasm for both traditional Jewish and modern Belarussian music).  

Rabbi Abramovich will be the speaker at Shabbat services on Friday, October 23 at 8 p.m. at Temple Emanu-El in Marblehead.