The round of applause was thunderously rowdy, men whooping from their seats, refusing to let the clapping hands cease. Usually there comes a moment where an applause naturally dies down, where there is a general consensus that enough praise is enough. Not here, however. For here these men were bearded Hasidic Jews, and it was God they were praising.

This was my first Rosh Hashanah in Ukraine, the Jewish new year. Rosh Hashanah has always been an important holiday in my feeling, this beginning of the Jewish high holy days. Even during my years at University, I almost always flew home for Rosh Hashanah, missing classes and even a football game or two.

Here I found myself, in almost the geometric center of Ukraine, a land steeped in Jewish history, praying in a converted warehouse with 1,000 bearded pious men and bald Sephardic Israelis and wayward Modern Orthodox teens searching for a way to God. In the tent up the hill were another 1,000, as eclectic as we, with another 30,000 or so wandering the streets, grouping together, forming Minyanim, prayer groups, impromptu and in some ways more meaningful.

When I was interviewed during my Peace Corps Training about the site where I would live for the next two years, I requested only one thing: to be close to a Jewish community. No running water? no problem. No english speakers? Bring it on! But I have always needed and will always need a place to pray, a place to be with my fellow Jews. For unlike many other religions, while we certainly can pray alone in Judaism to fulfill the full breadth of our requirement we must pray in groups of ten. For the Orthodox it is ten men; for more liberal Jews, such as myself, any ten Jews will suffice. The Jew needs a community, even a small one. I am a Jew, and thus I am no exception.

As soon as I received the name Boyarka in that slim White Manilla Envelope that contained little of use but much too be imagined, my regional manager, Iryna, approached me to assuage any fears I might have.

“Jeremy,” she said, “you are only two hours from Uman.”

Uman? What the hell is Uman? The name sounded familiar, to be fair, but I couldn’t quite place it.

I pressed Iryna for more, for any more information she might have on this community. “All I know,” she said, “is that every year a bunch of bearded Jews with hats come to Uman for their New Year celebration.” The plot thickens.

It didn’t take much investigation to find out the secret to this small Ukrainian city. Uman is centered about half way between Kiev and Odessa, and is most famous for two thigns. The first is Sofivka Park, a giant memorial of grandeur landscaping that was built by a Polish nobleman for his mistress whom he killed for sleeping with his son. (Follow all that?)

The second is that it is the place where the body of Nachman of Bratslav, the old Hasidic Rebbe, lay interred.

Anyone who has ever been to Israel, especially to Jerusalem, has undoubtedly seen the graffiti along the walls. Na. Nach. Nachma. Nachman. Nachman Me-Uman. I remember learning on my twelfth grade trip to Israel that the followers of the Hasidic Sect believed that if every Jew in the world were to say his name as such, he would return in Messianic form.

Nachman of Bratslac was born in 1772 in the heartland of Hassidic Ukraine. Hassidim was a movement founded by his great-grandfather the Ba’al Shem Tov, and it emphasized a revolutionary spiritual approach to Judaism. Personal communication with God became a must; being in touch with one’s Nefesh, or Soul, became a prerequisite. Nachman saw himself as the inheritor of his Great Grandfathers legacy. He often times claimed his own brilliance and even alluded to his own messianic nature, and believed that he and he alone held the truest and most direct path to God. He also suffered from bouts of melancholy, if not depression, and often times struggled with his own growing influence. At his height, he stood alone against the all of the Hasidic Rebbes in Ukraine, creating a revolution within a revolutionary movement, ever the more controversial.

Rav Nachman also holds an intense following of very intense followers. Breslav Hassidim, as they are called, stretch their influence across the globe and believe that Rav Nachman himself will return to usher in the Messianic age. They read his writings and follow his teachings and even are rumored to hold on to some of the Rebbe’s secrets that he only divulged to his most devout students.

When I told my friends and colleagues in my village that I was considering heading to Uman, they were all extremely supportive. But they also all made comments, I hear anti semitic jokes sometimes, even from people i have grown to love and respect. Its jsut an ingrained part of life here, as unfortunately linked to the Ukrainian mentality as assuming that the next winter will be even harsher.

I really had no idea what I was going to do when I got to Uman. All I had was a play to stay with another Peace Corps Volunteer who lived in the city. I had been there once before, so I knew my way around a bit. As I headed towards the town center to meet up with Joseph, my fellow American (and a non-Jew from Arkansas), I saw two dark skinned men in Kipput approaching in the distance.

I approached them and, in my best Hebrew, said, “Slichah, Adoni, aval ani mechapes meekom tefillah.” Excuse me, sirs, but I am looking for a place to pray.

I threw them for a loop, I think. They did not expect this blond haired fellow with the classic Ukrainian plastic-bag-serving-as-a-suitcase in tow to whip out some words in their native tongue.

They asked who I was, and I told them. An American in Ukraine, a Jew in a tiny village once imbued with Yiddishkeit long since voided. I got a flattering response from them, to say the least. “Atah Tzaddik.” You are a holy man.

One of them was named Shaul, the other’s name escapes me. But Shaul gave me the low down on services, how to get there, what time to go. It starts at 5 am, he said. Later than 7 and you’ll struggle to find a seat. Plenty of places to pray, plenty of fellow Jews to pray with. Shaul also expressed some interest in my village. He took down my number, and we made very rough and idealistic and naive plans for him to come back to my village with me. It all seemed so normal, fellow Jews bonding over shared experiences and shared values.

I set my alarm for 6 am, and I was on my way to the synagogue, which also happens to surround the grave of Rabbi Nachman, by half past. I didn’t precisely know where I was going. But I had confidence in my Ukrainian and in the fact that no one was going to try and beat up some 23 year old American who was asking for directions to the synagogue.

Eventually I heard it, the wails. And soon after I saw it, the men draped in white robes and curly beads, peis draped in front of their ears so as not to disobey the ancient decree. And the forelocks were many and the hats varied but I saw them, and as I followed them there were more and more, and as I went after them the Ukraine around me began to immediately transform.

Have you ever been to Me’ah She’arim, the religious neighborhood in Jerusalem? If you haven’t, then unfortunately I have an entirely insufficient vocabulary to describe to you the spectacle that is the square kilometer or so surrounding Rav Nachman’s grave. Men in long beards praying on street corners, Hebrew advertisements for day time excursions to Odessa and Berditchev, schedules of flights back to Israel and the appropriate necessary shuttles. I was in a different world, a Jewish world, and yet I was still in Ukraine.

Eventually I found a place to pray, a large converted warehouse with a Torah instead of a stone grinder standing in its center. I open up the prayer book my mother sent to my small Ukrainian village, and I began to pray. It is an Orthodox prayer book, and I am unfamiliar with much of the liturgy. The men around me are swaying and muttering and shouting, all of it in ecstasy. It is hard to find my place. But every now and then a familiar prayer will be sung or a Psalm I recognize will pop up in the page and these moments serve as a beacon, bringing back to where I am supposed to be.

And then when I least expected something I never expected, the men around me began clapping. It was mild and then thunderous, rowdy. It was combined with whooping and sheer joy. It was counter to most of Judaism’s taboos. A service is not a place for clapping, I had been taught. We don’t clap. We pray. Why here? Why now?

The confusion of the collection of moments became a bit much for me, so I cut out of the service a bit early (this was at 230, by the way, after a solid 7 hours or so of constant prayer). My soul was tired, and I wasn’t quite sure that this was where I belong. I decided to go back to the city center, back to my friends place. Something about being with another AMerican, another Peace Corps volunteer, felt more familiar than this group of bearded Hassidim. This was a new emotion for me. I was surrounded by a sea of gentiles, and yet I felt out of place in this small reserviour of Jews.

Dozens of policeman were surrounding this Jewish compound. The Jews are good for Uman’s economy, and they cops are under strick orders to make sure no trouble rears its ugly face. I approach one of the policeman, and ask, in my best Ukrainian, the best way back to center.

Jak ty znayesh nasha mova?” How do you know our language, he asks. Sure, some of these folks know Russian. But Ukrainian? Who the hell are you?

I brisk over my biography, that I teach in a small village school about 2 hours north. It turns out he has heard of my village. We begin to talk about places we have been, tourist sites we have both been forced to see. And all around us the Jews are staring and the other policemen are staring. Why is our brother in his Kippah, why is he talking to this policeman, and so jovially? Why is our comrade in arms making nice with this invading Jew?

EVentually the policeman sends me on my way towards the city center, and I weave my way through Hebrew signs and bearded men and Ukrainians with ID badges so people know its OK that they are there. And every Jew I see, I greet them with a hearty “shannah tova.” A Happy New Year. Most of them are surprised, surprised that I am one of them and surprised that any one spends their time on such casual pleasantries in such and such a day and age.

One man eventually stops me, hearing my accent, seeing my clothes, wanting to know my story. His name was Yitzhak, he was an Israeli from Tel Aviv, and he insisted I come to his house for a bite to eat. I tried to refuse, but I secretly knew it was to no avail. Jews are like Ukrainians, in at least this on sense: if they ofer you food, there is no way to say know.

Yitzhak is fascinated by my presence in Ukraine. Why wouldn’t you teach English in Israel, he wonders? Why help these strangers, who hate us, before you help your brothers? It is a question I have gotten before, many times, and the truth is I’m still not sure of the answer. But I tell hom that I walk around in this village that used to be filled with Jews, as a Jew, and I am imbued with a sense of Yiddishkeit. I tell him that the people in my village accept me as me and like me as me and they also know I’m a Jew and theres something in that, as well. I tell him I am a one-man anti-semitism fighting team, and I tell him that if we are to do as our tradition teaches us, to be a light to the nations, well then we may as well go to the darkest places in the hope of making the biggest impact. I tell him all this, and he is intrigued, and he calls my work holy.

He then makes a request of me. There are Ten Psalms, he says Ten Psalms that Rav Nachman felt were the Ten most important Psalms in the bible. Our Rebbe wanted us to say these Psalms on the New Year. Say them, he implored me. Say them, and your holiness will only be greater.

Unsure as I ever was whether or not such shenanigans really work, I say the Psalms anyway, partly to be a good host and partly because I simply enjoy Jewish prayer. And saying these Psalms in this place did feel just a bit magical, a mixture of tradition and mysticism that struck the right chord. But as I finished the Psalms and handed Yitzhak back his book, I noticed that his place was a mess. He was renting it, I knew, from a Ukrainian for an exorbitant price. And in his mind this price allowed him to treat it like his trash can. He showed me the utmost hospitality, because I was one of his own. These dirty Ukrainians, however, only deserved to pick up the trash after him.

Yitzhak’s mindset was seemingly shared by many of the Hassidim in town. Litter isn’t exactly a foreign concept to this country. But it truly pained me to see Hebrew writing on bags of potato chips, on water bottles, on candy wrappers, strewn across the Umanian landscape. They didn’t care. They simply didn’t care that this was still God’s earth, that these were still people. Even if we are the chosen people, isn’t that more a place of responsibility than a place of privilege? Doesn’t it mean we have to do more, not that we are simply better? How can our moral compass change depending on the person and who their mother was and who her mother was, as well?

The next day, I decided not to return to the religious services. Instead, I went to Sofiika Park, a monolith of nature that is the other famous part about Uman. My friend Stephanie, another Jewish volunteer whom I knew from the University of Michigan, came to meet me in Uman, and we went to the park together to participate in the Tashlich service. Tashlich is probably one of my favorite services of the year, because U can really feel its impact immediately. On the second day of the new year, Jews take pieces of bread and throw them into a body of water, physically casting away their sins. I always try and think of specific people as I throw these crumbs into the sea, of things I’ve done wrong and of how I can be a better son, a better brother, a better friend, a better human being. Its hard work, sometimes. But it helps.

So there Stephanie and I are, and I’m chanting some Hebrew and wearing my Kippah and Ukrainians are doing there best to stare. And yet I don’t care, because I am in the process of purifying my soul. And they don’t really seem to care, its just that its interesting and something to look at. And I throw my bread into this Ukrainian water and I feel better, and so does Stephanie. Sometimes its just nice to get the things that are bothering you about yourself off your chest.

And suddenly I remembered the clapping again, bringing holiness to a place that was void. And these sins I was throwing in to the water was a form of clapping itself, a tacit admission that this place is as much my home as any other place. I am a Jew and an American and also a human being and I am as imperfect here as I can be anywhere. But in this thought I was seemingly alone.

We were in the midst of ten days of forgiveness and yet these Jews had no interest in forgiving. These Ukrainians 60 years ago had watched the murder of their brethren, and some had participated. This country was full of jew-haters. This country was less than. This country was their toilet. These Hassidim, these so called righteous men, are clapping, but making only the bad kind of noise. They are ignorant to the disruptive impact they have on other people’s lives. They don’t care who they are hurting. They are clapping, and they think that is enough.

But was the clapping itself truly enough even for Nachman? Was it the act itself, or was the act simply a symbol for courage under fire, for letting your voice be heard in a hostile environment? Is the clapping similar to the sound of the Shofar, the ram’s horn, which signaled the ancient Israelites to approach the battlefield, to attack? Judaism does not have very many passive symbols; our holiest book, the Torah, is often referred to as being alive.

Nachman, in addition to the clapping, placed a huge emphasis on being alone, and confessing one’s sins out loud. He was a very tortured human being, constantly feeling as if he was not measuring up to God’s expectations of him. As a young boy, he used to enjoy rowing a boat to the middle of a lake, alone, and sit there all day, discussing with God his internal pain, his failures, his shortcomings.

A few years after Nachman died, not far from where he lived, was born a young man, Taras Shevchenko, who over the course of his lifetime would evolve into the voice of the long suppressed Ukrainian people. Shevchenko is more than a literary icon, more than a figurehead. He is a part of every man, woman, or child who calls themself a Ukrainian, he is more ingrained in the consciousness than Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and Abraham Lincoln put together. Shevchenko is not only a part of Ukrainian culture, he embodies it.

As a prt of my cultural integration in my community, I have begun studying some of his poems, albeit mainly the ones they usually teach in fourth or fifth grade. Recently I was reading one, and a passage caught my eye:

I sit in a boat
In a body of water
And there I will be alone
With only the sky to listen.

Two men, a few generations and a wide cultural gap apart, spouting the same ideas, the same philosophies, philosophies that were also being echoed on Walden pond half a world away. Two men, Nachman and Shevchenko, two strains of a similar mentality coming to fruition in the breadbasket of the world. And yet I can’t help but wonder how few people have read both these philosophers in their native tongues, or even at all.

When I returned home to Boyarka, one of the first calls I received was from Shaul, that nice Israeli man I had met on the street. I was excited that he had called, albeit a bit late. I was already home, I told him. If he would like to visit my village he may, but it would be a bit difficult to reach.

He asked me if I knew any village girls he could meet.

Because this was his trash can, his toilet, the sanctity of these women did not matter. Shaul was looking to praise Rav Nachman and he was looking for a good lay, and I’m not that confident it was in that order. This was in the ten days of repentance, the ten days when were are supposedly being judged by God. Shaul’s God, when it comes to Ukrainians, apparently looks the other way.

After I heard from Shaul, I headed to the house of Tamilla, my counterpart, and Kolya, my Director. We talked about my trip, about the experience, my impressions. Then they showed me an article in the newspaper. Two Ukrainian men were beat up by the Hassidim. The Hassidim thought they were being robbed, although they weren’t. Not, that I’m sure, most of them cared to ask, after they got caught up in the mob mentality of beating on a couple of Jew haters. They blame them for the fact that 70 years ago none of them asked why, none of them said stop. But who among US asked why? Who among US said stop? And yet these are my brothers, my achim, moyi brati.

Tamila and my director did not have very nice things to say about these Hassidim, these righteous men. But they didn’t just call them Hassidim. They called them Jews. They were not talking about me, I knew. They liked me. But those OTHER Jews, they are bad people. They cheat and they steal and they hurt and they don’t care who gets in their way. These are bad Jews, they say. These Jews are bad.

And so I say the Psalms of Nachman and I commit Shevchenko to memory. I try to understand Nachman’s relationship with God and Ukrainian’s relationship with each other. And I try to understand if I can bring some holiness to this place, infuse some Yiddishkeit without becoming a hated Jew.

The other night I headed to my Director’s house to drop off the money for our project. We received a $500 grant to build some trash cans, and try and clean up our village just a little bit. It was another one of those moments where I remembered how lucky I was to have such a strong partner in my Director. As soon as I handed over the cash he sat me down. “Nam Treba Napisatee Bizness Plan.” We have to write a business plan.

So there we were, writing down how much tools would cost and how much wood would cost and how long we have to do it in. Then he looked at me and exposed himself, just for a moment.

Jeremy, he said. There is a monument in the village over, a monument built to the holodomyr. The great Ukrainian famine. Millions starved to death by Stalin. Scar on Ukrainian history. There is a monument, Jeremy, and no one ever goes there. They just drop their trash there as they pass by. Lets build a table, and some benches. Lets build a trash can there. Lets clean it up. Whats the point of a monument if no one ever goes there to remember?

I readily agreed. It was still in tune with the project’s ecological theme. It was still making this a cleaner place. And it was important to him.

About an hour later, after eating dinner and watching some Russian TV that forced me to read the Ukrainian subtitles, my director went back up to me. Jeremy, he said. We could also build a Pamyat, a Memorial, at the Old Jewish cemetery. Who the Jews were. What happened to them. What was here.

I never brought this up to him, I never said that this was something I wanted or needed. He might make anti-semitic jokes sometimes, but he wasn’t talking to a Jew. He was talking to me, and he knew this was important to me, and he wanted to show that I was important to him.

I was in Kiev the day before Yom Kippur, wandering around with my friend Rachel searching for the El Dorado of Chinese Restaurants. She suggested we ask outside a music shop where a groovy Ukranian dude was smoking a pipe. He didn’t know where the restaurant was, but we went inside anyway. A man approaches me, says his name is Sasha. I tell him that I live in a small village and while I have a guitar, I’m in the market for another one. I’ve been trying to teach some kids to play, but it’s hard when you only have one.

We get to talking. Where is your accent from? America. I have relatives in America! So do all Ukrainians. My relatives are Jewish. I’m Jewish. So am I.

The next ten minutes are a blur, us comparing synagogues in Kiev, playing Jewish geography, talking about our favorite Rabbis. We start throwing Hebrew into our Ukrainian and English mix (he lived in Israel for 8 years). We are talking about our identity and our heritage and our religion and our atonements. He asks me how much I wanted to pay for a guitar. I said 400 hriven. He grabs one guitar. It says 600 hriven. Take it, he says. I can’t, I say. You are right, he says. Take this more expensive one instead. And a free bag to boot.

I don’t know how to repay you, I said. Achi, he says, Mi Brat, he cries, my brother, he proclaims. You don’t have to. You are doing good work.

In our parting words, after exchanging numbers, we wished each other the traditional Yom Kippur wish. Gamar Chatimah Tovah. May you be sealed in the book of life.

And here was Sasha, a man who had lived in Israel and yet chosen Ukraine as his home, a man who has read Shevchenko and yet surely knows of Nachman, a man who identifies as a Jew to a strange American he meets in his store. Sasha showed me I do not have to choose this world or the other, I do not have to be either a Jew or an American or a Ukrainian or one of them or one of us. Life can be much more inclusive, if only we open our hearts and minds to let it.

So I forgive the Hassidim for their Hatred and Intolerance, I forgive the Ukrainians for the Past and their Ignorance, I forgive Shaul for his over active Labido and I forgive my Director for his anti Semitic Jokes. What other choice do I have?

And so instead of concerning myself with symbols of things past I will continue to immerse myself in the actions of things present. I will keep giving guitar lessons and keep teaching English and keep throwing around the baseball and keep building trash cans and keep making the Ukrainian famine as important to me as it is to them, and keep on being proud that I am a Jew, and keep on lighting the candles every Friday evening.

This is how I choose to clap, this is how I choose to bring holiness to a place. And maybe, if I clap loud enough, the Hassidim and the Ukrainians and Shaul and my Director and the Jews of the world and the bigots of the world, maybe, just maybe, they’ll begin to start clapping, too.