Resident Relishes Peace Corp Stint in Ukraine

Jeremy Borovitz is like many 20-somethings living through tough economic times. He's not sure what he wants to do with his life.

But that doesn't mean The Paramus resident has been idling while deciding.

Borovitz has spent the past two years in Boyarka, a Ukranian village, as a youth development volunteer for the Peace Corps. In his two years abroad, he's recorded an album with the children of the village, organized girls empowerment seminars and become accustomed to using a toilet outside, even in the midst of a Ukranian cold spell.

The Solomon Schecter graduate grew up in Paramus. He played Babe Ruth baseball and graduated in 2005, attending the University of Michigan.

Even as a senior at the University of Michigan in 2009, Borovitz wasn't sure what he was going to do when he graduated. He applied to the Peace Corps partly to give him two more years to decide, but also because attending the inauguration of Barack Obama inspired him to serve.

Borovitz asked to be sent to the land of his ancestors, Eastern Europe. His family hails from Ukraine and Poland.

After arriving in Ukraine in March 2010, Borovitz spent three months training. He learned the language, culture and history of the country.

Then, he was sent to Boyarka, a village of 600 people. The village center contains a school, a house of culture, where all the Soviet cultural events used to take place.

There is also a small doctor's office, two stores and a post office. There are four or five long streets lined with houses. Behind each house is sizable tract of land the people farm.

And that's it—that's the whole village.

Borovitz spends most of his time teaching English at the village school. He had no experience, aside from a year teaching at a Hebrew school in Ann Arbor, Mich.

"I wasn't very good at that and I've gotten much better at this," he said.

And since arriving, Borovitz has expanded his lessons to much more than English. After school lets out, he gives lessons—on anything—for three to four hours.

"I teach the whole village," he said. "Anyone who wants to learn anything, I'm willing to teach."

He taught guitar and drum lessons to a group of students at the Boyarka school, which culminated in an 11-song album. Sales of the album raised $550 for school supplies, speakers and a school guitar.

Borovitz's lessons have veered into ecology, and he engaged his students in a project building trash cans. 

Half of Boyarka's population was once Jewish. Now, Borovitz is the only one, and he takes the opportunity to teach the villagers about his faith—one of his students is researching the Jewish history of the village.

After noticing that men in the village would shake his hand but not those of any women, Borovitz organized girls empowerment camps in Boyarka and another village. He recruited other Peace Corps volunteers and Ukranian women to teach the girls about feminism and issues like human trafficking, HIV and AIDS.

Borovitz credits his parents with imparting a spirit of volunteerism to him. He said his mother, Ann Appelbaum, inspired him to hold the girls camps.

His father, Neal, the rabbi at Temple Avodat Shalom in River Edge, would often bring a young Borovitz to Hackensack to help feed the hungry.

"My father is very involved in volunteer work in the community and I would say I sort of learned from him," Borovitz said.

In turn, living in Boyarka has taught Borovitz lessons as well. He learned that running water isn't always a given.

He learned how to cope with using a toilet outside, even in freezing weather.

"You get used to it," Borovitz says.

He's learned to farm. Borovitz grows potatoes, beets and cabbage.

Regardless, he still longs for the comforts of home—friends, family and slices from Savino's Pizza. Borovitz hasn't seen Paramus in two years.

"It's hard being away from home," he said. "But at the same time, I've really come to love this place very much and it's going to be a lot harder for me to leave."

Borovitz still has no idea what he wants to do when he returns home this summer. But he feels more prepared than he was two years ago.

"It's been great," he said of his experience in the Ukraine. "It's been the best thing I've ever done."