Public Radio of Armenia– Rebecca Miller, a Peace Corps volunteer in Armenia, was skeptical when Bishop Abraham Mkrtchyan approached her about starting a Jewish culture center alongside a medieval Jewish cemetery in the village of Yeghegis. “I had… noted that there was not much in the way of diversity in the area and couldn’t imagine [...]
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Russia and U.S. Continue Dispute over Chabad-Lubavitch Texts
JPOST– Russia has criticized a US judge’s ruling in a longstanding dispute over a collection of Jewish writings, warning of potential retaliation in an irate statement that reflected strained ties with the United States. A judge in Washington on Wednesday ordered Russia to pay $50,000 a day in fines for failure to adhere to a [...]
Ukrainian Officials Threaten Owner of Jewish International TV Channel
JTA – Vadim Rabinovich, the owner of the Jewish international TV channel JN1, charged that Ukrainian officials are trying to take over the station and have threatened him. The Kyiv Post weekly on Jan. 21 quoted a statement by the All-Ukrainian Jewish Congress – an organization headed by Rabinovich – as reading, “A senior official [...]
Masha Sergeeva: Using Art to Promote Modern Jewish Culture
JDC– Born and raised in St. Petersburg, Russia in the years after the fall of Communism, Masha Sergeeva, 21, grew up with limited understanding of—or pride in—her Jewish identity. That’s all changed now. “My uncle, my mom’s brother was a refusnik, and went to Israel in the first aliyah in the ‘80s,” explains Masha. “But my mom worked as an engineer at a [...]
Bar Mitzvah Celebrated 70 Years Later in Ukrainian Town
From Israel National News– By David Lev For the first time since before World War II, the small Jewish community in the Ukrainian town of Netishin held prayer services – and celebrated the Bar-Mitzvah of the grandson of the community’s last rabbi, 70 years after it had been scheduled to take place. The religious revival [...]
Moldovan Jewish Community Denied Right to Install Hanukkah Menorah in Capital
The JC– On the wall of an inconspicuous building in a side street in Chisinau, the capital of the former Soviet Republic of Moldova, a plaque reads: “Glaziers synagogue — middle of the 19th century.” This is the only remaining working synagogue in a city which boasted 77 synagogues before 1940. Chief Rabbi Zalman Abelsky, [...]
Limmud FSU Conference Fosters Jewish Culture
Jerusalem Post– By Daniel K. Eisenbud The Limmud FSU Conference in the western Ukrainian city of Uzhgorod may very well be the intellectual Jewish Woodstock of the former Soviet Union. Attracting over 600 Jews from all walks of life across the country, as well as from surrounding nations, it is a four-day meeting of the [...]
UCSJ’s Work in Ukraine: Preserving Jewish Culture
Foreword to the presentation of UCSJ’s work to preserve Jewish Heritage in Ukraine. The vibrant Jewish culture and the spiritual life of the Ukrainian Jewish community in Lviv, Ukraine, much like elsewhere in the former Soviet Union, had been ruthlessly suppressed by the Nazi and Communist totalitarian dictatorships for many years. At present, there are only [...]
An Oral History of the Rally to Save Soviet Jewry
Tablet Magazine How We Freed Soviet Jewry Twenty-five years ago today, a rally of 250,000 people changed the fate of Jews worldwide. An oral history. By Allison Hoffman Originally published December 6, 2012. (American Jewish Historical Society) Twenty-five years ago today, an estimated quarter of a million Americans, most of them Jews, flooded the Mall [...]
“The Twenty-Seventh Man”– The Crime of Writing While Jewish
By Diana Muir Appelbaum On the night of August 12, 1952, a group of Yiddish writers was executed on Joseph Stalin’s orders for the crime of writing while Jewish. The executions, remembered as the Night of the Murdered Poets, were the tragic culmination of the grand romance between Jewish intellectuals and Marxism. Author Nathan Englander now [...]