Preparing for the Games: The town of Sochi, Russia, which will host the 2014 Winter Olympic Games has received a new Torah and is renovating their shul to welcome visitors during the games. Image by Getty Images

The synagogue in Sochi in Russia has been renovated and received a new Torah scroll ahead of the city’s hosting of the Winter Olympics next year.

Rabbi Ari Edelkopf, director of the Jewish Community of Sochi, told JTA the renovation was completed this month and “will help our synagogue serve not only thousands of local Jews, but also Jews from around the world who come to Sochi for business and the thousands expected during the Winter Olympics.”

The previous Winter Olympics, held in 2010 in Vancouver, drew in thousands of athletes from dozens of countries and tens of thousands of spectators.

Forwarding the News

Thoughtful, balanced reporting from the Forward and around the web, bringing you updated news and analysis each day.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

The new Torah scroll entered Sochi’s synagogue, housed in the local Jewish Community Center, after a colorful procession earlier this month through the main streets of the resort city of 500,000 on the eastern shores of the Black Sea.

The Kaganovich family in St. Petersburg paid for the Torah. Berel Lazar, a chief rabbi of Russia, and rabbis from the Jewish community of St. Petersburg led a ceremony there marking its completion.

Edelkopf, who grew up in the United States and lived in Israel before settling in Sochi 11 years ago, said Sochi had no Jewish schools but had available Jewish educational programs for all ages as well as a functioning mikvah.

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

2X match on all Passover gifts!

$90 → $180 $180 → $360

$360 → $720

Other amount