Russia Will Get Its First Jewish University, Modeled On Yeshiva U
(JTA) — Russia will receive its first Jewish university next month, the institution’s dean said.
Modeled after Yeshiva University in the United States, The Jewish University of Moscow is a private institution with a student body of 200 whose budget comes mostly from donors and the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia, dean Alexander Lebedev told JTA earlier this week.
The university — whose faculties include economics, law, humanities and Jewish studies – comprises two existing Jewish community colleges: Institute XXI century for men and Institute Machon CHaMeSH for women. Their reconstitution as campuses of a single, state-recognized university is a first in Russian history, according to Lebedev.
In the new institution, “students will have the possibility to observe Torah, kosher food, Jewish holidays and Shabbat,” he said. The Jewish University of Moscow “will keep this format of education, like Yeshiva University, to become the one strong recognizable brand” in its field, he added.
Most of the 200 students who will begin studying in the university when it opens are on a scholarship paid by the donors and the Chabad-affiliated federation led Rabbi Alexander Boroda and Berel Lazar, a chief rabbi of Russia. Many of the students will also live in the dormitories of the new facility, which is located in northern Moscow.
An additional 10,000 students will receive educational services by the university remotely.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO