Limmud FSU Conference Comes to Princeton
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
More than 500 young Russian-American Jews from across the United States will gather at Princeton University for a conference designed to bring them closer to Jewish history and culture.
The Limmud FSU conference will take place at Princeton May 11-13.
Limmud FSU is a festival of Jewish learning featuring a program of lectures, workshops, round-table discussions, music and a wide-range of cultural events presented in Russian, English and Hebrew. The goal of the program is to bridge young Russian-speaking Jews and their disconnect from the American Jewish community.
The program will focus on the life and work of Albert Einstein; other topics to be discussed include: Jewish philanthropy, Israel and the Iranian threat, the Arab Spring and the future of Israel, Russian media in the U.S., and the Israeli economy. Presenters at the conference are leading academics, politicians, writers and artists hailing from the U.S., Israel, Russia and elsewhere.
“Limmud FSU is a unique opportunity for the Russian-speaking Jewish community to create something new, educational, thought provoking, and most importantly – our own,” said Alina Bitel, a participant from New York. “The program inspires pluralistic approach to Jewish engagement and fills a void that has been created for those who don’t find a place for themselves in traditional Jewish institutions.”
There is an estimated 750,000 to 1 million Russian-American Jews in the U.S., with about half living in New York and New Jersey.
Limmud conferences also will be held this year in Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine, Israel and the United States. A conference last month in Moscow attracted about 1,000 young people and focused on Russia as a society undergoing change both in general and for its Jewish citizens.
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news. All donations are still being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000 until April 24.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
