Russian Non-Jews Can Begin Conversion Before Immigrating to Israel

Moscow Image by Getty
Russian non-Jews who are preparing to immigrate to Israel have been given the option of beginning their conversion to Judaism in Moscow.
This option came with the launch last week in Russia of the Maslul project, which is a joint initiative of several organizations for facilitating the conversion process for prospective immigrants even before they land in the Jewish state.
Started last year in Ukraine, the Maslul course, which was born out of a partnership between the Triguboff Institute, the Jewish Agency for Israel and the Australian branch of United Israel Appeal, will operate in Russia from Moscow’s Choral Synagogue Jewish community center, headed by the city’s chief rabbi and president of the Conference of European Rabbis, Pinchas Goldschmidt.
In Moscow, a team of six people will locate eligible nominees for the project and run the educational program, which meets the curriculum of the Jewish Agency’s National Institutes for Identity and Conversion — a state-recognized entity. In Ukraine, Maslul operates a program for several dozen people, with 10 instructors. Conversion students get accredited for material covered in Maslul programs outside Israel and may complete the process in Israel.
Israel’s Law of Return for Jews gives citizenship to some people who have family ties to Jews but are not Jewish themselves according to Halacha, or religious Jewish law, and therefore can not marry under Jewish law. Israel has hundreds of thousands of citizens, mostly from former Soviet countries, who identify culturally as Jewish but are unable to marry as such in Israel because they are not recognized as Jewish.
This and other problems lead to a feeling of estrangement, according to Benjamin Ish-Shalom, the National Institute’s chairman. Many olim who are not familiar with Judaism “find themselves bewildered once they come across it after their aliyah,” he said.
Non-Jews who begin their conversion after immigrating to Israel, or making aliyah, have difficulties completing their conversion because of the hardships of immigration, Shalom Norman, the Harry O. Triguboff Israel Institute of Conversion Policy, said, adding that Maslul was designed to solve this problem.
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.
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!
Most Popular
- 1
News A Jewish Republican and Muslim Democrat are suddenly in a tight race for a special seat in Congress
- 2
Film & TV What Gal Gadot has said about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
- 3
Fast Forward The NCAA men’s Final Four has 3 Jewish coaches
- 4
Culture How two Jewish names — Kohen and Mira — are dividing red and blue states
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward ‘Another Jewish warrior’: Fine wins special election for U.S. House seat
-
Fast Forward A Chicagoan wanted to protest Elon Musk — and put a swastika sticker on a Jewish man’s Tesla
-
Fast Forward NY attorney general orders car wash to stop ripping off Jews with antisemitic ‘Passover special’
-
Fast Forward Cory Booker proclaims, ‘Hineni’ — I am here — 19 hours into anti-Trump Senate speech
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.