Russian Jews (Finally) Get Their Own Museum
They’ve largely disappeared as residents, but Russia’s Jews now have their own museum.
Billed as the first Jewish museum in the country, the Moscow center opened recently following several years of planning. Exhibits are divided between two general themes, focusing on either Jewish practice or on Jewish history in Russia.
Radio Free Europe reports that many of the display items were purchased at auctions overseas, then returned to Russia for the museum. The oldest items are from the 1700s, and museum officials received assistance from Israeli academics in creating the museum’s first shows.
The opening follows the dedication of a similar museum in Poland’s capital in 2007, but apparently without similar official fanfare.
Radio Free Europe reports that Russia’s Jewish population has plunged from an estimated 5.19 million in 1897 — roughly 4 percent of the population — to about 265,000, or 0.16 percent.
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