When the enemy is your brother
The war in Ukraine recalls Avrom Reyzen’s story about a Jew who’s worried that ammunition he's helping create might kill his own brother.
Russian Jews
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Opinion I’m an American Jew who was born in Russia. Will my community demonize me?
“If anyone asks, you’re not Russian. You’re Moldovan.” That’s what my mother-in-law advised me a few days ago, as the world reacted with justified horror to the Russian military invading Ukraine. She wants to protect me. Originally from Moldova herself (as is my husband), she’s relieved to be able to tell people truthfully that she’s…
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Culture In Russia, a Jewish couple dubbed ‘Spartacus.’ In Israel, they’re doing phone sex and voicing air-raid alerts.
When the Iron Curtain fell and Soviet refuseniks were finally allowed to settle in Israel, many found some novel worries, and some familiar ones, waiting on the other side. While they looked for work, these Jews found themselves navigating a new country and a new language. But, amid the stress of assimilation they still had…
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Community ‘Freedom Sunday for Soviet Jews,’ 33 years later
This week, 33 years ago, I stood on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. for the first time in my life, amid 250,000 American Jews and allies, listening to the legendary refusenik Natan Sharansky speak. “No missiles and tanks, no camps and prisons can extinguish the candle of freedom,” he told the throngs of people….
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Community Adin Steinsaltz was essential to the revival of the Russian Jewish community
In the wake of his passing on August 7, 2020, I remember Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz in conversation, as the ever youthful rebel, questioning the whole universe, with a biting sense of humour. In the Orthodox world, where clothing defines the person, he made sure to stand out as a unique creature, combining worn jeans with…
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Eat, Drink + Think Why I make these sirniki, or Russian cheese pancakes, for Shavuot [VIDEO]
If you read and discuss enough biblical commentary and ask why ancient figures didn’t do things along what we today think of as “Jewish” lines, you often get the response of ‘Well, they didn’t have the Torah yet. They didn’t know.’ It’s always been a point of comfort for me as someone who was raised…
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Fast Forward Israeli Chief Rabbi calls former Soviet immigrants ‘religion-hating gentiles’
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israel’s Sephardic chief rabbi is under fire for calling immigrants from the former Soviet Union “Communist, religion-hating” gentiles. At a rabbinical conference in Jerusalem last week, Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef criticized Israel’s Law of Return for granting citizenship to Russians who are not Jewish according to Orthodox religious law, the Yediot Acharonot daily…
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Breaking News Soviet Dissident Natan Sharansky Named 2020 Genesis Prize Recipient
NEW YORK (JTA) — The Genesis Prize Foundation has announced that Natan Sharansky, a Jewish Refusenik, prolific leader in the Soviet Jewry emigration movement and former Israeli politician, will be awarded the 2020 Genesis Prize. Natan Sharansky will be honored in Jerusalem on June 18, 2020. The Genesis Prize, dubbed the “Jewish Nobel,” was started in…
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UPCOMING EVENT
50th meeting of the Yiddish Open Mic Cafe
Hybrid event in London and online.
Aug 14, 2022
1:30 pm ET ·
Join audiences and participants from across the globe for this live celebration of Yiddish songs, poems, jokes, stories, games, serious and funny - all performed in Yiddish with English translation.