Soviet Jewry

Former Prisoners of Zion, aliyah activists, discuss plans for new Soviet Jewry heritage center

Heritage Ministry Director-General Itay Grank presented the ministry’s vision for the center, which would introduce younger generations to the history of Soviet Jewry.

Alex Silnitsky addresses a gathering of former Prisoners of Zion and aliyah activists at the Heritage Ministry in Jerusalem on October 5.
 Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy takes part in a commemoration ceremony for the victims of Babyn Yar (Babiy Yar), one of the biggest single massacres of Jews during the Nazi Holocaust, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv Ukraine September 29, 2022.

85 years later: Babyn Yar and the fight against deliberate erasure - opinion

FIVE JEWISH couples get married in Brazil on Lag Ba'omer.

Five Jewish couples marry in Brazil in front of 900 young Jews from former Soviet Union

 An illustrative image of an Iranian agent in the backdrop of an Iranian flag.

Iran’s 400% espionage surge in Israel: Rising threats and societal vulnerabilities - opinion


Yad Vashem opens exhibition 80 years since Operation Barbarossa

A new online exhibition tells unpublished accounts of Jewish families caught up in the horror of the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union and the onset of the Holocaust.

The Bernstein Family from Ylakiai in Lithuania during the Holocaust.

New book explores Hillel's rebuilding Jewish life in former Soviet Union

Sprinkled throughout the book are many vignettes that illustrate Hillel’s approaches.

EX-SOVIET dissident and then-minister Natan Sharansky (left) meets in Moscow with mayor Yuri Luzhkov, 1997. The book covers Hillel’s efforts to build Jewish activism among Sharansky’s successors in the former USSR in the 1990s, subsequent to his making aliyah.

Isi Leibler reflects on a lifetime of leadership

“In my twilight years, I look back and say I’ve been privileged to live through one of the most tumultuous and rewarding periods in Jewish history."

Isi Leibler.

Deciding life or death: Polish Jews and the wartime Soviet Union dilemma

Become modified Soviet citizens (which effectively required them to leave the area) or retain Polish citizenship and return to the territory controlled by Germany?

THE SOLOVETSKY Monastery in northern Russia is known as the ‘mother of the Gulag,’ having been converted into a Soviet prison and labor camp and used as a model for other such camps during the Stalin era

The surprising story of Jewish revival in the Former Soviet Union

Russia itself and also included Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus, Uzbekistan and Georgia have seen an increase in Hillel centers.

Soviet Jews and Jewish traditions

70 Brooklyn yeshivas supported by laundered money - report

Since the early 2000s, two Miami businessmen have run a "commercial empire," as Radio Free Europe report puts it, answering to the Ukranian-Israeli billionaire oligarch Ihor Kolomoyskyy.

Ihor Kolomoyskyy speaks during an interview in Dnipropetrovsk May 24, 2014.

George Shultz hailed by Jewish leaders for helping free Soviet Jews

“He felt a special bond to the American Jewish community. Everyone could sense his humility, his integrity, the sincerity of his views, and his commitment and support for Israel."

George Shultz, with book, at a 2017 Limmud FSU conference with, from left to right, Julius Berman, Natan Sharansky and Chaim Chesler.

Isi Leibler: A man with many missions

Leibler is arguably best known in Australia for championing the cause of Soviet Jewry.

AUSTRALIAN RELATIONS with the Soviets: Soviet ambassador Vitaly Loginov presents his credentials to the governor-general at Government House, Canberra, in 1963.

Isi Leibler: Saving Soviet Jews and helping Israeli-Asian ties

His memories span almost a century that took the Jewish story from Eastern Europe to Antwerp, Melbourne and then to Jerusalem, through the struggles he fought for Jews in the Soviet Union and Israel.

ADDRESSING THE third World Conference of Soviet Jewry, Jerusalem 1983.

For former Soviet Union Jews, NYE always involves a Christmas-style tree

“But we’re Jewish, so why do we have a Christmas tree?” I recall thinking.

A yolka tree in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, Russia (Yelena VereshchakaTASS via Getty Images)