The blonde pianist enters the stage first, followed by a goateed, serious-looking young opera singer, Rafailas Karpis. Hands clasped above his bright yellow tie, he belts out five songs in Yiddish, odes to love and loss. To a North American audience, the moving, mournful melodies might trigger nostalgia, even tears, for the world of their… More ▸
Russia’s largest Jewish group has announced new targets for the upcoming year, changing its primary focus from expansion to the quality of services. Now that its previous policy of expanding the network of Jewish communities in Russia has resulted in more than 190 member communities, the Chabad-led Federation of Jewish Communities said in its end-of-the-year… More ▸
Lev Gulden knew he was different from most of the Jews in this ancient city. Growing up after World War II in a Jewish neighborhood in Bukhara, Gulden said he would occasionally catch a disapproving glance from some Jewish neighbors on the streets. “They thought we were not proper Jews,” recalls Gulden, now 57. Years… More ▸
As soon as he discovered his passenger was Jewish, the cab driver issued a warning. “When we come to Fergana, don’t tell anyone you are Jewish,” said Jamshi, 33, a Muslim from Uzbekistan’s capital, Tashkent. “I don’t mind it, but some Muslims there have a different view. They think Jews are evil.” The government in… More ▸
Testifying to a rich Jewish past, museums in the western Ukrainian city of Lvov hold hundreds of Jewish artifacts that once belonged to local synagogues and Jewish institutions. Now the few practicing Jews here say they need the artifacts back to reinvigorate their community. “Our congregation is trying to bring Jewish tradition back, and we… More ▸
In an effort to end overlap between the two groups, Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life and the Jewish Agency are joining forces to form one combined organization serving college-age Jews in the former Soviet Union. The new arrangement also will allow Hillel to move onto college campuses, where it can reach out to… More ▸
Vladimir Solomonovich Polykovsky is the editor in chief of the Concise Uzbekistan Jewish Encyclopedia. And don’t let the title fool you: When it’s finished, the edition is expected to fill eight volumes. “This work is needed so that the huge contribution of the representatives of the Jewish Diaspora is recorded and doesn’t fade from memory,”… More ▸
When Rabbi Loraine Heller began her service as a Peace Corps volunteer in Ukraine, she asked the organization to place her in a city with a Jewish community. A U.S. Reform rabbi who came to Ukraine in December to teach English at a local technical college, she found in this central Ukrainian industrial city an… More ▸
When hundreds rallied this week in downtown Moscow to protest the Russian crackdown on Georgians, many of the protesters had yellow stars pinned to their chests. Sunday’s rally had been called to voice criticism of the deportation of hundreds of Georgians and closure of Georgian-owned businesses in Moscow in the wake of Russia’s spy dispute… More ▸
Jewish tombstones and abandoned cemeteries, the remains of once-vibrant Jewish communities, are scattered across Ukraine today. Few communities have managed to do what the Jews in this Crimean town have done: assemble a collection of these tombstones for a museum dedicated to the community’s history. During the German occupation of the Crimea in World War… More ▸
