With the contemporary music world buzzing about Regina Spektor’s upcoming album nearly a month before its release, I cannot help but think about the young musician’s rise in the context of Russian-speaking Jewry.
Representatives of the Russian Jewish Congress asked the U.S. Congress to repeal the Jackson-Vanik amendment. The appeal was addressed to the U.S. ambassador to Russia, John Beyrly, during a meeting Monday in Moscow that took place on the 36th anniversary of the amendment\’s adoption. The amendment restricts Russian trade with the United States. “The viewpoint of the Jewish community on the problem is that the amendment affects the community negatively now, being a stumbling block in the development of U.S.- Russia relations,\” Russian Jewish Congress President Yuri Kanner said in a statement.
The center is also the focus of criticism from some of its would-be occupants, who say that they haven\’t been kept in the loop about planning the center from the beginning, that its opening has been delayed and that they are unsure about when they will be able to move in.
It\’s not every day the words \”brit milah\” work their way into conversation, let alone in discussing a 12-year-old boy. But here in the Russian air they hang for a moment.
On a recent bus ride through the outskirts of St. Petersburg, Russia, Rabbi Avraham Berkowitz ignores the rustic scenery surrounding him.
Ten years after the death of the last Lubavitcher rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, his influence on the Jewish world continues to grow.
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