The election of Lazar as chief rabbi comes just a week after the country\’s chief rabbi for the past decade, Adolph Shayevich, accused the Russian government of seeking his ouster.
About 800,000 to 1 million Jews remain in Russia, at least half of them in the two largest cities, and though emigration continues on a steady if undramatic level – 30,000 to Israel last year – the estimated Jewish population in these two cities remains fairly constant as emigrants are replaced by other Jews who move here from more rural areas of the FSU.
Ruzena Berler first began to write about her experiences in the late 1940s, to exorcise her recurring nightmares about the war.
In Samara, a city of 1.2 million in the Volga region of Russia, 87-year-old Anna sits in a 100-square-foot spacethat is her reality. One of perhaps 8,000 elderly Jews in town, shespends her lonely days confined to her room, blind and her legs tooweak to support her. A sagging bed takes up most of her room, whichis one of five apartments that constitute the communal apartment inwhich she exists. The other residents share one toilet and a dirtykitchen.
It\’s common knowledge that the Jewish exodus from Russia in the late 1980s brought to Israel a flood of talented artists and musicians.
Potato latkes are Chanukah\’s signature dish, not because of the potato — but because of the oil. Potatoes did not exist in the Holy Land when the ancient Israelites triumphed over the Syrians.
The situation is dire. On its existing funds — about $40 million a year, most of which comes from the monies collected by Jewish federations across the U.S. — the organization can just about handle its caseload of 140,000 people.
Jennifer Gould\’s new book, \”Vodka,Tears and Lenin\’s Angel,\” recalls her four years in the formerSoviet Union. It could be subtitled, \”Jennifer\’s Romp in the WildEast\” or \”Fear and Loathing in the FSU.\”
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