Soviet Jews

Star of David necklace (image via Shutterstock)

June 20, 2018, 9:14 pm

Father sues Manhattan daycare for not allowing son to wear Star of David

Isaac Goldin says policy brings back memories from Soviet Union, where he was beaten for being a Jew; school says pendant's sharp corners are 'dangerous'

By JTA

Bonnie Frumkin Morales, owner and chef at Kachka in Portland, Oregon, and author of 'Kachka: A Return to Russian Cooking.' (Courtesy/Olga Mazurenko)

April 5, 2018, 3:03 am

Chef tears down culinary Iron Curtain to make Jewish-Russian food great again

Though initially embarrassed by her family's immigrant fare, today James Beard-nominated Bonnie Frumkin Morales sells a surprising amount of herring at her restaurant Kachka

By Rich Tenorio

Jewish organizations during the May Day demonstration at Marsovo Pole in Petrograd, Russia, 1919. (Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center/via JTA)

November 8, 2017, 5:14 am

Moscow museum gives the full picture of Jewish role in 1917 Russian Revolution

While even Vladimir Putin has repeated some myths, Jews were highly represented in establishing Soviet rule -- and they didn't have much choice in the matter

By Cnaan Liphshiz

In this 1938 photo taken in Washington, DC, Alexander Kerensky examines a passport he signed for an American Red Cross member in 1917. (Public domain)

November 6, 2017, 9:57 pm

Before the Bolsheviks, this man abolished Russia’s Pale of Settlement

100 years after the Russian Revolution, scholars celebrate Alexander Kerensky, the architect of a document securing equal rights for the country's Jews

By Julie Masis

September 24, 2017, 1:27 pm

The KGB arrested me and launched my career

Those police did warn me not to write about my time in the Soviet Union....

By Howard Kaplan

Evgeny Kissin with Russian conductor Dmitry Kitayenko and piano mentor Anna Kantor at the rehearsal of his debut with two Chopin concerti in Moscow. (Courtesy)

July 29, 2017, 6:59 am

Noteworthy piano virtuoso trumpets his Jewish heritage

World-renowned pianist Evgeny Kissin holds three passports, but the one that defines him has a menorah on it

By Jenni Frazer

Anat Zalmanson-Kuznetsov and her mother Sylva Zalmanson at the airport from which the filmmakers parents tried to make their escape. (Courtesy/Franz Koch/ Israel Broadcasting Authority)

May 19, 2017, 8:15 pm

Israeli filmmaker chronicles parents’ failed attempt to hijack a Soviet plane

Anat Zalmanson-Kuznetsov's new documentary 'Operation Wedding' uncovers overlooked chapter in Soviet Jews' fight for freedom

By Julie Masis

A Soviet customs official examines luggage. (Courtesy 'Stateless')

April 14, 2017, 10:38 pm

Why 189,000 Soviet Jews fled to Italy rather than the Promised Land

New documentary examines those Russian Jews, who with only $96 in their pockets, bided their time in Europe until allowed into the American Goldene Medina

By Julie Masis

Screenshot of the Facebook group 'Russian Jew Vines.' (Julie Masis/Times of Israel)

April 1, 2017, 2:44 pm

Babushka knows best and other universal truths of the Russian-Jewish experience

With short viral videos, a Facebook group gets thousands of laughs when US-born bilingual youth poke fun at their esteemed Russian-speaking elders

By Julie Masis

Yakov Sklarsky visiting the synagogue of Bershad March 9, 2017. (Cnaan Liphshiz/JTA)

March 28, 2017, 10:08 am

Passed over by Nazis and Communists, remnants of Ukraine’s last shtetl prepare to celebrate

Numbering just 50 today, the Jews of Bershad have managed to protect their 200-year-old clay synagogue through successive despotic regimes

By Cnaan Liphshiz

Leonard Bernstein and daughter, left, with Lilian Hochhauser. (Courtesy)

February 11, 2017, 10:39 am

At 90 and with stories to tell, this British impresario still presents cultural legends

Lilian Hochhauser, historic promoter of Russian artists in Britain, continues to toil in her latest project: a three-week run from the acclaimed Mariinsky dance company

By Jenni Frazer

Democratic district leader of the 45 Assembly District in Brooklyn, Ari Kagan. The 45 district contains a large and influential Russian-Jewish population. (Courtesy)

February 10, 2017, 9:00 pm

When it comes to supporting the US president, former Soviet Jews say Israel trumps all

Due to his perceived strength, the Russian-speaking community has long-backed Donald Trump -- but there's one red line he mustn't cross

By Cathryn J. Prince

Syrian refugees walk on their way back to the Syrian city of Jarabulus on September 7, 2016 at Karkamis crossing gate, in the southern region of Kilis, Turkey. (AFP/Bulent Kilic)

January 28, 2017, 9:29 am

Former Soviet Jews protest Trump’s refugee ban

'US must not turn our backs on the human beings fleeing violence and persecution like our families did when we left the FSU'

By JTA

Masha Gessen, author of 'Where the Jews Aren't.' (Lee Towndrow)

October 10, 2016, 10:27 pm

Author opens the Pandora’s box of Russia’s curious autonomous Jewish ghost town

While Chaim Weitzman and Nahum Sokolow were in Britain campaigning for a Zionist state, the Bolsheviks were busy implementing their own vision -- in the USSR

By JP O’ Malley

Nobel Peace Laureate Elie Wiesel arrives for a roundtable discussion on Capitol Hill, Washington, DC March 2, 2015. (Win McNamee/Getty Images via JTA)

August 25, 2016, 11:27 am

Russian Jews posthumously honor Elie Wiesel

Holocaust activist and Nobel laureate penned 1966 book that inspired movement to free Soviet Jewry

By JTA