From the Liveblog of
Monday, April 1, 2024
New Jersey weekend event for Russian-speaking Jews draws record turnout
Cnaan Lidor is The Times of Israel's Jewish World reporter
An annual weekend retreat for Russian-speaking Jews in New Jersey sees more than 1,200 participants, a record turnout that organizers attribute to the effects of October 7.
Attendance at the three-day International Russian-Jewish Shabbaton, which wrapped up Sunday, is double last year’s and 50% higher than the next best-attended year since the event was first held in 2009, according to Benzion Laskin, a program director at Chamah, a Chabad-affiliated organization that supports Soviet Jews, which organized the event.
The event, comprising lectures, workshops and music, promotes “unity over 40 communities: Bukharian, Caucasian, Russian, Ukrainian and others,” says Laskin.
“Especially since October 7, I felt the need to be more spiritual and be around my people,” one participant, 26-year-old Sam Pinsky from Brighton, Massachussets, says at the event held at the Hilton Hotel in Parsippany, New Jersey.
Pinsky, whose parents immigrated to the United States from the former Soviet Union in the 1970s, attends with his father and two sisters. His favorite session is by Rabbi Manis Friedman, who is known across the Jewish world for his YouTube videos about spirituality.
