Jewish Life in Putin's Russia

January 9, 2020
YIVO Institute for Jewish Research

Lecture

For centuries Ashkenazi Jews claimed the Russian Empire as their home. After a history of pogroms, state-imposed antisemitism in the Soviet Union, and large waves of emigration to the United States and Israel, the post-Soviet era with its democratization of politics brought many Jews who had emigrated in 1970s and 1980s back to Russia to start businesses. Quite a few were successful.

In 1996 a Russian Jewish Congress was launched as an umbrella organization for all Russian Jews, whether secular or religious. Hundreds of Torah scrolls were returned to the community from museums and storages across the country. Shuls were reopened, rebuilt, renovated. Today there are kosher stores in Moscow, and the Chabad Lubavitch rebbe Berel Lazar is a frequent guest of Putin's state dinners. And yet, in the last several years, since Putin's return to the Kremlin in 2012, Russia has been marked by increased Jewish immigration to Israel—some 45 percent more in 2018, than in the previous year.

What do Jews know that the rest of the world seems not to? Why are they leaving Russia en masse? Yevgenia M. Albats, a former member of the Presidium of the Russian Jewish Congress, a current member of its Public Council, a prominent Russian journalist and an academic, and currently a distinguished fellow at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, will discuss Jewish life in today’s Russia.

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Видео Jewish Life in Putin's Russia канала YIVO Institute for Jewish Research