The founders of Limmud FSU, Chaim Chesler and Sandra Cahn, had been hoping for a long time to organize a Limmud FSU summit for the worldwide leadership, the goals of which would be professional training, team building and joint study. This year, thanks to the support and sponsorship of the UJA-Federation of New York, it took place in Jerusalem from 14-18 December. »
The participants in the Limmud FSU conference learn about their roots and heritage, listen, discuss and take part in sessions on Jewish history, culture and tradition. Rabbi Hacohen tells me, “I see in Limmud a cornerstone for the building of revived Jewish life in the former Soviet Union. The support for the elderly survivors is a deeply human gesture and being Jewish, first of all, means being human.” »
En route to Ukraine to participate in the Limmud FSU festival marking 70 years since the invasion of the Soviet Union by the Germans in “Operation Barbarossa,” I pack a volume of letters and poetry of the poet Amir Gilboa, who was born in the village of Radziwilow, Ukraine in 1917. »
Limmud FSU for Russian-speakers has been taking place for the last six years in many corners of the Jewish world and brings together diverse elements of the Jewish world – from Russia, and Ukraine, from Israel and the United States and from all over the countries of the former Soviet Union. »
Roi Nathan visited limmud fsu Moscow »
77 year-old cosmonaut Alexei Arkhipovich Leonov was the first person to walk in space. He was born on 30 May 1934 in Listvyanka, USSR, and his sparkling and piercingly blue eyes, his warm disposition to people and his outgoing nature, have evidently not changed since his historic space walk in March 1965 »
I want to thank you for the opportunity I was given to tell my own personal story to a new generation of young Jewish people in the former Soviet Union who are carrying the torch from us of the Holocaust generation and are rebuilding a new revitalized Jewish identity of their own. »
"The Holocaust is not an easy subject to teach or to learn," Limmud's executive director, Chaim Chesler, told me. "We give people the ability to learn in a way they will enjoy and in a way that they will want to do it by themselves." »
I see Limmud as a crucial builder of which I might describe as the “Jewish Middle Ground” in the Former Soviet Union. One cannot disengage from the fact that you are Jewish or to disengage from the fact that you are, at the same time, a humanist. And to be Jewish is first and foremost, to be a humanist. »
This Limmud in Odessa was perhaps the most successful of all of those I have attended. This too is typical of Limmud - each event tends to be more successful than its predecessor. This time, the European Jewish Union was involved with the festival and brought in new participants from all over Western Europe. »
I only speak English and bad high-school Italian, so covering a conference held almost entirely in Russian isn't the easiest for me. Luckily, Limmud doesn't make it too hard. »
It was again my great pleasure to take part in another Limmud FSU Festival - this time in St Petersburg last month. It was yet another opportunity to share in the ambiance of positive energy, meet the charismatic and excited participants, and to attend fascinating lectures, all in a warm and welcoming atmosphere. »
Limmud in the FSU is precisely what the FSU’s Jewish adults need—a supportive framework that will meet them wherever they are in their relatively new Jewish journeys and help them further explore the rich world of their heritage. »
On arriving in St. Petersburg, a magnificent city with a Jewish population of about 100,000, I felt myself in a time tunnel going back 30 years and more. At that time, in the 1980s, I was working in the Spokesman’s Office of the Jewish Agency and the World Zionist Organization in Jerusalem. »