Limmud FSU Moscow Kicks Off Tomorrow

Moscow, Russia, April 123 – Over 1,000 Jewish participants, mainly from across Russia, will gather in Moscow, tomorrow through Sunday, for the Limmud FSU Moscow conference. Limmud FSU Moscow is considered the largest Jewish gathering in the former Soviet Union.

Limmud FSU conferences are also considered to be among the leading Jewish cultural events in the FSU, and provide a festival of Jewish learning featuring lectures, workshops, round-table discussions, music and a wide-range of cultural events in Russian, English and Hebrew.

This year will mark the ninth Limmud FSU Moscow event, organized entirely by a local team of volunteers in what is the biggest Jewish community in the FSU.

The conference will feature more than 180 sessions covering topics such as Judaism, Jewish culture in all its forms, tradition, innovation, communication, yoga and arts and much more. Among the participants will be Prof. Zeev Khanin, the chief scientist of the Israeli Ministry of Aliya and Immigrant Absorption, who will speak about his new research on Contemporary FSU Jewish Youth. A series of top figures will lead other sessions, including Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein (who will speak about the strategic relations between Jews, Christians and the state of Israel and lead a Havdalah ceremony); Israeli Ambassador to Russia Dorit Golender; Musician Yonatan Razel; Prof. Raphael Walden, Dr. Tsvia Walden of Ben Gurion University; Prof. Aviad Hacohen; Shachar Weiser, founder of GetTaxi; refusenik and former Prisoner of Zion Yoseph Mendelevich; Prof. Yevgeny Satanovsky, President of the Institute for the Middle East Studies in Russia; Holocaust historian, Prof. Ilya Altman; cinema director Alexander Mitta; Russian Jewish Congress President Yuri Kanner and many others. The program also includes special activities for young “Limmudniks” between the ages of three to 12, as many participants attend with their young children.

Another special feature of this year’s Limmud FSU Moscow will be an exhibition about the history of the JDC in Russia – dedicated to the 100th anniversary of JDC, one of Limmud FSU’s major partners.

Chaim Chesler, founder of Limmud FSU, tells eJP that the Moscow event is the flagship of the Limmud FSU program, which takes place today in seven countries – Russia, Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine, USA, Canada and Israel; “Our dream was to present to the new generation of young Russian-speaking Jews throughout the world, topics which are close to their hearts and excite their imagination, such as Jewish history and culture, Jewish roots and issues of identity, the Holocaust, and subjects relating to achieving success in life both in economic and cultural terms. Evidently the dream has become a reality and promises that the coming event will be yet another memorable occasion.”