This year’s celebration of Hanukka at the Kremlin is very different from the Hanukka of 1977, which Begun spent in the darkness of the Gulag in Siberia, after being arrested in Moscow.
Hundreds of members of the Bnei Menashe community from across northeastern India gathered in the town of Churachandpur in the Indian state of Manipur to celebrate Chanukah and light the traditional candles.
Earlier this week, the Jewish community of Ivanovo, Russia, now on the rebound after years of stagnant activity, celebrated the opening of a new synagogue and Jewish community center.
Two hundred teenagers from the FSU participate in a motivational seminar in Jerusalem, bringing their life-changing experiences back to their hometowns for a new year of EnerJew youth movement engagement.
Teams from the youth movement’s 20 cities across Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia and Azerbaijan participated in the competition aiming for the prize – a mini-grant that would enable the winning team to make a pilot of the project and try it out in the real world.
The World Jewish Congress has urged the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority to return to direct peace negotiations without preconditions as soon as possible. Jewish leaders from several dozen countries also called on the international community to maintain, and if necessary expand, sanctions against Iran pending verification of compliance with the nuclear agreement reached with the p5+1 group of nations.
The 7th bi-annual clothing project is well on its way in more than 50 cities throughout Russia and Ukraine, a joint initiative of the Federation of Jewish Communities of the CIS (FJC), the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews (IFCJ) and Gloria Jeans clothing company.