Soviet Jewry

Fighting for belonging: A Jewish boxer's extraordinary journey through poverty, faith, and tragedy

Within a decade, Yuri Foreman became a world champion, representing a country where he had once struggled to feel accepted and carving out a place in the long history of Jewish boxing.

CELEBRATING HIS VICTORY over Daniel Santos in Las Vegas on Nov. 14, 2009, alongside legendary promoter Bob Arum, after becoming Israel’s first major professional boxing world champion. Arum had told Foreman that promoting a Jewish world champion was one of his ambitions.
Alex Silnitsky addresses a gathering of former Prisoners of Zion and aliyah activists at the Heritage Ministry in Jerusalem on October 5.

Former Prisoners of Zion, aliyah activists, discuss plans for new Soviet Jewry heritage center

 Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy takes part in a commemoration ceremony for the victims of Babyn Yar (Babiy Yar), one of the biggest single massacres of Jews during the Nazi Holocaust, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv Ukraine September 29, 2022.

85 years later: Babyn Yar and the fight against deliberate erasure - opinion

FIVE JEWISH couples get married in Brazil on Lag Ba'omer.

Five Jewish couples marry in Brazil in front of 900 young Jews from former Soviet Union


Can the struggle for Soviet Jewry help navigate 21st century peoplehood?

Jews in Israel and the US appeared to find some form of unity in the struggle to free Soviet Jewry. This effort gave many Jews a sense of peoplehood.

Natan Sharansky, a former refusenik, Soviet prisoner, and human rights activist who became the Free Soviet Jewry movement's symbol after he was jailed for nine years in a Gulag prison

One woman’s story of resistance and rescue in the Soviet Union - book review

Hidden Heroes: One Woman’s Story of Resistance and Rescue in The Soviet Union by Pamela Braun Cohen is the story of extraordinary people in America and USSR who refused to be seperated.

Pamela Braun Cohen at her book launch in Jerusalem

80th anniversary of JAC: ‘Dual loyalty’ and the persecution of Soviet Jews

JAC was a striking phenomenon of the Soviet era and became one of the most tragic pages in the history of the Soviet Jews.

 Itzik Feffer, Albert Einstein and Solomon Mikhoels (1943)

On this day: 13 Jews killed by Stalin in Night of the Murdered Poets

The killing of Soviet Jewish poets was seen as a crackdown against the Jewish Anti-fascist Committee and part of Stalin's increasingly antisemitic policies before his death.

The Lubyanka building (former KGB headquarters) in Moscow.

How freeing Soviet Jewry can teach us to combat rise in antisemitism

The symposium addressed how unifying Jewish communities and interfaith partnerships could be the key to resolving the current rise in hate crime against Jews.

THE ISRAELI public demands the release of Soviet Jews

June 1967, Moscow: A personal view of the Soldiers of Zion in Russia

As the Six-Day War played out in the Middle East, Soviet Jews looked on with their fate up in the air.

President Ronald Reagan with Yosef Begun (right)

Conversion conundrum: The fight over symbolism, the neglect of the problem

Ever since some one million immigrants came to Israel from former Soviet countries, a battle has been waged over conversion.

A WOMAN seeking to convert to Judaism appears before Rabbinic Court in Jerusalem

Yitzhak Arad: Hero and historian

“We are deeply saddened by the loss of Dr. Yitzhak Arad, a man who’s legacy will forever stay with us."

Yitzhak Arad, former IDF chief education officer, and former chairman of Yad Vashem

Tribute to Judith and Eliott Cohen, pillars of Atlanta's Jewish community

There are many people like the Cohens who made a huge commitment to the grassroots struggle for Soviet Jews and should be remembered.

JUDITH AND Elliott Cohen.

Isi Leibler: Unsung hero of the Jewish people's finest hour

MIDDLE ISRAEL: Playing first violin in the struggle for Soviet Jewry.

Isi Leibler