As Russian Jews, our family always celebrated Novy God—and we always did it by baking my favorite cake
A new graphic memoir recalls the story of a rabbi who traveled to the Soviet Union in 1965 to investigate the country’s treatment of Jews, and ended up helping one family escape
For Soviet Jews in Queens, a deli brings a taste of home—right down to the pork products
Decades after Soviet Jews won their freedom, Washington still uses the Jackson-Vanik amendment to squeeze Kazakhstan and other Central Asian countries
As a child, I yearned to leave southern Brooklyn’s enclave of Soviet Jewish immigrants. But watching old home movies decades later, I saw the place in a new light.
Trying to recreate a recipe for a treat my mother remembered from her childhood in Leningrad
As an immigrant from the Soviet Union, I had trouble adjusting to life as an American Jew
Soviet Jews stood up to anti-Zionism once before. Now they are helping the younger generation of American Jews—including their own children—fight back against a wave of defamation and hate, while mainstream Jewish organizations wilt.
Composed before 16 Soviet Jews attempted to hijack a small plane in 1970, this declaration calls out the U.N. for turning a blind eye to their human rights and pleads for the Jewish world not to take its freedom for granted
Fifty years ago today in Leningrad, a small group of Soviet Jews was tried for attempting a daring escape to Israel. Eerily, their story is relevant again—this time, for American Jews.
Fifty years ago, the Leningrad Trial spurred the American Jewish community to action
The Odessa-born comedian Mikhail Zhvanetsky was the Seinfeld of everyday Soviet misery and humiliation. His last joke came from beyond the grave.
Alexander ‘Sasha’ Pechersky led a successful prisoner revolt at the Sobibor death camp. His story of extraordinary courage was also the story of millions of Soviet Jews who lived and died in a country that refused to acknowledge their fate.
In Memory of R. Adin Even Israel Steinsaltz
Remembering Ilia Salita’s formative years in Moscow
Zoya Cherkassky’s ‘return to reality’
Extraordinary photographs of a refusenik picnic in 1974, when Soviet Jews were far from free
Fifty years ago, a group of daring Georgian Jews openly asked for freedom. Their ‘Letter of the Eighteen’ remains one of the most consequential moments in the history of European Jewry, paving the way for the exodus of 1.5 million Soviet Jews.