JTA/New York Times - 09.10.2003

 

 

 

 

Jewish museum

(JTA) - Russia’s capital city will have its own Jewish museum, Moscow’s mayor told a visiting Israeli chief rabbi. On Tuesday, Yuri Luzhkov told Israel’s chief Ashkenazi rabbi, Yona Metzger, that the city of Moscow is determined to allocate space for the Jewish community to open a museum. 

Metzger, who is visiting Russia and Ukraine this week, shared the news with dozens of rabbis and members of the Jewish community, who packed Moscow’s Marina Roscha synagogue on Tuesday night to greet Metzger. Prior to visiting Moscow, Metzger toured the Ukrainian port city of Odessa, where the local governor handed him the keys from the Grand Shul, which was confiscated by the Bolsheviks.

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RUSSIA: ISRAELI RABBI VISITS 

(NYT) - The new Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Israel, Yona Metzger, spoke to hundreds of Jews and more than two dozen rabbis from all over Russia on his first visit to the huge modern synagogue near the center of Moscow. The visit underscored the transformation of ties between Russia and Israel after decades of bitterness over the difficult emigration of Soviet Jews. Moscow's mayor, Yuri Luzhkov, met Rabbi Metzger and promised land in central Moscow for Russia's first Jewish museum. - Sophia Kishkovsky