JTA: Global Jewish News - 10.19.2006

Moscow synagogue centennial celebrated

(JTA) — The 100th anniversary of the Moscow Choral Synagogue was marked Wednesday. 

Several hundred people, including visiting Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, attended the celebration. 

On Thursday, Olmert visited the Marina Roscha Synagogue. 

During the Soviet era, Jewish activists used to gather outside the Choral Synagogue, with KGB agents watching, but refused to enter it because it was a “show” synagogue for the regime. 

“To see how it’s become a fully functioning synagogue” is a “moving experience,” said Mark Levin, executive director of NCSJ: Advocates on Behalf of Jews in Russia, Ukraine, the Baltic States and Eurasia. 

“It shows how far the Russian Jewish community has come in the last 15 years.”

Speech by Olmert at Choral Synagogue

Speech by Olmert at Marina Roscha Synagogue

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NCSJ - 10.18.2006

PRESS RELEASE

Release Date: October 18, 2006

Contact:

Mark Levin or Lesley Weiss (202-989-2500)

NCSJ CELEBRATES MOSCOW SYNAGOGUE’S CENTENNIAL

Washington, D.C. – NCSJ Executive Director Mark Levin delivered remarks in Moscow at today’s celebration of the Choral Synagogue’s centennial anniversary, offering congratulations on behalf of the organized American Jewish community. 

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov gave the keynote speeches at the event, which was sponsored by the Congress of Jewish Religious Organizations and Communities of Russia (KEROOR). 

Speakers also included KEROOR President Arcady Gaydamak, Euro-Asian Jewish Congress President Alexander Mashkevich, Russian Jewish Congress President Moshe Kantor, and other leaders of the Russian Jewish community.

NCSJ: Advocates on behalf of Jews in Russia, Ukraine, the Baltic States & Eurasia, is the mandated central coordinating agency of the organized Jewish community for policy and activities on behalf of the estimated 1.5 million Jews in the former Soviet Union.

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