Soviet War on Judaism

Reb Mottel Lifshitz, a key figure in the Soviet Jewish underground, served as Moscow’s only ritual slaughterer for almost three decades, and performed countless clandestine circumcisions.

A first-hand account of a refusenik's battle to practice Judaism in Soviet Russia. An incredible story of resilience and defiance.

Rabbi Hillel Zaltman takes us back in time to the perilous days in the former Soviet Union when he lived in Samarkand and was active in the Chassidic “underground” to uphold Judaism under the dangerous and watchful eyes of the KGB. This riveting narrative...

After promising to maintain secrecy and informing the Rebbe of his plans, he was given some contacts by the Rebbe. (1960's)

Precious little is known of the tremendous devotion and self-sacrifice of Chabad activists in upholding Judaism against the oppressive Communists’ ruthless stamping out of religion. Rabbi Dovid Eliezrie shares fascinating insights and anecdotes to illustr...

The entire notion of this wedding was surreal – actually, unthinkable. Over 2,000 people from around the world had flown into Moscow to celebrate a Jewish wedding, aided by the Russian authorities.

Exactly seventy years after the Soviets closed his grandfather's school Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine, Shneur Zalman Futerfas married Yehudis Kaminetzky, daughter of the city's celebrated chief rabbi, in front of a flourishing Jewish school in the same city.

“Chazan, why are you here?” asked an officer whom he encountered. “Are you not supposed to be eating now?”

They commanded Father to dress and come with them. Father came to my small bed, bent down, and gave me a kiss, long and painful. Tears—big ones, hot ones, blazing ones—rolled off his cheek and onto my forehead.