For fifty years and instigated by the Israeli government, the global Jewish world mobilized to advocate for Jews’ right to emigrate from Soviet Union, the 3rd largest Jewish community in the world after the United States and Israel. The movement was so successful that more than 2 million Soviet and post-Soviet Jews left their homes for Israel, the US, Germany, Canada, and elsewhere. In the past twenty-five years, Soviet and post-Soviet Jews, who went from being the poor, downtrodden brethren of empowered US- and Israeli based Jews in need of social services, have reshaped their Jewish societies to such an extent that now post-Soviet Jews are reshaping the Jewish world in their image. In this talk, we will learn about the past, present, and future of global Jewry through the lens of the Russian-Speaking Jews, as they are known in the Jewish non-profit world.
David Shneer is the Louis P. Singer Research Chair of Jewish History head of the Department of Religious Studies. 
