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Somewhere in Between: A Look at the American Russian-Speaking Jewish Experience
Brighton Beach, Brooklyn. Photo: Wiki Commons.
On a gray weekday afternoon, on the Brighton Beach Boardwalk in Brooklyn, the rhythmic clatter of dominoes on plastic tables mingles with the scent of fresh pirozhki and the soft murmur of Russian spoken with a Brooklyn lilt.
Down the street, a synagogue hosts Torah classes in three languages — English, Russian, and Hebrew — while a young woman in a puffer jacket scrolls through a WhatsApp group where Russian-speaking Jews discuss the latest news from Israel and the rise in antisemitism.
Brighton Beach — affectionately nicknamed “Little Odessa” — is the epicenter of a community that has straddled continents, ideologies, and generations: American, Russian-speaking Jews.
More than just immigrants or transplants, the Russian-speaking Jewish (RSJ) community in the United States has built a cultural enclave that is as complex as its history. Defined less by a single nation than by the Soviet past they share, the community spans immigrants from Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Uzbekistan, the Caucasus, and other former USSR republics. They came not as one people, but have become one — at least on American soil.
Their journey to the US began in earnest in the 1970s, as Cold War tensions and rising antisemitism in the Soviet Union sparked a wave of emigration. Thousands of Soviet Jews — often stripped of professional status and burdened by state suspicion — left for the promise of religious freedom and opportunity. For many, the US was a distant, idealized land. For others, it was merely the first country that would take them.
The first major waves were driven by the Jackson-Vanik Amendment of 1974, which linked US trade relations with the USSR to the latter’s emigration policies. With support from Jewish aid organizations like HIAS and the Joint Distribution Committee, families arrived in New York, Boston, San Francisco, and Chicago — many with little more than a suitcase and Soviet engineering degrees that carried no weight.
By the late 1980s and early 1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, another, larger wave arrived — often poorer, less assimilated, and more religiously indifferent. This second migration reshaped the contours of the community, fusing intelligentsia with working-class grit.
For many Soviet Jews, religion was an abstraction — Judaism inherited more as ethnicity than faith. In the USSR, synagogues were shuttered, rabbis monitored, and Jewish holidays unofficial. Yet in America, that secular Jewishness found new expression.
Enter established organizations, such as Jewish Federations, JCCs, synagogues, and RSJ-founded community groups, which have spent the last three decades building Jewish identity among young Russian-speakers, often reintroducing them to traditions their parents never had a chance to learn.
That pride often takes unexpected forms: the community has produced world-renowned scientists and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs such as Google co-founder Sergey Brin, actresses like Mila Kunis, and comedians like Eugene Mirman, all shaped by the push-and-pull of Soviet-Jewish cultural inheritance and American possibility.
Politically, Russian-speaking Jews are notably distinct from some other Jewish American demographics. Shaped by memories of authoritarianism and state control, they lean more conservative — often voting Republican in higher percentages than other Jewish groups. Many immigrants, particularly of the older generation, view terms like socialism and social justice with reprehension, as the rhetoric of the American left reminds them of Soviet talking points.
Still, this political tilt doesn’t negate the community’s internal diversity — generational divides run deep, and younger Russian-Jewish Americans often find themselves bridging the worlds of their parents’ nostalgia and their own liberal-leaning social environments.
Today, as the community enters its third and fourth generations in America, a new identity is forming — one less tied to survival and more to self-expression. Russian-Jewish-American artists, businesspeople, and professionals are weaving together old-world trauma and new-world irony.
Many Russian-speaking Jews are discovering that Zionism and Israel are playing a larger part in shaping their identity. Masha Merkulova, Club Z’s founder and executive director states, “In our work with young American Jews, including those from Russian-speaking families, we teach them that while we embrace our American identity, our Jewishness connects us to something deeper and older. This is especially relevant for Russian-speaking Jews who have already navigated multiple identities. We carry Judea—our ancestral homeland in what is now Israel—in our heritage, not the steppes of Russia. Archaeological evidence, genetic studies, and our unbroken cultural traditions confirm that Jews are indigenous to the Middle East, regardless of where history scattered us. At Club Z, we emphasize that understanding this indigenous connection doesn’t diminish our Russian or American chapters—it enriches them, giving context to our ‘between-ness’ and purpose to our journey.”
Still, traces of the old world remain: the Russian-language newspapers that line newsstands in neighborhoods where Russian-speaking Jews live, the lavish weddings that combine demonstrations of newly found opulence with Jewish ritual, and the grandparents who still call America “zagranitsa” — the “foreign country.”
To walk through the Russian-speaking Jewish neighborhoods of America is to hear echoes of exile and endurance. It is a community forever navigating between languages, ideologies, and histories — a community of “between-ness.”
But perhaps that’s what makes them most American: their hybridity, their hustle, their contradictions — all worn with pride, all deeply earned.
Or, as a Brighton Beach grandmother might put it, “We’re not from here, we’re not from there — we’re from somewhere in between. But here, at least, we can be who we are.”
Gennady Favel has co-founded a number of nonprofits in the Russian-Speaking Jewish community, for which he led community outreach. His work has appeared in NY Daily News, The Forward, Times of Israel, eJewish Philanthropy, and many other publications.
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Iran Says It Has Replaced Air Defenses Damaged in Israel War
The S-300 missile system is seen during the National Army Day parade ceremony in Tehran, Iran, April 17, 2024. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
Iran has replaced air defenses damaged during last month’s conflict with Israel, Iran’s Defah Press news agency reported on Sunday quoting Mahmoud Mousavi, the regular army’s deputy for operations.
During the conflict in June, Israel’s air force dominated Iran’s airspace and dealt a heavy blow to the country’s air defenses while Iranian armed forces launched successive barrages of missiles and drones on Israeli territory.
“Some of our air defenses were damaged, this is not something we can hide, but our colleagues have used domestic resources and replaced them with pre-arranged systems that were stored in suitable locations in order to keep the airspace secure,” Mousavi said.
Prior to the war, Iran had its own domestically-made long-range air defense system Bavar-373 in addition to the Russian-made S-300 system. The report by Defah Press did not mention any import of foreign-made air defense systems to Iran in past weeks.
Following limited Israeli strikes against Iranian missile factories last October, Iran later displayed Russian-made air defenses in a military exercise to show it recovered from the attack.
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Calm Reported in Syria’s Sweida, Damascus Says Truce Holding
Members of Internal Security Forces stand guard at an Internal Security Forces’ checkpoint working to prevent Bedouin fighters from advancing towards Sweida, following renewed fighting between Bedouin fighters and Druze gunmen, despite an announced truce, in Walgha, Sweida province, Syria, July 20, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Karam al-Masri
Residents reported calm in Syria’s Sweida on Sunday after the Islamist-led government announced that Bedouin fighters had withdrawn from the predominantly Druze city and a US envoy signaled that a deal to end days of fighting was being implemented.
With hundreds reported killed, the Sweida bloodshed is a major test for interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa, prompting Israel to launch airstrikes against government forces last week as it declared support for the Druze. Fighting continued on Saturday despite a ceasefire call.
Interior Minister Anas Khattab said on Sunday that internal security forces had managed to calm the situation and enforce the ceasefire, “paving the way for a prisoner exchange and the gradual return of stability throughout the governorate.”
Reuters images showed interior ministry forces near the city, blocking the road in front of members of tribes congregated there. The Interior Ministry said late on Saturday that Bedouin fighters had left the city.
US envoy Tom Barrack said the sides had “navigated to a pause and cessation of hostilities”. “The next foundation stone on a path to inclusion, and lasting de-escalation, is a complete exchange of hostages and detainees, the logistics of which are in process,” he wrote on X.
Kenan Azzam, a dentist, said there was an uneasy calm but the city’s residents were struggling with a lack of water and electricity. “The hospitals are a disaster and out of service, and there are still so many dead and wounded,” he said by phone.
Another resident, Raed Khazaal, said aid was urgently needed. “Houses are destroyed … The smell of corpses is spread throughout the national hospital,” he said in a voice message to Reuters from Sweida.
The Syrian state news agency said an aid convoy sent to the city by the government was refused entry while aid organized by the Syrian Red Crescent was let in. A source familiar with the situation said local factions in Sweida had turned back the government convoy.
Israeli public broadcaster Kan reported on Sunday that Israel sent urgent medical aid to the Druze in Sweida and the step was coordinated with Washington and Syria. Spokespeople for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Foreign Ministry and the military did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The Druze are a small but influential minority in Syria, Israel and Lebanon who follow a religion that is an offshoot of a branch of Shi’ite Islam. Some hardline Sunnis deem their beliefs heretical.
The fighting began a week ago with clashes between Bedouin and Druze fighters. Damascus sent troops to quell the fighting, but they were drawn into the violence and accused of widespread violations against the Druze.
Residents of the predominantly Druze city said friends and neighbours were shot at close range in their homes or in the streets by Syrian troops, identified by their fatigues and insignia.
Sharaa on Thursday promised to protect the rights of Druze and to hold to account those who committed violations against “our Druze people.”
He has blamed the violence on “outlaw groups.”
While Sharaa has won US backing since meeting President Donald Trump in May, the violence has underscored the challenge he faces stitching back together a country shattered by 14 years of conflict, and added to pressures on its mosaic of sectarian and ethnic groups.
COASTAL VIOLENCE
After Israel bombed Syrian government forces in Sweida and hit the defense ministry in Damascus last week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel had established a policy demanding the demilitarization of territory near the border, stretching from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights to the Druze Mountain, east of Sweida.
He also said Israel would protect the Druze.
The United States however said it did not support the Israeli strikes. On Friday, an Israeli official said Israel agreed to allow Syrian forces limited access to the Sweida area for two days.
A Syrian security source told Reuters that internal security forces had taken up positions near Sweida, establishing checkpoints in western and eastern parts of the province where retreating tribal fighters had gathered.
On Sunday, Sharaa received the report of an inquiry into violence in Syria’s coastal region in March, where Reuters reported in June that Syrian forces killed 1,500 members of the Alawite minority following attacks on security forces.
The presidency said it would review the inquiry’s conclusions and ensure steps to “bring about justice” and prevent the recurrence of “such violations.” It called on the inquiry to hold a news conference on its findings – if appropriate – as soon as possible.
The Syrian Network for Human Rights said on July 18 it had documented the deaths of at least 321 people in Sweida province since July 13. The preliminary toll included civilians, women, children, Bedouin fighters, members of local groups and members of the security forces, it said, and the dead included people killed in field executions by both sides.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, another monitoring group, has reported a death toll of at least 940 people.
Reuters could not independently verify the tolls.
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Pope Leo Calls for End to ‘Barbarity of War’ After Strike on Gaza Church
Pope Leo XIV leads the Angelus prayer in Castel Gandolfo, Italy, July 20, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Yara Nardi TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY
Pope Leo called for an end to the “barbarity of war” on Sunday as he spoke of his profound pain over an Israeli strike on the sole Catholic church in Gaza.
Three people died and several were injured, including the parish priest, in the strike on the Holy Family Church compound in Gaza City on Thursday. Photos show its roof has been hit close to the main cross, scorching the stone facade, and shattering windows.
Speaking after his Angelus prayer, Leo read out the names of those killed in the incident.
“I appeal to the international community to observe humanitarian law and respect the obligation to protect civilians as well as the prohibition of collective punishment, of indiscriminate use of force and forced displacement of the population,” he said.
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