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Event in Berlin marks one of Germany’s largest-ever gatherings for its ex-Soviet Jewish community
BERLIN — It was hard to overlook the symbolism: the city that once was the epicenter of Nazi Germany hosting a massive celebration by Jews with roots in the Communist Soviet Union, which for decades tried to stamp out any hint of Jewish practice or identity.
Over three days, some 750 Jews with ties to the former Soviet Union gathered in Berlin to celebrate Jewish culture, play Yiddish music, take part in conversations about everything from current events to Jewish and Israeli history, and eat, sing and learn together.
The March 31-April 2 conference in Berlin organized by Limmud FSU marked the organization’s first-ever event held in Germany — and its first pan-European conference since a February 2020 event in Vienna held on the eve of the global coronavirus pandemic.
For this weekend, participants from 24 countries converged on a hotel in the German capital, including 50 or so who made the difficult trip from war-ravaged Ukraine. Among them was Olena Kolpakova, 41, who had traveled nearly 48 hours by bus and train to Berlin with her 9-year-old daughter, Anastasia, from Dnipro in eastern Ukraine.
“Our house isn’t destroyed, and our city isn’t occupied. But we still have 10 to 12 air-raid sirens a day,” said Kolpakova, a lawyer and Limmud FSU Ukraine volunteer since 2009. “These people are more than friends for me. I love Limmud and I know everyone.”
The packed program was held mostly in Russian with a smattering of sessions in English.
“This first-ever Limmud FSU conference in Germany is an opportunity to celebrate our rich cultural heritage, learn from one another and strengthen our connections across borders,” said Limmud FSU Founder Chaim Chesler.
Since its creation in 2005 to bolster Jewish connections and identity among Jews from the former Soviet Union, Limmud FSU has held dozens of conferences around the globe that collectively have drawn over 80,000 participants.
Holding a Jewish festival in Berlin was particularly significant, organizers noted. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, over 170,000 Soviet Jews emigrated to Germany. That wave of immigration more than doubled the size of the country’s Jewish community, which is now comprised mostly of Jews with roots in the Soviet Union.
Germany is the only country in Europe that has seen such significant Jewish population growth in the last half-century.
Volunteers in Berlin made up a big part of the organizers of the Limmud FSU conference in Germany on March 31-April 2, 2023. (Alex Khanin)
The conference in Berlin was a mixture of celebration, study and culture. Fo Sho, a hip-hop band comprised of three Jewish-Ethiopian-Ukrainian sisters, delivered a rousing performance. Israeli celebrity chef Gil Hovav talked about his famous great-grandfather, Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, the Yiddish-speaking yeshiva student who became the father of modern Hebrew. World Jewish Congress official Lena Bakman spoke of the 400-strong WJC Jewish Diplomatic Corps as the “unofficial foreign affairs ministry for the Jewish people.”
For some participants, such as Dora Haina of Riga, Latvia, the weekend in Berlin marked their first exposure ever to Limmud FSU.
“It’s an unbelievable feeling that everything here is in my language, and that all these people are Jews,” said Haina, 24, who speaks Russian. “I came to socialize and meet new people.”
That’s the point, said Limmud FSU’s longtime chairman, Matthew Bronfman.
“Our inaugural conference in Berlin is a momentous occasion for our organization and the entire community of FSU Jews in Europe,” Bronfman said. “It serves as a symbol of our continued dedication to preserving and celebrating Jewish culture and heritage, while also promoting a sense of unity and connection among our community members across borders and generations.”
Key supporters of Limmud FSU Europe include the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (the Claims Conference), Genesis Philanthropy Group, the World Zionist Organization, Nativ-Israeli Prime Minister’s Office, the Jewish National Fund-Keren Kayemet LeIsrael, the Dutch Jewish Humanitarian Fund, the Jewish Agency for Israel, philanthropist Diane Wohl, Bill Hess and others.
“It was a major, successful and very important event for FSU Jews in Europe in general and in particular for the hundreds of refugees from Ukraine,” Alex Mershon, director of Nativ’s Department of Culture and Education, said of the conference in Berlin.
“The resilience and vitality of Jewish heritage were on full display, reminding us that when we come together with open minds and open hearts, there is much we can achieve,” said Marina Yudborovsky, CEO of the Genesis Philanthropy Group. “Let the spirit of this event inspire us to continue to overcome challenges and create positive change in the world together.”
One of the highlights of the Berlin conference was a lecture by Nazi hunter Efraim Zuroff, director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s office in Jerusalem. He spoke about his work catching Nazi war criminals in countries where locals often collaborated with their German occupiers and noted that even today nationalism and antisemitism impedes justice for the Holocaust’s victims and their descendants.
“Without political will, there will never be any justice,” Zuroff said.
There was also a lot of talk at the conference about the turmoil in Israel, where a government plan to overhaul the judiciary has prompted protests by hundreds of thousands, including many leading national figures.
“I can’t believe I’m demonstrating against my own government,” said Justice Elyakim Rubinstein, a former Israeli attorney general and vice president of the Supreme Court. “It’s very unusual and heartbreaking in a way, having been a public servant all these years.”
Over three days on March 31-April 2, 2023, some 750 Jews with ties to the former Soviet Union gathered in Berlin to celebrate Jewish culture, play music and take part in conversations about everything from current events to Jewish and Israeli history. Children were among the attendees. (Alex Khanin)
One of the weekend’s most riveting testimonies came from Sonia Tartakovskaya, an 84-year-old Holocaust survivor who last year witnessed the Russian bombardment of Irpin, on the outskirts of Kyiv.
“I don’t remember the war, because I was born in 1939. And in 1941, I was sent to Tajikistan. But this war of 2022 I remember, because I saw the burning houses and I was completely alone,” Tartakovskaya said through a translator.
“On March 17, my neighbor took me to her relatives in western Ukraine, and on March 31, I came to Berlin,” she said. “Today marks one year I’m here, and I deeply appreciate everything the Jewish Agency, the Claims Conference and all other Jewish organizations have done for me.”
Tartakovskaya is among 94 Holocaust survivors who were spirited out of Ukraine and brought to Germany via Poland since Russia launched its war 13 months ago, said Ruediger Mahlo, who heads the German office of the Claims Conference. Before the war Ukraine was home to some 10,000 Holocaust survivors; today, barely 6,500 remain, according to Mahlo.
“Imagine the paradox,” Mahlo said. “Survivors who at a young age had to flee, and now at the end of their lives they have to flee again, from Russia — a country that liberated them — to a country that over 75 years ago wanted to annihilate them.”
Limmud FSU’s co-founder, Sandra F. Cahn, said the participation in the conference of Jews from Ukraine was inspiring.
“Despite the ongoing war in Ukraine, we are heartened to see so many participants from that country joining us for this historic event,” Cahn said. “This conference serves as a powerful reminder of the importance of building bridges between communities and promoting cultural exchange, even in the face of hardships.”
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After Beirut Strike, Netanyahu Says ‘No Immunity’ for Terrorists
Rescuers work at the site of an Israeli strike that took place yesterday, in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Lebanon, May 7, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Mohamad Azakir
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday there was no “immunity” for Israel’s enemies, a day after the Israeli military targeted a Hezbollah commander in its first strike on Beirut‘s southern suburbs since a ceasefire declared last month.
Israel said the attack killed the commander of the Iran-backed terrorist group’s elite Radwan force.
Hezbollah, which controls Beirut‘s southern suburbs, has yet to issue any statement on the strike or the commander’s status.
“He likely read in the press that he had immunity in Beirut. Well, he read it and it is no longer the case,” Netanyahu said in a statement.
Hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah reignited on March 2 when the Islamist group opened fire at Israel after Tehran came under US-Israeli attack.
Wednesday’s strike raises pressure on the Lebanon ceasefire that emerged in parallel to a truce in the wider Middle East war, with a halt to Israeli strikes in Lebanon being a key Iranian demand in Tehran’s negotiations with Washington.
Announced on April 16 by US President Donald Trump, the Lebanon ceasefire has led to a reduction in hostilities: the Beirut area was not struck by Israel for weeks before Wednesday’s attack.
But the sides have continued to trade blows in the south, where Israel has carved out a self-declared security zone.
Netanyahu said the Hezbollah commander, identified as Ahmed Ali Balout by the Israeli military, “thought he could continue to direct attacks against our forces and our communities from his secret terrorist headquarters in Beirut.”
“I say to our enemies in the clearest possible way: No terrorist has immunity,” he said.
LEBANESE PM: TOO EARLY FOR ‘HIGH-LEVEL’ MEETING
More than 2,700 people have been killed in the war in Lebanon since March 2, Lebanon’s Health Ministry says. Some 1.2 million people have been driven from their homes in Lebanon, many of them fleeing from southern Lebanon. According to Israeli officials, the majority of those killed have been Hezbollah terrorists.
Israel has announced 17 soldiers have been killed in southern Lebanon, along with two civilians in northern Israel.
At least 11 people were killed in Israeli strikes in three different areas of south Lebanon on Wednesday, according to a tally of Lebanese health ministry announcements.
Hezbollah said it carried out 17 operations against Israeli forces in southern Lebanon on Wednesday, while the Israeli military said it had struck more than 15 militant infrastructure sites in the south the same day.
The Israeli military says Hezbollah has fired hundreds of rockets and drones at Israel since March 2.
Hezbollah says it has the right to resist Israeli forces occupying the south.
Israel’s control zone extends as deep as 10 km (6 miles) into southern Lebanon. Israel says it aims to protect northern Israel from Hezbollah terrorists embedded in civilian areas.
The Lebanon ceasefire was announced for an initial 10 days and then extended for an additional three weeks during a meeting between the Lebanese and Israeli ambassadors to Washington, hosted by Trump at the Oval Office.
Hezbollah strongly objects to the Lebanese government’s contacts with Israel, which reflect deep differences between the group and its critics in Lebanon.
Trump said last month he looked forward to hosting Netanyahu and Lebanese President Joseph Aoun in the near future, and that he saw “a great chance” the countries would reach a peace deal this year.
But on Wednesday, Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said that it was premature to talk of any high-level meeting between Lebanon and Israel, and said that shoring up a ceasefire would be the basis for any new negotiations between Lebanese and Israeli government envoys in Washington.
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A View From My Campus: Sacrificing Science and Innovation for Political Symbolism
Illustrative: A BDS demonstration outside the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
In 2021, then-president of Rutgers, Jonathan Holloway, traveled to Tel Aviv to sign a partnership with Tel Aviv University (TAU) for future research at a cutting-edge facility being constructed in New Brunswick, The HELIX, which stands for The Health and Life Science Exchange.
This project includes collaborations with Robert Wood Johnson Hospital, Nokia Bell Labs, the NJ Economic Development Authority (NJEDA), Devco, and the American Technological University, all aimed at advancing innovation across industries.
The $665 million project offers “premier workspaces & laboratories for both startups and established companies operating across the gamut of healthcare, biotech, pharma, and, most broadly, the life sciences.” According to the NJEDA’s calculations, the cross-cultural development will bring an economic benefit of $340.4 million to the state.
But amongst Rutgers’ anti-Israel student groups, and Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) activists, there have been calls to terminate the partnership between Rutgers and Tel Aviv University, one of the leading research universities in the Middle East. This opposition came long before Oct. 7, 2023, and the war that followed.
According to these groups at Rutgers, the partnership with “Israeli universities play[s] a key role in supporting Israel’s system of apartheid rule,” and they call for “nothing less than complete divestment from these egregious investments, which drown our endowment fund and university facilities in blood.”
Note that they don’t actually care if this program or TAU connects in any way to the Israeli military or government; treating any Israeli, regardless of affiliation, like a human is apparently beyond the pale.
Notably, TAU was the first university in Israel to establish a Commission for Equity, Diversity, and Community, and has increased the representation of Arab students on campus to close to their proportion in the general population, a feat that is only possible in a place like Israel. It’s also important to note that, like many other universities in Israel, TAU leadership has gone out of its way to advocate for Palestinians.
Yet, somehow in the distorted truth of the BDS movement, TAU is complicit in “genocide.” Morally focused political movements on campus have historically claimed to fight for justice and against discrimination, exemplifying the higher education ideals of open-mindedness and critical thinking. And yet, these groups want to terminate partnerships for research, for innovation, for healthcare-based initiatives, for job and economic growth, and for expanding the academic frontier.
The Endowment Justice Collective, a Rutgers anti-Israel group, sent a letter to the administration claiming, “[a]ny collaboration which serves to bolster TAU’s reputation, provide it with a public platform, or materially support its operations shores up the legitimacy of an institution which aids and abets Israel’s oppression and genocide of Palestinians.”
But what will ending this huge project achieve, apart from a symbolic show of solidarity to a global movement whose priorities seem to obsessively focus on attacking Jews at Palestinians’ expense?
By taking intellectual pursuits such as the HELIX and dismissing them as politically motivated human endeavors, they become the very thing they seek to speak out against. TAU has the Neubauer Fellowship, an initiative specifically for Palestinian PhD students and faculty in STEM fields to provide high-level lab access and funding to elevate Palestinian representation in advanced research. When calls to cut ties like these set a precedent, they put such fellowships at risk as well. Rather than advancing equity, these efforts can ultimately backfire, restricting opportunities for Palestinian researchers and weakening the academic partnerships that make such programs possible.
Academic research and partnerships remain among higher education’s greatest strengths. They drive medical breakthroughs, technological innovation, and cross-cultural understanding. When groups like SJP demand the severance of ties with institutions like Tel Aviv University, they don’t just protest a government, but wall off the very pathways of discovery that benefit all of humanity. On our part, we must reject the close-mindedness of movements that prioritize ideological purity over global progress.
The author is a CAMERA Fellow at Rutgers University. Opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of CAMERA.
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Unreported: Palestinian Youth Leadership Center Named After Munich Olympics Massacre Planner
An image of one of the Palestinian terrorists who took part in the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
A Palestinian center for “training and nurturing young leaders, children, and trainees” sounds amazing, right?
It’s an initiative that Western donors would undoubtedly love to support, and something everyone would consider a step in the right direction to Palestinian Authority (PA) reform.
But what is the name of the center?
“The Martyr Salah Khalaf Center for Training Young Leaders”
Who was Salah Khalaf, you ask?
Maybe he was a famous Palestinian leader who could inspire the youth arriving at the center to participate in “programs and activities,” which are held “in accordance with the vision and goals of the PLO Supreme Council for Youth and Sports”?
In fact, Salah Khalaf headed the terror organization Black September, a secret branch of Fatah. Attacks he planned include the murder of 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics (Sept. 5, 1972) and the murder of two American diplomats in Sudan (March 1, 1973).
A PA role model par excellence!
Furthermore, the center is not only named after terrorist Salah Khalaf — but is hosting children specifically on Prisoner’s Day to indoctrinate them to honor terrorist prisoners. The pictures below show young children visiting the center:
This is a classic example of how the PA subtly transmits its ideologies and values to young Palestinians. Naming education centers, streets, and schools after terrorist murderers ensures that everyone is reminded of the name and the “role model” daily. This cements the terrorist’s status as a PA “celebrity.”
Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) has reported on the center in the past, documenting that its walls are adorned with images of terrorist Salah Khalat, former PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat, and current Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.
Supervising the Salah Khalaf center is the PLO Supreme Council for Youth and Sports, which is headed by none other than top PA official Jibril Rajoub, who is also Fatah’s Central Committee Secretary.
Palestinian Media Watch has documented that Rajoub is an avid terror supporter. He recently praised a murderer of 12 people as “the most sacred thing”:
Official PA TV reporter: “The Fatah Movement, the Ramallah and El-Bireh District, the [PA-funded] Prisoners’ Club, the [PLO] Commission of Prisoners’ [Affairs]… set up a mourning tent for Martyr and released prisoner deported to Egypt Riyad Al-Amour [i.e., terrorist, responsible for murder of 12], who died as a Martyr…”
Fatah Central Committee Secretary Jibril Rajoub: “The most sacred thing in the eyes of the Palestinians is those who sacrificed their lives and their freedom – our Martyrs.”
[Official PA TV News, April 9, 2026]
In keeping with this view, Rajoub has announced that terror against Israel — which he and other PA leaders refer to as “resistance in all its forms” — is “still on the agenda” for Fatah:
Fatah Central Committee Secretary Jibril Rajoub: “National unity must be based on the adoption of UN resolutions by all of us, which grant us a state and also resistance in all its forms [i.e., including terror].
I tell you as a Fatah member, resistance in all its forms is still on the agenda of this [Fatah] Movement … Let no one think that we are surrendering. I tell you that the first among us who believes this is [PA President] Mahmoud Abbas … We all know the nature and essence of Fatah … Either popular resistance without blood if there will be a state, or else resistance in all its forms.”
Posted text: “During the opening of the first national youth conference.”
[Fatah Central Committee Secretary Jibril Rajoub, Facebook page,
Jan. 19, 2026]
Rajoub has also announced his support for terrorists and the PA’s “Pay-for-Slay” program that rewards them financially, vowing the PA “won’t give up on” them “or their rights or their status”:
Fatah Central Committee Secretary Jibril Rajoub: “I want to see hundreds of young people holding processions to end the [Hamas-Fatah] rift and holding processions for reforms that stem from our reality and our will and align with our aspirations and interests. Not what [US President] Trump wants or John Doe or whoever, I don’t know what their problem is with the prisoners.
This is not a reform, this is a burial, elimination, and denial of our history and heritage. We won’t give up on the Martyrs or the prisoners or their rights or their status, not in our awareness nor in our project, whether the political, militant, or organizational.”
[Fatah Central Committee Secretary Jibril Rajoub, Facebook page, Jan. 19, 2026]
Western donors who are supporting the PLO Supreme Council for Youth and Sports would do well to examine the kind of activities the Council is involved in. Presumably they would hardly appreciate the glorification of one of the planners of the Munich Olympics massacre.
The author is a contributor to Palestinian Media Watch, where a version of this story first appeared.