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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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A Chabad Jew was stabbed in NYC. He returned the next day to continue wrapping tefillin.
(JTA) — Less than 24 hours after he was stabbed in midtown Manhattan, Yosef, a Chabad-Lubavitch man from Crown Heights, was back on the same street where he’d been assaulted, popping into Diamond District businesses as usual to help employees wrap tefillin.
Yosef, 26, who did not share his last name to maintain his privacy, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that he was back on 47th Street on Thursday afternoon, the day after the stabbing, without missing a beat in his Monday-through-Thursday rounds even as police investigate the incident as a possible hate crime.
A number of the people he visited pieced together that the widely circulated footage of a man being stabbed the previous night was of him.
“They were in shock. They were obviously scared for me,” said Yosef, who has been wrapping tefillin and distributing Shabbat candles to Jewish Diamond District employees for about three years. He started that routine when his father, a Chabad Jew who works in the jewelry business, realized he needed his son’s help to handle the demand for those acts. Yosef told Chabad.org that he was “still shaken” by the attack a day later.
Still, he told JTA, “We can’t allow some hate to stop us.”
Yosef said he felt it was important to communicate that message because “we need more mitzvahs in the world, we need more light in the world.”
Yosef was taken to Bellevue Hospital on Wednesday evening around 6 p.m., where medical staff assessed that he had no internal bleeding and would not need stitches. No arrests have been made, but the assailant has been described as a woman in her 40s.
The attack has renewed concerns about security that have faced Chabad adherents and institutions, which often host public events and maintain a visible street presence. But the threat didn’t diminish their presence in midtown Manhattan on Friday.
Multiple Chabad men stood under a bright yellow tent on the sidewalk wrapping tefillin for a steady stream of workers in the heavily Jewish Diamond District.
“The Rebbe says that the way to defeat darkness is only through the addition of light,” said Shmuel Cohen, who was handing out small photographs of the movement’s late leader, the Lubavitcher Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson.
Cohen told JTA that he had not heard about the attack that took place just down the block two days earlier, though his partner under the sidewalk tent had. Cohen said that the best way to respond is through “the observance of Torah and mitzvot without being ashamed of our Judaism but presenting it to everyone.”
Also on Friday, Chabad officials met with New York Police Department representatives for their annual meeting about security ahead of Chabad’s international conference in Crown Heights, the Brooklyn neighborhood where the movement is headquartered. The conference begins on Nov. 5.
Chabad has been targeted in multiple high-profile attacks in the past year, including the deadly Bondi Beach shooting in Australia in December. The following month, a man rammed a car into the doors of the Chabad-Lubavitch headquarters in Brooklyn, raising further questions over how the movement should balance its commitment to making its events accessible with security.
Meanwhile, Jews have been targeted in more than half of hate crimes committed in New York City in 2026, despite making up about 12% of the city’s population.
“Security is our top priority. Our goal is to provide an environment where every participant feels safe and can fully experience the purpose and spirit of the gathering,” said Rabbi Mendy Kotlarsky, a top organizer of the upcoming conference.
In the wake of the attack, Yosef said he is not concerned about going out in public as a visibly Jewish person and doesn’t plan to change how he approaches the world.
“I was wearing the same clothes on Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday,” he said. “I didn’t change my routine.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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They met on a Birthright trip then married. Now this American Israeli couple’s internet fame has turned to infamy.
Ethan and Hila Klein first met at Yad Vashem — Israel’s Holocaust museum — in 2007, a meet-cute they recounted, giggling, years later for their millions of YouTube followers.
“I think I went up to her and said something like, ‘They had it coming, don’t you think?’” said Ethan, known for his edgy humor and infamous internet trends, including Vape Nation and Papa Bless. “No I didn’t say that. I wonder if you would have laughed though.”
They were on a Birthright trip, Ethan an American and Hila an Israeli soldier on leave to join the group. Soon after the trip ended, Ethan moved to Israel to be with Hila, and the two began making videos under the name H3H3 Productions (the H for Hila and the 3 standing in as an E for Ethan). They married, moved to America, and started a popular podcast.
A Jewish love story, until Thursday, when Hila, now mother to their three children, accused Ethan publicly of having a months-long affair.
“The betrayal I feel is immeasurable,” Hila said in an Instagram post. “My only family on this side of the world. How do I even begin to make sense of this?”
Ethan reposted her statement.
Their podcast is run by a handful of crew members who often chime in and participate in various skits and bits. The crew also shared a statement saying they stand with Hila and refuse to work with Ethan, though they added they don’t know what this will mean for the future of the show.
A couple roiled by Oct. 7
The left-leaning, secular couple’s videos and podcasts focused primarily on pop culture, internet drama and general politics, not Jewish or Israeli issues.
Both Ethan and Hila would make statements sometimes when tensions in Israel flared, and they would occasionally speak out against IDF actions that upset them.
In 2021, Ethan started a podcast with political commenter Hasan Piker, a controversial left-wing influencer, called Leftovers, a nod to their leftist politics.
Then came Oct. 7.
Ethan, an American Israeli dual citizen like Hila, was horrified by the attacks but quick to call the IDF genocidal in the aftermath. In their first episode together after Oct. 7, Ethan and Piker said the show would continue through their disagreements. The episode was tense, and it was their last.
As Piker’s rhetoric on Israel intensified and became at times antisemitic, the two began a nasty internet feud, culminating in a nearly five-hour livestreamed debate.
Piker posted about the news of the affair on X, sharing a video of Ethan and expressing disgust for men who cheat.
“Now this is a high caliber man [with] good morals,” Piker said sarcastically. He also posted “Judge me by my enemies” after sharing Hila’s statement.
Hila, who owns a makeup and clothing company, increasingly came under scrutiny by Piker and others after Oct. 7 for her service in the IDF. Artists refused to work with her. One model she hired publicly disavowed her after finding out she was Israeli.
The couple was harassed, sometimes online, sometimes in-person, as they attempted to take what they viewed as a nuanced stance in the aftermath of Hamas’ attack on Israel and the ensuing war in Gaza. The united front seemed to fortify their relationship, as Ethan, ever outspoken, routinely came to his wife’s defense.
Their show lost thousands of subscribers, but loyal fans stuck with them — fans who now say they are gutted and confused by the news of the affair. Many in disbelief noted that Ethan had Hila’s face tattooed on his arm less than two years ago as a surprise for her.
“The greatest thing a man can do for his children is to love their mother,” says the quote surrounding the tattoo.
The Forward attempted to contact the Kleins through their work emails and did not immediately hear back.
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These Jewish college students have some ‘nonnegotiables’ for El-Sayed
At the University of Michigan, first-year student Robert Kashan, 18, and sophomore Jacob Reich, 19, sat behind a large blue sign. “Some things are nonnegotiable,” it declared in all caps.
The sign laid out their requirements for any candidate seeking their support: a commitment to Jewish safety, “including for Zionist Jews,” and supporting Jewish statehood in Israel, among other positions.
“Zionism is a legitimate part of the Democratic coalition, and a lot of us are feeling less represented by the Democratic Party,” Kashan told the Forward.
The students are part of a broader “Nonnegotiable” movement in Michigan, a coalition of Jewish Democrats who are spelling out their dealbreakers for candidates ahead of the Senate election between Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed and Republican nominee Mike Rogers.
The movement has attracted national attention, with hundreds of rabbis across 34 states signing on to the “Nonnegotiable” demands. Meanwhile, about 20 students at the University of Michigan have publicly signed, while hundreds more offered support anonymously, according to Reich.
The “Nonnegotiable” supporters aren’t saying whom they’ll vote for if their concerns aren’t addressed — or whether they’ll vote at all. But they are pushing back against the assumption that Jewish voters will, as the saying goes, “vote blue no matter who,” urging El-Sayed to engage with their demands if he hopes to earn their support.
That’s in contrast with two other Jewish political camps, including a group called Michigan Jews for Democracy that endorsed El-Sayed. Their petition, which has garnered almost 1,000 signatures, notes that some signatories hold reservations about El-Sayed but are voting for him nonetheless as a check on President Trump.
“We understand that a vote is not a valentine; it’s a strategic chess move,” the petition reads.
A competing petition, dubbed “Michigan Jews Against Extremism,” has drawn hundreds of signatures from Michigan Jews who plan to vote for Rogers. That petition similarly emphasizes that Rogers voters may still have reservations about the candidate: “Our vote for Mike Rogers does not require that we agree with him on every issue or that we support President Trump,” it reads.
“Nonnegotiable,” meanwhile, rejects the idea that Jewish voters would have to choose between Zionist and Democratic values. Some have criticized the nonnegotiable movement for ignoring the reality of the electoral choice at hand. Others have called it “a veiled attempt to excuse the actions of Jewish Democrats who want to feel validated about voting for Mike Rogers.”
But Kashan and Reich, who met at Hillel and plan to major in political science, said the “Nonnegotiable” movement was the only way they could see themselves engaging in the election, as they felt increasingly pulled between their identities as Democrats and as Jews.
Some Michigan Jews have expressed alarm at El-Sayed’s questioning of whether Israel should exist as a Jewish state and his decision to campaign alongside controversial Twitch streamer Hasan Piker, who has been accused of antisemitic rhetoric. Rogers, who Trump has endorsed, earlier this week called El-Sayed “anti-Jew.”
In a letter to Michigan Jews, El-Sayed has vowed to “stand up against antisemitism and take the threat of violence against our Jewish community incredibly seriously.” He has also hired a Jewish liaison in the final weeks leading up to the election.
This will be the first election when Kashan, who just turned 18, is eligible to vote, and Reich’s first national election after voting in a local primary in his hometown of Palo Alto, California. For both, voting Democratic in their first major election had once seemed like a given.
“I’m a Jewish Democrat, and I want Democrats to take the Senate,” Reich said. “I want to vote for a Democrat in my own state.”
They’re still holding out hope that will happen — and that, with less than two weeks until the Nov. 3 election, El-Sayed will sign on to their petition.
And if he doesn’t? Neither student is ready to say.
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