IDF marching band to perform in Moscow’s Red Square for the first time in history

MOSCOW – If it all goes off without a hitch it will be one of the most meticulously planned and executed larger-scale IDF missions beyond Israel’s borders ever. If performed well it will receive thunderous applause, but if it fails, could ignite a diplomatic scandal with a resurgent superpower.

It involves flying dozens of specialist IDF soldiers thousands of miles away from Israel’s borders, together with their unique equipment and sensitive instruments, where they will face-off against not one, but dozens of similar elite units in a mission that spans an entire week. For the first time in its existence, the IDF marching band is to parade and perform in Moscow’s Red Square on Saturday night in front tens of thousands of people as part of the Russian capital’s annual Moscow Day Celebration. Continue reading →

Natan Sharansky returns to Russia, this time as Jewish Agency chief, to galvanize local Jewish leadership into taking responsibility for sustaining their own communities

MOSCOW – Natan Sharansky’s Hebrew teacher, back in the Cold War days when learning Hebrew and exploring one’s Jewish identity were forbidden, used to charge his students 3 rubles per lesson. He would also demand of his students to prepare homework, and those who didn’t perform the required assignments had to buy the teacher a bottle of wine, which in those days also cost 3 rubles. In the days when he was earning 120 rubles a month, the regular Hebrew lesson – and occasional bottle of wine – were not a paltry sum for Sharansky to fork out. The Hebrew teacher’s philosophy was simple: one values something one pays for much more than if one gets it for free. Sharansky, and his fellow dissidents, loved and valued their Hebrew so much that they found ingenious ways of talking to each other in Hebrew under the most impossible of conditions in Soviet prisons, including shouting into the toilet bowl in between flushes when the sound would carry through their prison cell walls. It is this truism that Sharansky, making his first foray into the world of Jewish and Zionist education in the Former Soviet Union since taking over the chairmanship of the Jewish Agency in June, is banking on. The message, delivered to local lay community members as well as super-wealthy Jewish tycoons over a lightning 48- hour visit to Moscow this week, was twofold: that the Agency was back and would not abandon them despite its financial difficulties, and more importantly, that they themselves had to start taking financial responsibility for sustaining Jewish life in the FSU. The days of rich American Jews giving money to the Jewish Agency, who in turns doles it out to poor Russian Jews enrolled in programs cooked up in Jerusalem’s Kiryat Moriah [where the Agency's education department is based] are well and truly over. JAFI is shifting its focus from aliyah to strengthening Jewish identity, and for this it needs local partners. Continue reading →