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1987-1991: Opening the Floodgates
The Jewish underground began to emerge in the late 1980s, as the crumbling Soviet Empire began to allow more freedoms and contact with the West. Young married couples and Chabad yeshivah students arrived in Russia in ever increasing numbers, continuing the work to keep the torch of Judaism alive, as those who had done for the previous generation.
In 1990, even as hundreds of thousands of Soviet Jews emigrated to the United States, Israel and elsewhere, the first permanent Chabad emissaries arrived in the country to establish Jewish centers.
Since then, the numbers have grown as Chabad outposts have opened in more than 100 cities throughout the former Soviet Union. Today, Moscow alone is home to more than 30 Chabad Jewish centers, and Dnipro, Ukraine, is home to the largest Jewish center in the world.
A new era of work begins
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Corresponded with the Rebbe at a pivotal stage in modern history.
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Video | 3:20
26 Adar, 5751• March 12, 1991
Jewish artifacts and property were stolen and stored away by the Soviet Government. Now changes are sweeping across Russia, and this should make it easier to retrieve what has been lost.
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Chabad emissaries entered a world of repressed Judaism that they worked relentlessly to help lift over time
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Summer camping’s role in the resurgence of Jewish life in the former Soviet Union
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Video | 1:45
30 Shevat, 5750 · February 25, 1990
May G-d help you to do “more than your best” in providing for the special needs of the Russian
Jews who can finally leave the Soviet Union.
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Video | 2:44
24 Teves, 5750 · January 21, 1990
With all the good work you do for Russian Jewry worldwide, your main focus must be to help
those in your own country of Australia. After all their struggles under communism, may they
find peace and tranquility there.
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Video | 1:27
22 Kislev, 5751 • December 9, 1990
A conversation in Russian. Through your newspaper, you must reach out to every Jew and encourage them to increase their observance of Torah and Mitzvot. Teach them about the commandment of charity.
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Video | 1:16
I am pleased that the Chasid, Reb Getzel, is not leaving Russia. He still has much to accomplish there.
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Video | 2:01
Rabbi Dovid Hollander visits the Rebbe and discusses returning to Soviet Russia to help the Jews being oppressed under the Communist regime.
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Video | 1:45
Thank G-d for saving you from danger by increasing in Torah study and observance. Give this to charity for all the Jews in Russia, and please send them my regards. (Collage)
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Video | 3:17
1988, 1989
At the time that the Soviet Union began to open its doors, Shoshana Cardin served as Chairman of NCSJ, the National Conference on Soviet Jewry.
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28 Chabad centers redefine Jewish communal life in Russia’s capital
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Esther Wilhelm, who has called Zhitomir home since 1994, will speak at the annual women’s Kinus
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Misha is still sullen, taciturn and lost in thought. A life spent as an officer in the Soviet army has left him numb to ritual. Yet something drew him to this place . . .
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“Seventy-five years ago, I said this at my grandparents’ Passover table. But since then, I have never heard it until tonight...
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Moses performed miracles and promised redemption. But things got much worse before they got better. Is history repeating itself?
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Three years after his near assassination attempt, Dagestan’s rabbi is back working—and painting
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A win-win for everyone, building Judaism and community in Ukraine
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A monumental effort with commentaries is launched with the first three volumes
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A tale of Soviet lies, a newspaper baron, Romanian airplanes and the sweeping rescue of Jewish youth
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A story of Jewish life at ‑43° F
The moment they got off the airplane, a heavy snowfall began. They thought it was a blizzard, but it was just their first small taste of winter in Siberia.
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Rabbis changing the face of European Jewry make pilgrimage to the shtetls where it all began
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Video | 1:17
Upon seeing the Rebbe for the first time, a newly-emigrated refusenik, a Jew who was previously trapped behind the Iron Curtain of the Soviet Union, recites the shehechiyanu blessing.
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Video | 2:01
Rabbi Dovid Hollander visits the Rebbe and discusses returning to Soviet Russia to help the Jews being oppressed under the Communist regime.
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