In a meeting with the mayor of Siberian city of Novokuznetsk, Russia, the country’s Chief Rabbi Berel Lazar joined the chief rabbis of Novosibirsk and Barnaul – Chabad-Lubavitch Rabbis Zalman Zakles and Yisroel Kamenetsky – in petitioning the local government to restore control of a historic downtown building to the Novokuznetsk’s Jewish community.

The building in question once housed a synagogue and other Jewish institutions before its takeover by authorities during Communist rule. ...