Last week, the Minister of Education of Israel, Gideon Sa’ar, and Israel’s new ambassador to Russia, Dorit Golender, visited the Moscow Jewish Community Center. The guests met with the leadership of the Jewish community in Russia.
Minister Sa’ar arrived in Moscow to attend a UNESCO conference on pre-school education. The director of the Moscow JCC, Mordechai Weisberg, gave Minister Sa’ar and Ambassador Golender a tour of the JCC complex, including the Marina Roscha Synagogue, the library, the conference hall, the fitness center and the gym, the café, and some of the classrooms. The visitors shared that they were impressed with what they saw.
Following the tour, Minister Sa’ar and Ambassador Golender met with Chief Rabbi of Russia Berel Lazar, FJC Russia President Alexander Boroda and Executive Director of the Ohr Avner Foundation, David Mondshein. The minister praised the work being done by the community in reviving Jewish life in the former Soviet Union.
The guests also visited the Shaarei Tzedek Charity Center, the largest charity center operating in the CIS, where they learned about the scope of the center’s programs during a meeting with its director Shaya Deutch. The minister and ambassador then visited the Rambam Medical Center where the center’s director, Dr. Igor Elkis, personally showed the visitors around.
The guests concluded their visit with a stop in the sukka at Shaarei Tzedek, where they fulfilled the mitzvah of making a blessing on the lulav and etrog.