Over 1,100 Jewish participants gathered at the Klyazma Resort Hotel in Moscow, Russia, April 11-14, for the largest Limmud FSU Moscow event to date. Limmud FSU conferences are considered to be one of the most prestigious of Jewish cultural events in the former Soviet Union. Limmud provides a festival of Jewish learning featuring a packed program of lectures, workshops, round-table discussions, music and a wide-range of cultural events presented in three different languages—Russian, English and Hebrew.

Founder of Limmud FSU, Chaim Chesler, said that the event in Moscow was the flagship of the Limmud FSU project, which takes place in six countries—Russia, Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine, USA and Israel; “Our dream was to present to the new generation of young Russian-speaking Jews throughout the world, topics which are close to their hearts and excite their imagination, such as Jewish history and culture, Jewish roots and issues of identity, the Holocaust, and subjects relating to achieving success in life both in economic and cultural terms. Evidently the dream has become a reality.”

The Limmud phenomenon began in Britain nearly 32 years ago and is now a world-famous educational movement. Limmud FSU, founded six years ago by Chaim Chesler, Sandra Cahn, a philanthropist from New York and Prof. Mikhail Chlenov from Moscow, supports and reinforces Jewish education and identity to Jews from the FSU, the U.S. and Israel. This unique conference, like all Limmud events, is organized and run entirely by volunteers.