September 2, 2009 / 13 Elul 5769

SHARANSKY OPENS SCHOOL YEAR IN FORMER SOVIET UNION

Jewish Agency Chairman Natan Sharansky opened the school year for students in the former Soviet Union Tuesday (Sept. 1) with a class called “the Zionist struggle in the Soviet Union.”

Speaking before high school students at the Lipman Jewish Day School in Moscow, Sharansky spoke of his personal story and of the struggle he and other went through with the Communist regime to allow them move to Israel. The class was broadcast live to Jewish schools in St. Petersburg, Vilnius in Lithuania, and Kiev in the Ukraine.

These schools are part of the Hefziba school system, a network of 44 Jewish schools in the former Soviet Union supported by the Jewish Agency and the Government of Israel. Sharansky acknowledged funding the Jewish Agency receives from North American Federations and the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews for the Hefziba school program. In all, there are some 100 Jewish schools in the FSU with some 13,000 students.

Photo credit: Fatima Burnatzeva