Limmud Toronto 2016

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Chabad-Lubavitch has established itself as the dominant force in Russian Jewish life. Its reach extends to some 140 cities across Russia and the country’s chief rabbi, a Lubavitcher named Berel Lazar, maintains close ties with President Vladimir Putin. Through its wealth and enthusiastic activism, the ultra-Orthodox movement has profoundly shaped the religious, cultural and political agendas inside a Jewish community that has an extremely complicated relationship with its ex-Soviet identity and past. This session will begin with an overview of post-Soviet Russian Jewish history--a fascinating story of renewal and growth. Then through lecture and discussion we will examine not only the controversial politics of Chabad’s rise to power, but how the movement speaks so effectively to the peculiar sensibilities of post-Soviet Russian Jewry as well. Tapper will share findings from his own ethnographic fieldwork inside Moscow’s Chabad synagogues.