Synagogues on wheels in Russia

By Vestnik Kavkaza

On July 18 the Jewish ethnographic expedition started off in Moscow. Within three weeks synagogues on wheels or mitzvah-mobiles will travel around Russia. During this time they will visit about 50 cities. Mitzvah in Judaism means "prescription", "command", and in everyday speech - a "good deal", a "commendable act." At the start of the action the Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center held a press conference.

"We took a synagogue, and we will send it to different places, so that Jews on the ground, especially those Jews who have no opportunity to go to a synagogue, who do not have a synagogue in their city, so that they can pray, seek God, communicate, learn more about our tradition, our culture, our history, mostly about the Torah and the commandments",  Berel Lazar, Chief Rabbi of Russia, said. "I would say that today there is a full understanding of the people that you can talk about yourself, you can be proud of your roots, we can talk about the tradition and religion, not needing to be ashamed of it. And these decorated buses remind people of the commandments, the values that our people have. This does not surprise anyone, it's already quite normal. You can talk about it openly and be proud of it, not hesitating anymore".

The expedition was organized by the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia. The head of the Federation Alexander Boroda believes that such action is very relevant: "For the first time the trip was organized last year and proved to be very successful. These buses with the rabbis, with the spiritual and material support of the communities were very much in demand. People are interested in it, people come and ask questions. People learn a lot about their culture and traditions. This is what is needed, especially in those cities where there are no rabbis, and even in cities where there is a rabbi of the city, he cannot cover everything, and this help is very, very important. This is a logical continuation of the activities of our federation so that a minimum of knowledge, some understanding about their culture, their roots came to the Jews who were raised in the Soviet era, who do not know about it, and to young people who, in spite of the fact that they have already grown in the 1980s – 1990s, however, had no information about their traditions".

The first route will pass through cities in the south of Russia: Stavropol, Kislovodsk, Armavir, Sochi, Novorossiysk, Krasnodar, Taganrog, Rostov, Novocherkassk, Volgograd, Volga, Saratov, Penza and Ryazan.

The second mitzvah-mobile will go to Siberia - from Omsk via Novosibirsk and Barnaul to Bijsk, Novokuznetsk, Prokopyevsk, Kemerovo, Ugra, Tomsk, Mariinsky, Achinsk, Krasnoyarsk and Abakan.

The third synagogue on wheels will pass through Vladimir, Nizhny Novgorod, Yoshkar-Ola, Kazan, Naberezhnye Chelny, Izhevsk, Yekaterinburg, Tyumen, Kurgan, Chelyabinsk, Miass, Ufa, Samara, Togliatti and stop in Ulyanovsk.