By COLlive reporter
Photography: Valery Kasatkin
In a true spirit of unity, seventy-five Rabbis from Russia’s cities and regions joined together in the Siberian city of Tomsk for a special Shabbos Achdus.
It began on Friday morning at the large central shul. It continued in the neighboring Jewish Community Center, which serves as the spiritual address for all Jews, including Jewish students of the city’s prestigious universities.
Acting Governor of the Tomsk Region Vladimir Mazur and Tomsk Mayor Mikhail Ratner, arrived at the shul on Friday to express their appreciation, on behalf of the region’s citizens, for the extensive activities of the Rabbis who arrived from Birobidzhan in Russia’s Far East to Kaliningrad in its west.
Russia’s Chief Rabbi Berel Lazar, in turn, expressed his gratitude on behalf of the region’s Jews for the help and government support provided in Tomsk and its surrounding areas.
Rabbi Lazar presided over the unique Shabbos, giving classes to the local Jews and answering many halachic questions raised by the visiting Rabbis. He spoke at the special farbrengens in honor of Shabbos Mevorchim Sivan and in preparation for the Yom Tov of Shavuos, when the Jewish nation stood as one at the foot of the mountain, their unity a symbol and inspiration for generations to come, just as the unity and love amongst the many Rabbis present could be felt and seen as a shining example.
Additional speakers were Rabbi Yitzchok Kogan of Moscow’s Bolshaya Bronnaya shul, Rabbi Alexander Boroda, President of the Federation of Jewish Communities in the FSU, Rabbi Mendel Pewsner of St. Petersburg, and Rabbi Zalman Deutsch of Perm, the latter two who are also part of the organizing committee of the Annual Regional Kinus.
This is the fifth year of such a gathering, with previous kinusim being held in Ufa, Rostov, Novosibirsk, and Nizhny Novgorod. Next year’s Kinus will be held in Russia’s European enclave of Kaliningrad.
On Friday, there were various halachic symposiums and different forums to present new outreach tools for working with the community’s youth.
Together with the Rabbis who attended were also about 50 young boys and their sons, who enjoyed an uplifting Shabbos together, which gave them a much-needed boost in their role as shluchim, living in cities in which they and their families are the only frum Jews for miles and miles.
Throughout Shabbos, into which so much work and effort were put by Tomsk’s shluchim Rabbi Levi Kaminetzky and Rabbi Reuven Nekhoda, many of the local Jews came by to see the unusual sight of so many rabbis gathered together in their city’s shul. This caused a tremendous Kiddush Hashem and brought about a respectable amount of local media coverage.
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