Rav Yitzchok Zilber's Appeal to the Leaders of Russian-speaking Communities in the United States
(translated from Russian)
10th of Sivan, 5764
(May 30th, 2004)
Dear friends:
With G-d's help, a tremendous work has been done by you in the United States directed to bringing the Jews from the former Soviet Union back to their roots. This work is bringing fruit: new families continue to appear who follow the path of Torah and mitzvos.
During the recent years, here, in Eretz Yisroel, we also had a lot of success in this area. A real "Russian Revolution" is currently under way in many areas of religious community life. There are new learning programs and collelim for Russian-speakers appearing: evening, day, and full-time programs are now available, various Torah classes opened in cities throughout the country, there are "Russian" minyans, gmachs, etc.
We now turn to you with an appeal to combine our unique experience in this work and join our forces. We, for example, could:
- organize the appearance of popular Russian-speaking lecturers in your communities;
- enter single Russian-speaking Jews in the United States into our matchmaking system;
- admit young Jewish men and women from the US to our Jerusalem programs for the people from the former Soviet Union: a group of bochurim based in the Mirrer Yeshiva for men, and a separate full-day program for women;
We also see other possible ways of our cooperation in bringing the Russian-speaking Jews closer to Torah and mitzvos.
To discuss these possibilities we would like to organize a "Russian" parlor meeting in the United States on behalf of the Toldos Yeshurun organization.
We plan that my son, Ben Tzion Zilber, as well as the director of Toldos Yeshurun, Avraham Cohen, will be in the USA for this purpose.
With Torah blessing,
Yitzchak Zilber
