By COLlive reporter
Rabbi Dovid Gurevich, co-director of Chabad House at UCLA – University of California in Los Angeles, will be presenting at the first Limmud FSU West Coast conference at the Westin Hotel in Pasadena on January 29-31.
The learning retreat will feature an eclectic lineup, from a concert to “spiritually stirring” Shabbat and Havdalah ceremonies, to interactive improv, and film screenings, according to organizers.
The conference will also offer over 60 fascinating sessions on such issues as Russian-Jewish identity, the Russian-Jewish community in California and Jewish perspectives on relationships.
There are an estimated 80,000 Russian-speaking Jews in the greater Los Angeles area, with other large Russian-speaking Jewish communities in the San Francisco Bay Area and elsewhere in California. There are some 700,000 Russian-speaking Jews in the U.S.
Rabbi Gurevich, born and raised in Kiev during the Soviet Union regime, first came in meaningful contact with Judaism at age 14 in a Chabad summer camp near Kiev, shortly before his family’s immigration to Los Angeles.
He went on to study in yeshivas in Los Angeles and Israel, as well as graduated cum laude from Brandeis University and obtained a JD from the George Washington University School of Law. For several years, he practiced workers’ compensation law.
California’s Head Shliach Rabbi Shlomo Cunin appointed Gurevich and his wife Elisa Gurevich to run the Chabad Jewish Student Center at the public research university located in Westwood.
Other major participants at Limmud FSU will include actor Jon Voight, Jewish Agency Chair and Soviet Jewry hero Natan Sharansky, LA City Councilor Zev Yaraslovsky, Russian satirist and author Victor Shenderovich, former Israel Defense Forces Maj. Gen. Uzi Dayan, and Hillel International President and CEO Eric Fingerhut.
Another upcoming major event for Russian-speaking Jews in Western USA is the Shabbaton Retreat on Resort set to take place on March 11-13 at the Alderbrook Resort & Spa, an upscale lodging in the Olympic Mountains in Union, Washington.
Rabbi Yechezkel Rapoport of the Chabad of Seattle Russian Program called it a unique opportunity to inspire Russian-speaking Jews to become more involved with Yiddishkeit and the Jewish community. “The Shabbaton has a truly great, positive influence on all of the guests,” he said.
“This is the third such event in this area of the country,” Rapoport said. “As a result of attendance at our first Shabbaton last year, men began to put on tefillin, women began to use mikvah, parents enrolled their children in Jewish schools, many people started attending shiurim, marriages took place, and so on.”
For more info, visit seattlerussianjews.org.
