Jewish history in the Russian Empire can be traced back to the 1500s, when Ivan the Terrible sought to establish trade with Western Europe. It is a history marked by great achievements in the arts, Jewish culture, and religious and political movements, and by extreme poverty and persecution.

Throughout most of Russian history, Jews were banned from living in the territory that today is called Russia or the Russian Federation. Indeed, large numbers of Jews did not live in Moscow or St. Petersburg until after the Communist revolution. In Czarist Russia, most Jews were confined to the Pale of Jewish Settlement – the territory comprising parts of present-day Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Lithuania and Poland, which were then under the control of the Russian empire. Living in shetls, Jews were frequently victims of vicious pogroms.

During the Soviet period, many Jews settled in what is now Russia, drawn largely by better educational and professional opportunities. The Soviets allowed the migration, but harshly suppressed Jewish culture and religion. As Stalin tightened his grip in the 1930s, Soviet policy focused stridently on assimilation: Jews were to become Soviets. Yet even Jews who had fully assimilated had to endure pervasive, state-mandated discrimination.

Anti-Semitism eased during World War II, and many Jews fought valiantly at the frontline of battle. Hundreds of thousands of Soviet Jews living in Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova and the Baltic states perished during the Holocaust, while others fled deeper into Russia. They, along with many Jews who already lived in central and eastern Russia, were spared. Large numbers fled eastward to the Urals, the Volga region, central Asia or Siberia, while others were evacuated with strategic industries to the east. The Jews of St. Petersburg survived the Nazi’s Siege of Leningrad, as did Muscovite Jews during the Battle for Moscow.

In the 1950s, an intense campaign to suppress Jewish culture was renewed. Stalin again targeted Jewish intellectuals – many of whom were killed or sent to gulags in Siberia. Thousands of Jews were resettled in the Moslem republics in an attempt to "Russify" these regions. A state policy of oppression of Jewish culture and religion continued through most of the 1980s.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, more than 290,000 Russian Jews have made aliyah. Despite this massive emigration, one of the world’s largest Jewish communities still resides in the Russian Federation, concentrated mainly in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Indeed, Russian Jewry today remains the third-largest Diaspora community, coming right after those of the United States and France. Since 1988, JDC has been helping the Jews of Russia rediscover their lost heritage and rebuild a strong and vibrant Jewish communal life.

2005