Whenever I feel overwhelmed by how rampant antisemitism has become in today’s day and age, I look to how 3 million Russian Jews endured some of the most brutal antisemitism and emerged victorious.
In 1961, my grandfather, Rabbi Baruch Poupko, traveled behind the Iron Curtain to Soviet Russia.
During his visit to Russia, he encountered three Jewish university students and a young professor from a polytechnic institute who approached him quietly in the street.
The young Jews told him how they secretly study Jewish history and Jewish texts, risking their lives for their tradition.
As Russia was at the peak of its race to space, my grandfather wrote at the time: "it is much easier to invent a spaceship to circle the globe at a speed of 18,000 kilometers an hour than to extinguish from a Jew's heart the eternal commandment of 'I am the Lord your God!'
Am Yisrael Chai.
- Whenever I feel overwhelmed by how rampant antisemitism has become in today’s day and age, I look to how 3 million Russian Jews endured some of the most brutal antisemitism and emerged victorious. In 1961, my grandfather, Rabbi Baruch Poupko, traveled behind the Iron Curtain to Soviet Russia. During his visit to Russia, he encountered three Jewish university students and a young professor from a polytechnic institute who approached him quietly in the street. The young Jews told him how they secretly study Jewish history and Jewish texts, risking their lives for their tradition. As Russia was at the peak of its race to space, my grandfather wrote at the time: "it is much easier to invent a spaceship to circle the globe at a speed of 18,000 kilometers an hour than to extinguish from a Jew's heart the eternal commandment of 'I am the Lord your God!' Am Yisrael Chai.