On Russian-Speaking Immigrants in Israel: An Interview with Rabbi Binyamin Minich

Rabbi Binyamin Minich (used with permission)

Binyamin Minich has been the Rabbi for the last five years of Kehilat Daniel, located in Mishkenot Ruth Daniel in Jaffa, one of the five congregations of the Daniel Centers for Progressive Judaism. Born and raised in the city of Kerch, in the Crimea, Rabbi Minich emigrated to Israel at age 15 and received his rabbinical ordination from in the Jerusalem campus of Hebrew Union College (HUC) in 2019.

Tell me about your early life.

I was born at the beginning of “Perestroika,” the opening of the Soviet Union to the West and am now 38 years of age. My family attended a Reform synagogue in the Crimea. At age 15, I came to Israel alone through a program, still extant, called Naale Elite Academy, which provides youths from the Diaspora with fully paid enrollment in an elite Israel high school. Almost 20,000 have come for the last thirty plus years, nearly all of whom have remained in Israel. A year later my parents made Aliyah and moved to Israel’s northernmost city, Kiryat Shmona. They have remained there since the war began in the North in October 2023. My father recently passed away. At age 18, I enlisted in the army and served three and a half years. While I was trained as a combat soldier, my army service mainly revolved around people, as a group commander and also as a sergeant.

Why did you decide to become a rabbi?

I started thinking of becoming a rabbi when I celebrated my bar mitzvah. I attended Haifa University, initially considering degrees in education, psychology, or social work. Beginning my first year at the university, I attended Talmud classes in the Or Hadash synagogue in Haifa and added a Jewish philosophy major to my psychology BA. After college, I met my wife and we married and moved to Jerusalem, where I began rabbinical school at HUC (Hebrew Union College) in 2014.

HUC was not a difficult experience for me since I was raised in a Reform synagogue. I was ordained in Jerusalem in 2019. In addition to my rabbinical ordination, I received an MA in Jewish Education from the joint program of HUC and Hebrew University.  I began work at a Russian-speaking congregation in Haifa. My wife, who is an OBGYN, found a job in B’nai Brak, the Haredi community just outside Tel Aviv, so I wanted a job near where my wife was working. We now have three children, two boys aged eight and ten and a girl aged three.

Tell me about your five years at Mishkenot Ruth Daniel.

I found a position as the rabbi of MIshkenot Ruth Daniel, one of the four centers  of the Daniel Centers for Progressive Judaism in Tel Aviv.  In this new job I began to work with a more diverse group rather than just Russian speakers. I taught in Hebrew, but Russian speakers would often come to services. Now, five years later, Russians spend a lot of time with me. While we have prayer books in Russian, most of our Russian-speaking congregants use English language prayer books. I now run a weekly class on Zoom, discussing Jewish tradition in Russian, at times with journalists and law professors.

I understand that you often appear on Russian language radio or TV. What do you talk about?

There are two types of questions. One is about Reform Judaism—its ideas, values, practices, and activities. This is important because the Reform movement is for the most part unknown to Russian speaking immigrants. A second subject revolves around social activism. I teach that being religious does not contradict being a liberal activist. 

How many Russian speakers are in Israel? And what are their beliefs and understandings?

There are now a million Russian speakers in Israel. The Law of Return was amended in 1970 to permit anyone with one grandparent who was Jewish to enter Israel. This is contrary to the Orthodox tradition that defines a Jew as someone whose mother is Jewish. The result is that 400,000 Russians are not considered halachically Jewish, i.e., their mother is not Jewish. Since the ultra-orthodox control life cycle events, non-Jewish Russian speakers must marry outside of Israel or register in Israel as common law spouses. Russian immigrants, for the most part, self-define as atheists. Many of them are perplexed about what Judaism means, and look for answers for living their lives and understanding their past.

In the last three years about a quarter of new Russian speaking immigrants came from Ukraine. Three quarters came from countries such as Russia and Belarus. Most Ukrainian migrants went to the rest of Europe. Russians come in part because of uncertainties in Russian society. They are afraid that the economic situation could deteriorate. They may fear that the senior manager of their firm would write something controversial, leading to possible closure of their company. So, they come to Israel, thinking, mistakenly it turns out today, that it is a very stable country with a sure future.

What have been the political preferences of Russian speakers?

The first group of Russian-speaking immigrants of the nineties were likely to vote for Rabin in 1992, and Barak in 1999. They were animated by the chance to vote for young dynamic leaders. In Russia, for 20-30 years, and especially in the eighties, every Secretary General of the Communist Party was seventy-five or older.

The Russian vote was not about ideology, which they had been “vaccinated” against. They wanted to live quiet and peaceful lives. But then peace did not come. Now they are voting in ways similar to native secular Israeli Jews, with the exception that older Russian speakers are more likely to vote for the Yisrael Beitenu party (“Israel My Home,” formed in 1999), led by Avigdor Lieberman, an immigrant from Moldova.

How have they integrated into Israel society?

Most sociological studies find that only the third generation of immigrants is fully integrated into their new country. In this case Russian speakers in Israel for the most part are already integrated by the second generation. They are educated, often have nice salaries and a strong intellectual and technical background.

How did the different waves of emigration differ?

The first wave of Aliyah from Russian-speaking countries came when the Soviet Union collapsed in the nineties. I came to Israel in 2002, at the end that wave. There was a wave of Aliyah in 2014, after the annexation of Crimea, and now we have the Aliyah that comes since the start of the Ukrainian war. In the eighties and nineties most of the immigrants were Jews or children of Jews. In the last fifteen years, they have weaker backgrounds in Jewish culture and religion. The state of Israel makes little or no effort to integrate Russian speakers into Israeli society. The officials of the Ministry of the Interior tell those who are not halachically Jewish to figuratively “get down on their knees” because they have been allowed to come here.

What role does the Reform Movement play for Russian immigrants?

Immigrants need to believe that they are part of the story of the country they live in. The Israeli state has not made this effort to engage them. In fact, Reform synagogues are the only place in Israel where those who are not considered Jews by Israeli law are welcomed. Reform synagogues offer conversion for patrilineal Jews or even for those who have no Jewish background. Based on a Supreme Court ruling, the state recognizes these conversions.

The number of conversions performed by the Daniel Centers has increased dramatically to 350 a year. Over half of these are Russian immigrants, especially women. Rabbi Galia Sadan, responsible for managing the Daniel Centers conversion program, observes that conversion provides a positive feeling of selfhood and integration into Israeli society. It also means that state records identify the children of female converts as Jewish.

What do Russian children learn in school?

Most Russian speaking kids in the second generation attend state secular schools. Unlike most secular Israelis, they do not have a Jewish cultural background. Secular Israeli students learn about Judaism at home, since their parents and grandparents are highly likely to celebrate the Passover seder, observe Yom Kippur, and/or light Shabbat candles. Russian Israelis do not have these points of connection with “others,” especially because the divided school system, with four separate education systems—secular, orthodox, ultra-orthodox, and Arab—offers very little about understanding “the other.”

How do you reach out to those who do not experience Judaism?

People have to learn. Before Yom Kippur, a casual congregant told me that he was planning to bicycle to Jerusalem and back on Yom Kippur. He said, this is the only day in the year when the highways are empty. He could fast but must drink. If he were not drinking, he would die. So, he called me with that question. I said he had to understand why he was taking this trip. Then I suggested that, if he rode to Jerusalem, he should stop at the egalitarian plaza of the Western Wall and pray. He did that. It was to some extent a spiritual experience, although he was embarrassed to be standing in front of the Wall in his shorts and T-shirt.

So, in the end, what have you learned from your service to Russian-speaking Jews and to Israeli natives?

Overall, my goals as a rabbi are to strengthen the commitment of Russian speakers in Israel to liberal and progressive Judaism, to preserve the connections among all Russian-speaking Jews, and, of course, to help to ensure the future of the Jewish people.

Russian-speaking Jews today are a sociologically and geographically fluid community that I know through my relatives and friends in former Soviet Union countries, Western Europe, the United States, and Israel.  I am part of a forum of Russian-speaking Reform rabbis and cantors. My children do not read Russian, but they speak Russian. I recently met my second cousin, a second generation Russian-speaking American Jew, who married an American whose parents are Indian.  I have learned that the immigrant experience is similar everywhere—from India, the Soviet Union, Ukraine, the USA, and Israel.