Last week we shared the stories of Kinga, Olga and Catherine, three young Polish Jews who were visiting Israel. This week, the we turn to four young Jewish leaders from the Bnei Anousim community in southern Italy. Here's the stories of Carlo, Leah, Marco and...
Three remarkable young Jewish women from Poland recently visited Israel on a trip sponsored by Shavei Israel. Kinga’s mother had the unusual custom of saying "Gut Shabbos" every Friday night, but she had no idea what the phrase meant. Olga didn't know she was Jewish...
Cuban-born Genie Milgrom is the author of "My 15 Grandmothers" and the recently published "How I Found My 15 Grandmothers," in which she traces her lineage back to pre-Inquisition Spain and Portugal. This Passover, Milgrom traveled to the villages of her ancestors where together Milgrom...
In the second of a two part series, we profile Nadia Shishliannikov, a young Subbotnik Jew in Israel to whom Shavei Israel has given a generous scholarship to assist with her education. Nadia is 22-years old and made aliyah from Russia in 1999 at the...
Shavei Israel has given two young Subbotnik Jews in Israel generous scholarships to assist them with their education. Here is a profile of one of the two: Vitaly Grigorenko, 27, who made aliyah from Voronezh in southern Russia in 2003. He is studying to become...
It’s an increasingly common story among the Jews of Poland: a grandparent, lying on his or her deathbed, reveals to the grandchild a shocking secret – that the grandparent and, as a result, his or her family, is actually Jewish. The phenomenon has occurred so...
Slowly and somewhat hesitantly, Karol began to recite the blessing before the reading of the Torah. With his parents and siblings looking on in evident pride, and the congregation enveloping him in warmth and joy, Karol underwent this sublime rite of passage into manhood, just...
The rabbi didn’t know what to make of Genie Milgrom. She had placed on the table before him reams of documentation going back hundreds of years, all demonstrating what she hoped would be incontrovertible proof that her family’s ancestors in Spain were Bnei Anousim. There...
When Gidon Elazar finished his mandatory military service, like so many other Israelis he had a hankering for travel. Setting his sights on the Far East, he spent much of his time in China. So began a decade-long fascination, one that continues today and that...
The signs were all around him, but it took 51 years for Mariusz Opałko to learn the truth about his Jewish heritage. Despite being surrounded by the mostly Jewish friends of his parents growing up, and even having a relative who was a famous klezmer...
