The Limmud FSU Nobel 2010 festival this week honored 26 Jewish scientists and political leaders who originated in Israel, the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union and who were awarded the Nobel Prize.
The festive event, held Wednesday night at the Rabin Center in Tel Aviv, was attended by Matthew Bronfman, chairman of the Limmud International Steering Committee, Science and Technology Minister Daniel Hershkowitz, Dalia Rabin, Alexander Kriyukov, First Secretary of the Russian Embassy and director of the Russian Cultural Center in Israel, Kadima MK Yulia Shamalov-Berkowitz, Yisrael Beiteinu MK Anastasia Michaeli and others.
Professor Hershkowitz drew a parallel in his opening speech between the Vision of the Dry Bones as related in the Book of Ezekiel, the Holocaust, and the subsequent creation of the State of Israel, saying that he viewed the rebirth of the nation as the closing of a historical circle.
“The Israel Defense Forces in 1948 were created from nothing but dry bones,” he said, “and the creation of the State was the covering of the bones by muscles and skin as in the prophet's vision. It is that depth of belief that has kept the Jewish people alive through the millennia, and it is that sort of vision that Limmud is inculcating among so many young Russian Jews who were cut off from the roots for so long. The Vision of the Dry Bones is neither abstract nor theory, but is our story,” he added.
Limmud, founded 30 years ago in England, developed its FSU program in 2006 to bring the experience of Jewish learning and identity to Russian-speaking Jews throughout the world. Chaim Chesler, former head of the Aliyah Delegation to the FSU and treasurer of the Jewish Agency, founded the Limmud FSU program together with Sandy Cahn of New York, and Michael Chlenov, president of the Federation of Jewish Organizations of Russia.