Tatarstanin pääkaupungin Kazanin juutalaisesta historiasta:
KAZAN, capital of Tatarstan autonomous republic, in the Russian Federation, an important commercial and industrial center, mainly of the oil industry.
- Until the 1917 Revolution, Kazan was outside the Jewish *Pale of Settlement.
- In 1861, 184 Jews lived in the city, most of them veterans of the army of Nicholas I.
- By 1897, their numbers had increased to 1,467 (1.1% of the total population).
- Pogroms broke out in the city in October 1905.
- During World War I many exiles from the battle areas and from Lithuania arrived in Kazan.
- In 1926, there were 4,156 Jews in the city (2.3% of the population), which grew to 5,278 (1.33% of the total) in 1939.
- During the subsequent years, under the Soviet regime there was no possibility of developing any Jewish communal life. During WWII many refugees reached the city and remained there after the war. The Jewish population of Kazan was estimated at about 8,000 in 1970. One synagogue existed until 1962, when it was closed down by the authorities. Jews prayed in private houses (minyanim), even though this was prohibited. The Jewish cemetery was still in use in 1970.
Kazan synagogue rededication hailed by Muslim, Christian leaders
‘A day of celebration for the Jews of Tatarstan is a festive day for all in the state,’ says mufti, as 100-year-old building reopens
September 4, 2015, 2:41 pm
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KAZAN, Russia — Muslim and Christian faith leaders congratulated Russian
Jews on the rededication of a 100-year-old synagogue 500 miles east of
Moscow.
The well-wishers gathered Thursday at an
interfaith roundtable in Kazan, the capital of Russia’s
predominantly-Muslim state of Tatarstan. Limmud FSU, the Russian
language branch of the Jewish educational outreach group, organized the
event.
“A day of celebration for the Jews of
Tatarstan is a festive day for all in the state, and I wish to extend
our Jewish fellow citizens my warmest sympathies on their day of
celebration,” said the mufti of Tatarstan, Kamil Hazrat Samigullin, at
the roundtable. He also condemned the actions of jihadists aa
unrepresentative of Islam.
Also present was Vladimir Samoilenko, the archpriest, or senior Russian Orthodox cleric, of the region.
After the interfaith event, some 600 Jews
watched Russian Chief Rabbi Berel Lazar affix a new mezuzah to the
doorframe of Kazan’s only synagogue, where renovations were completed
last week, in part with government funding. Musicians from Russia and
Israel played outside the building, which was built in the Russian
Revival style.
“Limmud is about uniting different streams of
Judaism for education and against extremism, but increasingly also
different faiths,” Limmud FSU founder Chaim Chesler said at the
roundtable.
Lazar said that in Tatarstan, “we have an
example not only for the rest of Russia, but for the world in the
harmonious relations achieved between faiths as a result of the wise
policy” of Rustam Minnikhanov, president of Tatarstan.
- Communist authorities confiscated the synagogue in the 1920s but in 1996 it was returned to the local Jewish community “in a horrible condition, with a portrait of Vladimir Lenin incorporated into the walls,” said Yitzchak Gorelik, Tatrastan’s chief rabbi. “Since then, we carried a debt to this once magnificent building, to restore it to its past splendor. The debt is today paid.”
Vladimir Samoilenko, the archpriest of the
Russian Orthodox Church of Tatrastan, also congratulated local Jews on
the rededication.
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