The Anti-Defamation League called for a new version of the Jackson-Vanik amendment to pressure Russia to improve its treatment of gays.

Jackson-Vanik was a provision of the 1974 Trade Act that denied favored status to nations that restricted emigration. The amendment was used to pressure the Soviet Union to loosen its restrictive emigration policies.

“It is obvious that Russia is oppressing the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community in a manner similar to the ways in which the Soviet Union once oppressed the Jewish community,” ADL National Director Abraham Foxman wrote Friday in an article in the Huffington Post. “We need a new Jackson-Vanik to convince Russia that steps backward on this issue of basic human rights will be met with strong repercussions from the United States.”

In June, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed new anti-gay legislation that prohibits “propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations amongst minors,” including any gay-rights literature; banned gay-rights advocacy in general; and prohibited gay pride events in Moscow for the next 100 years.

Protests against the new law have met with violent retribution in recent months.

Russia will contribute up to $1 million to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation for the conservation and maintenance of the site of the former Nazi concentration camp, the Polskie Radio website reported.

A statement issued by the Russian Embassy in Warsaw stated that support for the project is “a common moral duty as it serves the mission of preserving the memory of the huge number of victims of the Nazi camp and of other crimes against humanity.”

The four-year-old foundation is working to raise nearly $160 million for a perpetuity fund to continue to maintain the site. Twenty-four countries have contributed thus far. Germany has contributed $80 million, followed by the United States with $15 million. Poland, where the camp is located, has promised about $13 million, according to Polskie Radio.

Some 155 buildings on the site are in need of repair. The money is needed as well for conservation projects such as the Auschwitz-Birkenau archives, documents and objects in the museum collection.

Originally published at Chabad.org.

By Rabbi Berel Lazar

My relationship with Reb Shmuel Rohr started about twenty years ago, in the early 1990s. He was visiting Russia on a business trip, looking for investment opportunities.

Truth to tell, I looked at him kind of quizzically: “Investment? In Russia!?” This was a country that everyone was trying to get out of, figuring that it had no future. A dank and dreary place, where the store shelves were empty and there was nothing to eat; the only kind of economic activity was that of émigrés selling their goods and leaving the country with the little money they had gotten for them. Now this man is coming to invest? When does he ever expect to see any profits from this?

So I asked him, “Reb Shmuel, what are you doing?”

“I myself may not see any profit from it,” he replied, “but my children and grandchildren will. I’m investing for their sake. Now, when everything is collapsing here, when no one sees a future for the country—that’s the time to enter the market here. It’s a window of opportunity that opens only once in many decades. So, yes, it’s unlikely that in the near future I’ll see any benefits from this investment, but my grandchildren will see it.

“And this is just as true in spiritual matters, in matters of Judaism, as it is in business,” he continued. “On the face of it, there seems to be no future here: everyone is getting out as fast as possible, going to Israel, or America, or Western Europe. But I do foresee a future here—a bright future. Again, I may not get to see it, but my grandchildren most definitely will. Time will come when Russia gets back firmly on its feet, both economically and Jewishly!”

As Reb Shmuel spoke, I saw before me a Jew with great vision, a person with enormous foresight. He envisioned a revolution—and he took a leading role in making it happen. He was the Nachshon ben Aminadav who jumped into the swirling waves, into a sea where no firm footing could be seen—yet he walked into it with head held high and eyes affixed ahead, toward the future.

He encouraged, cajoled, pushed and worked on having shluchim sent to Russia. He not only talked the talk, but walked the walk—supporting them financially from the start.

In the many conversations I had with him, he’d often refer to his underlying inspiration. What indeed motivated him to spend such a fortune on behalf of Russian Jewry? His yardstick, he said, was simply this: “If Stalin could see this, he’d roll over in his grave!”

This idea was expressed in the wide variety of activities he funded, in each of which he saw the ultimate revenge against Stalin. A few come to mind now:

Return of Synagogues

Whenever Reb Shmuel would hear about a synagogue that had been nationalized by the Communist government and that there was a chance to have it returned to the Jewish community—he’d exert all possible efforts to make it happen.

That was his sweet revenge. A building that was seized by Stalin’s goons en route to ensuring the ultimate defeat of the Jews—to think that in that same building Judaism would be rebuilt and blossom anew—that would definitely make Stalin roll over in his grave, if he could only see it. So it must be done!

Bris Milah (Circumcision)

During that early period of Jewish awakening after seventy years of communism, there was a particularly urgent need to find mohalim who could arrange circumcisions in an orderly fashion.

One day I approached Reb Shmuel excitedly and told him that we identified an expert mohel, who was also a credentialed surgeon, who would be perfectly suited for performing adult milah.

After committing certain funding, Reb Shmuel told me, “The real revolution, the real Jewish victory, is performing a bris on an eight-day-old infant, a bris in its proper time. That’s what will make Stalin roll over in his grave.

“You see,” he continued, sounding like a sagacious chassid, “Stalin wanted to break the Jews’ intrinsic connection to G‑d. When an adult undergoes a bris milah, that’s on his own initiative: he’s weighed the pros and cons, and decided rationally that he needs to be circumcised. He’s taken Stalin’s view into consideration and ended up rejecting it.

Russia is strengthening its presence in the Palestinian Authority with a $30 million investment in an office-commercial center in  Bethlehem that will include a gymnasium and music school.

The Bethlehem-based Ma’an News Agency reported that the complex will be built next to the Russian Center for Science and Culture.

Rabbi Artur Ovadia Isakov, the Chabad rabbi shot in a likely terrorist attack in southern Russia has been discharged from an Israeli hospital after recovering from surgery to repair his live. One or more terrorists shot him in the chest as he was getting out of his car near his home.

His condition initially was critical, and the local Jewish community helped arrange to fly Rabbi Isakov to Belinson Hospital on Petach Tikvah, adjacent to Tel Aviv.

Rabbi Isakov, a father of four, told Israeli media he intends to return to his Chabad posting in Derbent as soon as he is well.

The shooting of a Chabad rabbi in the Russian republic of Dagestan was likely a terrorist attack by Muslim extremists, investigators said more than week after a local political leader, where the attempted murder occurred, stated terrorists carried out the attack.

Rabbi Artur Ovadia Isakov was shot on July 25 in Derbent, in southern Russia, “because of his religious duties, likely by Muslim extremists,” investigators said, according to a report by the Russian news site Gazeta.ru. Police still are searching for the attackers, while the Russia’s intelligence agency found 100 pounds of explosives in the hands of Muslim extremists in Dagestan, Gazeta.ru reported.

Rabbi Isakov was gunned down by unknown assailants outside his home as he was exiting his car. Ramazan Abdulatipov, the acting president of Dagestan, released a statement after the shooting blaming “extremists and terrorists [who] do not want a happy, normal life for us all.” He said, “Only ignorant people, enemies of Dagestan, are able to do this.”

Rabbi Isakov was flown to Israel in critical condition with injuries to his liver but has since regained consciousness and is no longer in life-threatening condition.

Chabad emissary Rabbi Ovadia Isakov is in critical condition in Rabin Medical Center in Israel, where he was flown on a private emergency flight after being shot in the chest by one or more unidentified assailant around 1 a.m. Thursday.

He is in serious to critical in the Intensive Care Unit at the hospital, formerly known as Bellinson Hospital and located in Petach Tikvah, adjacent to Tel Aviv.

Russian Jews financed the flight, reportedly on an Israeli Air Force plane, after doctors in Russia determined he was able to be flown to Israel. He was accompanied by a three-man medical team, consisting of a surgeon, paramedic and critical care physician, Chabad reported.

Rabbi Isakov was seriously wounded when he was shot at short range after he stepped out of his car near his home in the Russian city of Derbent, located in the predominantly Muslim republic of Dagestan in southeastern Russia.

The Jewish community assumes that the attack was a hate crime, and Russian police say the motive probably was anti-Semitic.

“Religious activity of Isakov is one of the attempted murder theories of the detectives,” police said.

Extremists “have put themselves not only outside of any religion but also apart from humankind; their only goal is to kill innocent people, chiefly those who promote eternal values, morals and spirituality, in this world,” Rabbi Lazar said in a statement quoted by Interfax.

“There is not and can be no compromise with terrorists: the state is not only entitled to but also obliged to use all means available against them. Several well-known muftis in the Caucasus, who professed moderate Islam and who called for inter-ethnic and inter-religious peace, have died at the hands of such thugs.”

Six years ago, the rabbi’s family home was attached while he, his wife and nine-month-old baby were in their bedroom.

The ZAKA rescue organization, Russian Chief Rabbi Berel Lazar and the local Jewish community worked to bring the rabbi to Israel.

Please keep saying Tehillim for Ovadia ben Zehava Chaya for a full and speedy recovery.

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