Lenin’s Birthplace Celebrates First-Ever Torah Scroll
More than 500 people celebrated the completion of the first Torah scroll to be written in the birthplace of Communist leader Vladimir Lenin.
Donated by the local Feldman family, the historic scroll symbolized a generation-long turn for the city of Ulyanovsk, Russia, said Rabbi Yossi Marazov, a Chabad-Lubavitch emissary to Volga River port.
“The Jewish community has grown tremendously in these four years,” said Marazov, who arrived four years ago. “We have Torah classes, a Hebrew school, youth club, and a dance troupe. Our newly-renovated Jewish Center hosts a synagogue, kosher store and café, library, and classrooms.”
Tuesday’s event began at Ulyanovsk’s Drama Theater with a ritual scribe filling in the scroll’s last Hebrew letters as the local Jewish band Nefesh played in the background. The crowd then paraded the Torah down a blocked-off Lenin Street towards its new home at the synagogue.
