Siberian City Marks First Bris in 80 Years

For the first time in more than 80 years, Jews in the capital of Buryatia – Ulan-Ude – marked an important event in the life of the community. An 8-day-old boy of one of the community members entered into the covenant of Abraham our Father through the commandment of Brit Mila.

This event is of importance to every Jew in Ulan-Ude, all the more so due to the involvement of Chief Rabbi of Irkutsk Aaron Wagner, the Shliach serving in the region – as well as a Mohel who travelled to this Siberian town from Israel especially for this purpose.

This day brought the boy’s parents great joy. Vladimir Balandin, the chairman of the Jewish community of Ulan-Ude, noted, “This commandment that transforms our physical bodies reminds us that we can likewise change our spiritual beings to reach the greater heights. Therefore, we look on this with optimism. Because now is the time that, when people are interested in something, they have the opportunity to grasp and understand it, and to become closer to their roots.”

“What we see here is that parents want what is best for their child. We need to understand such a thing. Sometimes the best thing is not always the most enjoyable thing. But, of course, they understand that the moral upbringing of their child begins at a very early age”.

After the Brit Mila, the family sat down with other members of the Jewish community at the banquet table for a strictly kosher meal with food brought here especially from Moscow. It took quite an effort to organize this event, so that these parents could take their child’s first step in being a true Jew and so that the community underwent its own first step in reviving age-old Jewish observances at the local level.