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Any Jew who wishes to, may make Aliya and the others may engage in Jewish cultural in the Soviet Union
In 1991, the "Unit for Soviet and Eastern European Jews" was established in the Jewish Agency. The unit was headed by Dr. Baruch Gur, who was Simcha Dinitz's advisor, with senior employees such as Chaim Chesler and Dr. Avraham ben Yaakov being recruited alongside him. In addition, Yuli Kosharovsky, one of the most important Zionist activists in the Soviet Union in the Seventies and Eighties, was appointed to a key position.
In the final decade of the 20th century, when the Soviet Union disintegrated into nearly twenty sovereign states, the Agency's personnel had their hands full. The Agency's personnel had institutionalized their activities throughout the former Soviet states and the main task they took upon themselves was public relations activities among hundreds of thousands of Jews and preparing them for Aliya to Israel. Simultaneously the Agency intensified the cultural and educational activities in each of the countries and operated hundreds of men and women as emissaries within them. In conjunction with the Ministry of Education and Culture, the Agency's personnel established seminars for teachers and particularly emphasized the teaching of the Hebrew Language. They carried out various educational activities – formal and informal – in the Jewish institutions that continued to expand in this period. In several countries, summer seminars for teenagers and youths were organized and in addition, groups of Jewish youth were selected and were sent to Israel for short and long periods.
As a result of all these activities, which began some thirty years ago, there are now about a million Jews in Israel from the former Soviet Union and in all the former Soviet states only a few hundred thousand Jews remain. Now every Jew, son of a Jew or even grandson of a Jew who wishes to – may make Aliya. The others can get acquainted with the Jewish culture, Zionism and Israel – right where they live.
The "Iron Curtain" – no longer exists. For quite a few, it remains as a personal, bitter memory while in others it is at most a chapter in the history books of the Jewish people.
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