Giving Compass' Take:

· Writing for eJewish Philanthropy, Zvika Klein touches on an overlooked population of Russian-speaking Jewish communities in Germany and the United States.

· How can donors support these Russian Jewish communities in Germany? What are the needs of these communities? 

· Read more about Russian Jewish refugees and how the arts promote social change.

More than three million Russian-speaking Jews live in the world today of which only one third live in Israel. A look at former Soviet Jews who chose not to immigrate to Israel, but to move to countries such as Germany and the United States, reveals large communities with unique characteristics, a complex Jewish and national identity, and an easy relationship with the other Jewish communities in the countries to which they emigrated.

Each year, a summer camp is held for young people of the German Jewish community in a small picturesque resort town in Italy called Gatteo a Mare. Some ten years ago, I was a staff member in the same wonderful camp, which was shared by Bnei Akiva and the Central Welfare Board of Jews in Germany (ZWST). During those years I visited several Jewish communities throughout Germany, and encountered groups of Jews that I had not met before. They were teenagers, 90 percent of whom were of Russian origin who had left the former Soviet Union or whose parents had immigrated to Germany. Their identity was very complex. On the one hand, they were proud of their Russian heritage, and on the other, they were immigrants in a new and western country that had welcomed them with open arms, but whose Jewish identity had become very weak during the Soviet period and had now been given a second chance.

Read the full article about this unspoken diaspora by Zvika Klein at eJewish Philanthropy.