On Victory Day, a Rabbi Honors the Red Army’s Jewish Veterans
By SAMUEL G. FREEDMAN
Published: May 31, 2013
WEST HOLLYWOOD, Calif. — When Rabbi Naftali Estulin walked into the synagogue, the men were waiting for him. They had come with canes and walkers and medals. Some wore yarmulkes. Several covered their heads with hats lettered “LA VETERAN ASSN WWII.”
The civil calendar said it was May 19, 2013, and the Jewish calendar said it was the 10th day of Sivan in 5773, but in spirit it was still May 9, 1945, the day when Nazi Germany surrendered to the Red Army of the Soviet Union. Ever since, the veterans of that army and the people they saved have marked it as Victory Day.
Here at the Chabad Russian Immigrant Program and Synagogue, the commemoration has taken place annually since 1991, and it has proceeded with the particular emotional tangle felt by Jewish soldiers of the Red Army. They defeated Hitler, but they did so on behalf of a nation whose own anti-Semitism led millions of its Jews to flee once they were able.
Where nearly 600 Jewish veterans had gathered when Rabbi Estulin started the annual ceremony, now only 12 or 15 remained alive and healthy enough to attend. The oldest veteran, now 99, could not get there. Some of the men who did had trouble remembering their exact ages.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/01/us/a-rabbi-honors-the-red-armys-jewish-veterans.html?_r=0