Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks with Russian Chief Rabbi Berel Lazar, left, and Alexander Boroda, head of the Federation of Jewish Communities, during their meeting at the Kremlin in Moscow, Dec. 28, 2016. (Alexei Druzhinin/AFP/Getty Images)
(JTA) — When Boruch Gorin, a well-known rabbi in Moscow, traveled for the first time from Russia to the United States, a U.S. Customs officer asked him whether he was Russian.
“I said, ‘No, I’m not Russian — I’m Jewish,’” Gorin recalled Monday, 27 years after the exchange at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York.
The semantics behind the exchange, Gorin said, are the reason …read more
Source: JTA
