From Hunting Wolf to Donning Teffilin

Cincinnati, OH — Fourteen-year old Aaron T. recalls with pain the hardships he went through in a Ukrainian forest trying to stay alive. “We lived out of a tent for two years in the bitter cold,” he says. “We would collect wood and make fires to keep ourselves from freezing.”

New “Symbolic Art” of Yossi Rosenstein

A Russian-English language Jewish calendar depicting the grandiosity of Jewish life through symbolic art was distributed this week by FREE, to some 170,000 Russian-Americans. The release took place a few weeks before Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year of 5766.

Music Without Borders Concert

Rabbi Hershel Okunov, Director FREE of Brighton Beach, commented with astonishment about the Music Without Borders Concert in the spring of this year. Performing at the concert were the Moscow Synagogue Choir and M-Generation, the local boys choir, all from Russian-Jewish immigrant families

Camp Gan Israel – FREE’s Winter Wonderland

Kingston, New York State – Twenty-five Jewish boys had the time of their lives here during this year’s Chanukah vacation at Camp Gan Israel. They rollicked in skiing, snow tubing, ice-skating and other winter sports over a good part of the eight-day vacation at FREE’s upstate vacation camp.

Circumcisions–They’re Not Just for Babies

When we think of a bris ceremony, most of us envision a pink-hued baby boy laying on a satin pillow and a synagogue packed with eager relatives. But did you ever imagine that this very ceremony that has been practiced for millennia on eight-day old infants would also be performed on grown Jewish men? Well, miraculously it is! Recently, Friends of Refugees of Eastern Europe proudly celebrated its 13,000 bris and many of them on adults

FREE’s Alumni’s Unite

On a Sunday afternoon in March of 2004 hundreds of FREE alumni and friends gathered to celebrate the organization’s 35th anniversary. The event was held in the balloon-decorated ballroom of the United Lubavitcher Yeshivah on Ocean Parkway. The festive occasion featured an inviting smorgasbord decked with delicious hot foods, a salad bar, a special desert and a Viennese table with a special l’chaim bar.

Remembering the Annihilation of Bogdanovka

Among the hundreds of monuments that form the stark and moving Sheepshead Bay Holocaust Memorial – monuments bearing familiar names like Auschwitz, Birkenau, Bergen-Belsen and Babi Yar – one stone, the most recently engraved, stands out. It stands out because you have never heard of the village it memorializes – Bogdanovka.

A Concert, Menorah Lighting, House Visits & an Art Auction

The Russian-Jewish community of Brighton Beach and environs took part and enjoyed four Channuka events at FREE Center of Brighton Beach. Some 500 community people, young and old, were thrilled at the “Welcome Channukah” concert featuring Cantor Abraham Pressman, of Israel, and the award-winning M-Generation Boys Choir.

Gala Parade Escorts Two Torah Scrolls To New Home at F.R.E.E.

Sunday, October 24, 2004 Two Torah scrolls, kept hidden through the years of communist rule in Russia, were restored to be used at their new home,. A gala procession escorted the precious Torah scrolls through the Russian community of Brighton Beach to the Hebrew Alliance F.R.E.E. Synagogue at 2915 Brighton 6 Street. 

HaChnasas Sifrei Torah Ceremony of two restored Torah scrolls from the Former Soviet Union

Sunday, October 24, 2004 at 11:00 a.m.
The celebration will begin at the foot of the Menorah on Brighton Beach Avenue near Washington Mutual Bank building (Brighton Beach Ave. corner Coney Island Ave.) and will then continue in the Hebrew Alliance-F.R.E.E. Synagogue at 2915 Brighton 6th Street (corner Neptune Ave.).