Speaker of the Knesset, MK Yuli Edelstein, officially launched on Thursday the Limmud FSU conference in the United States, the largest annual gathering of young Russian Jews in North America.

Edelstein joined a special kickoff event in New York City with Limmud FSU leaders and participants. Limmud FSU US will take place March 28-30 in Parsippany, N.J.

This year’s event will focus on innovation in the arts, culture and technology, with a special session on extraordinarily successful Russian Jews in the high-tech sector. The Limmud FSU conference is organized by young participants from the Russian-Jewish community.

Limmud FSU is a volunteer-driven Jewish learning experience that brings together and empowers young Jewish adults who are revitalizing Jewish communities and culture in the countries of the former Soviet Union, and countries with Russian-speaking people around the world.

There are an estimated 750,000 to 1 million Russian-American Jews in the U.S., with about half living in New York and New Jersey.

Edelstein was born in Ukraine and was a Prisoner of Zion in the former Soviet Union before immigrating to Israel in 1985.

The Limmud phenomenon began in Britain nearly 32 years ago and is now a world-famous educational movement. Limmud FSU, founded eight years ago by Chaim Chesler, former head of JAFI’s delegation in the FSU, and Sandra Cahn, a philanthropist from New York, supports and reinforces Jewish education and identity to Jews from the FSU, the U.S. and Israel. This unique conference, like all Limmud events, is organized and run entirely by volunteers.

​ Yuli Edelstein and participants of Limmud FSU US. Yossi Aloni