About Us

Yad Yisroel

Yad Yisroel is a registered non-profit organization in the USA, United Kingdom, Israel and Belarus. Yad Yisroel is dedicated to the revival of Jewish life in the former Soviet Union, as well as assisting former Soviet Jewry wherever they may be.

Before the Holocaust, Belarus had a population of 1,000,000 Jews. The Jewish community in the region has suffered considerably in the last century, withstanding over 80% physical annihilation as well as spiritual decline under Communist rule.

Today, there are about 60,000 Jews in Belarus, with 95% of them without any Jewish affiliation.

Yad Yisroel was founded in 1990, at the behest and directorship of the Rebbe of Karlin Stolin, by Rabbi Shmuel Dishon and Rabbi Yaakov Shteierman in the aftermath of the Soviet Communist regime. The remnants of Jewish communities spread across Eastern Europe were in dire need of reconstruction and Jewish revival.

Rabbi Moshe Fhima, is Yad Yisroel’s local Director of Operations in the Former Soviet Union. Moshe, together with his wife Riki, arrived in 1995 with a mission, “to save the lives of Jewish children”.

Yad Yisroel fills every void in the lives of the Jewish residents; caring for the Jewish communities’ social, welfare, educational, religious, cultural and medical needs.

Thanks to the passion, vision and hard work of the Yad Yisroel emissaries, Jewish schools and community centers have been opened in Kiev, Minsk, Pinsk, Lvov and in other cities in the Ukraine and Belarus.

Today, Yad Yisroel is the leading Jewish organization in Belarus, with Pinsk as the epicenter of Jewish life in the country. Pinsk has a boy’s and a girl’s residential  school recognized as state orphanages, community outreach programs, Sponsor a Meal Program, A Chesed Fund, a Yeshiva, summer and winter camps, Holocaust Survivors Program , a Graduate Program and a Wedding Fund, as well as other Jewish community infrastructures.

Board of Directors

Rabbi Shmuel Dishon

President

Rabbi Yaakov Shteierman

Director

Rabbi Yochonon Berman

Rabbi

Mrs. Esther Shteierman

Board Member

International

David Ludzker

UK

Michoel Brand

UK

Mechel Haffner

UK

Chana Rosenberg

USA

Shlomo Sofer

Israel

Our Team in Belarus

Moshe Fhima

Director of Projects

Avraham Gevirtzman

Education

Boruch Shofnos

Outreach

Pinchas Martzinkevich

Administrator

Arkadi Karolinski

Recruitment