The Russian-Speaking Jewish Community in North America

Quick answer: The Russian-speaking Jewish community in North America is made up of Jews and their descendants who emigrated from the former Soviet Union from the 1970s through the 1990s. Today it forms a vibrant, often culturally rooted rather than strictly religious, part of the wider Jewish community — with concentrated neighborhoods in cities like New York and Toronto and members woven into Jewish life across the continent.

Who Are Russian-Speaking Jews?

“Russian-speaking Jews” is the term most often used for Jewish immigrants — and their children and grandchildren — who came to North America from the former Soviet Union: Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and other former Soviet republics. Russian remains a common thread for many families, even as younger generations grow up speaking English or French as a first language. It’s a community defined less by a single country of origin and more by a shared experience: growing up under a government that, for decades, suppressed open Jewish religious and cultural life.

The Soviet Jewry Movement and Waves of Emigration

Understanding this community starts with history. Jewish emigration from the USSR was effectively frozen for decades, and historians point to Israel’s victory in the 1967 Six-Day War, followed by a harsh state anti-Zionist campaign, as a turning point that made many Soviet Jews feel there was no long-term future for them at home. Large-scale emigration began in 1971, with roughly 13,000 Jews leaving that year and about 32,000 the next; the flow later surged to a peak of around 50,000 in 1979.

Soviet authorities made leaving difficult and dangerous. Those who applied to emigrate and were refused — known as “refuseniks” — often lost their jobs, faced surveillance, and in some cases were imprisoned; well-known refuseniks like Natan Sharansky and Vladimir Slepak became international symbols of the struggle. In the West, a grassroots Soviet Jewry movement pressed governments to act, and the U.S. Jackson-Vanik Amendment tied trade benefits to the Soviet Union’s emigration policies. After 1976, most Jewish emigrants from the USSR began resettling in the United States rather than Israel. Mikhail Gorbachev’s glasnost and perestroika reforms in the mid-1980s opened the gates further, and in the years surrounding the 1991 Soviet collapse, an especially large wave of Jews left the former Soviet Union — many making aliyah to Israel, and a substantial number resettling across North America and Western Europe.

Community Life Across North America

Brooklyn’s Brighton Beach neighborhood is the community’s best-known landmark. Roughly 40,000 Soviet Jewish émigrés arrived there between 1975 and 1980 alone, forming the largest Russian-speaking population in New York City and earning the neighborhood its nickname, “Little Odessa.” Today it remains a hub of kosher grocers, Russian and Ukrainian delis, and multigenerational family life. Sizable Russian-speaking Jewish communities have also grown in other parts of the New York/New Jersey area, the Greater Toronto Area, South Florida, Chicago, and other major metros — many families now in their second or third American generation, raising bilingual children while staying connected to their roots.

Neighbors curious about where these communities are strongest today, or families relocating for work or to be near relatives, can explore local listings through HeimishMart’s Community Explorer, which maps Jewish community life by area.

Culture, Identity, and Religious Life

Decades of state-enforced secularism left a distinct mark: many Russian-speaking Jews identify strongly and proudly as Jewish in an ethnic and cultural sense, even where religious observance was suppressed for generations and remains less central than it is in other parts of the Jewish community. Family, education, and professional achievement are often emphasized as core values, alongside a resilient sense of Jewish identity forged under adversity. At the same time, synagogues, Jewish day schools, and communal organizations have worked for decades to help interested families reconnect with Jewish religious practice and holidays on their own terms — a process reflected in growing attendance at local Jewish events aimed at bridging generations and backgrounds.

Community Organizations

A number of organizations exist specifically to serve and represent Russian-speaking Jews. COJECO (the Council of Jewish Émigré Community Organizations), founded in 2001, is the central umbrella hub for the Russian-speaking Jewish community in the New York tri-state area, connecting more than 30 member organizations spanning young leadership groups, Holocaust survivor associations, professional networks, and arts and culture initiatives. Historically, HIAS played a central role in resettling Jewish refugees from the Soviet Union, while advocacy groups like the National Coalition Supporting Eurasian Jewry (formerly the National Conference on Soviet Jewry) helped drive the original Soviet Jewry movement in the West.

Finding and Building Community Today

For families settling in — or already rooted in — Russian-speaking Jewish neighborhoods, practical needs often come first: finding a home, a job, or a helping hand. HeimishMart’s real estate and rentals listings help families search near community hubs, while the jobs board connects job seekers with local employers. Community organizations and individuals offering support can also turn to chessed resources for mutual aid, and any local business, event, or service can be shared by choosing to add a listing.

The Russian-speaking Jewish community’s story is, at its heart, a story of resilience — of Jewish identity surviving decades of suppression and re-flourishing, in Russian and English alike, across dozens of North American cities.

By the HeimishMart Community Desk — HeimishMart is the community marketplace for Jewish homes, jobs, and local life across North America.