It Had Its History

The Soviet authorities were particularly against baking of unleavened bread for Passover (mazot) in the synagogues. From 1957, it was forbidden in the cities of Kharkov, Odessa, Kiev, Rostov, Kishinev and Riga, and from 1961 the ban was extended to the whole of the Soviet Union. As a result of world-wide protests, however, in 1964 the authorities decided to allow religious congregations in Moscow, Leningrad and Tiflis to bake mazot again.

Ritual baths for women, (Mikvehs) destroyed during the Civil War, had been rebuilt during the 1920’s were now closed down by the authorities.

It became increasingly difficult to publish prayer-books and from the beginning of the 1930’s all Jewish religious publication stopped. There was a systematic destruction of Jewish cemeteries on the grounds that the area was needed for public use. The Jewish cemetery in Moscow was confiscated in this way in 1963.

Steps were taken against the practice of circumcision and to celebrate a Bar Mitzvah was difficult.

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