Late 20th Century To Modern Days
In the second half of the 20th century, there was a large wave of Belarusian Jews emigrating to Israel (see Aliyah from the Soviet Union in the 1970s), as well as to the United States. In 1979, there were 135,400 Jews in Belarus; a decade later, 112,000 were left. The wave continued after dissolution of the USSR and Belarus regaining independence (see Aliyah from the Commonwealth of Independent States in the 1990s), when most of the former Soviet Union's Jewish population left for Israel.
The 1999 census estimated that there were only 29,000 Jews left in the country. However, local Jewish organizations put the number at 50,000, and the Jewish Agency believes that there are 70,000. About half of the country's Jews live in Minsk. Despite anti-semitic government policies, national Jewish organizations, local cultural groups, religious schools, charitable organizations, and organizations for war veterans and Holocaust survivors have been formed.
Since the mass immigration of the 1990s, there has been some continuous immigration to Israel. In 2002, 974 Belarusians moved to Israel, and between 2003 and 2005, 4,854 followed suit.
Read more about this topic: Belarusian Jews
Famous quotes containing the words late, modern and/or days:
“It is a mischievous notion that we are come late into nature; that the world was finished a long time ago. As the world was plastic and fluid in the hands of God, so it is ever to so much of his attributes as we bring to it. To ignorance and sin, it is flint. They adapt to themselves to it as they may; but in proportion as a man has anything in him divine, the firmament flows before him and takes his signet and form.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“... the modern drama, operating through the double channel of dramatist and interpreter, affecting as it does both mind and heart, is the strongest force in developing social discontent, swelling the powerful tide of unrest that sweeps onward and over the dam of ignorance, prejudice, and superstition.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)
“The rain has spoiled the farmer’s day;
Shall sorrow put my books away?
Thereby are two days lost.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)