The Russian government is presently in the process of returning synagogues that have been confiscated by the Communists, but sometimes, it is too late. Stanov is famous for its 17th century Jewish cemetery, but it has no living Jews left. Ostrog's Synagogue dates back to1532, but the tiny community can't maintain it.

Built in 1852, "Golden Rose" is where Dniepropetrovsk's Jews came with their joys and oys. Neither revolutions or pogroms could stop the Jews from coming to the "Golden Rose." It functioned for 70 years, until the Bolsheviks converted the city's main synagogue into a worker's club.

"Anything Jewish was forbidden during those awful years. Those of us who didn't forget that we were Jews cried when we passed the 'Golden Rose.'

"Only a few old people recalled the time when the club used to be a synagogue. Many of those who remembered were thrown into the ravine by the fascists, and those not killed by fascists were tortured in Gulags."

This past September, 6,000 people attended the opening ceremony of the newly renovated "Golden Rose" this September. Chief Rabbi Shmuel Kaminetzky, Jewish community president Gennady Bogolubov and the region's governor Nicolay Shvets cut the ribbon, dignitaries were honored to affix mezuzah at the door, and Ukrainian parliament Member Victor Pinchuk unveiled the beautiful Ark designed by Israeli sculptor Frank Meisler.

Before 1990, only three synagogues operated in Russia: two in Moscow and one in Petersburg. To keep an eye on worshipping Jews, Synagogue officials often worked for the Secret police, and wooden partitions were erected to avoid contact with foreign visitors, especially Israeli Diplomats.

But now, there are more than 20 synagogues, and another 30-40 religious properties being returned in Kazan, Samara, Nizhny Novgorod, Minsk, Novosibirsk and Kiev.

Fourteen Jewish schools, each for 150-200 pupils, will open in September with the support of the Russian Education Ministry, for a total of 25 Jewish schools.

Built on the site of a little wooden shul that was torched in 1993 and bombed in 1996 and 1998, the modern three-story complex has a 1,000-seat synagogue sanctuary, an auditorium and concert hall, a theater, an upscale kosher restaurant, and a state-of-the-art sports center.

Hundreds of police shut down several city blocks for the opening of Moscow's new Jewish community center where President Vladimir Putin was to deliver the keynote address. A bandstand was decked out in festive bunting for a concert near the marble-faced building in the Marina Roshcha district near downtown Moscow.

Putin's participation in opening the $12 million synagogue was a grand gesture in a country used to state-sponsored anti-Semitism under the Czars and Communism. "The president heralded a new era for religious democracy in Russia." The Czars forced the Jews to live in a "pale of settlement" outside Russian cities, and the Soviets denied them access to higher education.

"Our country's spiritual revival is unthinkable without understanding that Russian culture is a combination of the traditions of all the people who lived in Russia for centuries," said Putin. "Without this vital link between the epochs and cultures, we cannot build our future or understand present-day life. The intertwining and development of national traditions makes our country spiritually richer and more confident."

The old Marina Roscha shul was very dear to the old dissidents. Here Natan Sharansky began his road to Jerusalem that led through the gulag. Sharansky recalls it "as a small place with a small group of hardy Jews. In 1972, it barely had a minyan, but they persisted. This was where we tried to resurrect ourselves, to find meaning to our being Jewish when we had no idea what it really meant. We thought we were the last Jews, without a future or past."

Today you can see several hundred ecstatic Jews dancing "Lecha Dodi" on Friday night, singing "Your light has come, Rise and shine!"

Refusnik Yosef Begun, known for his heroic struggle, sits in Marina Roscha's rear pew. He, too, came here to meet fellow dissidents and foreign journalists. Now editor of Russian Jewish books, Begun has apartments in Jerusalem and Moscow, but Marina Roscha is still his shul.

To a visitor, "spending Shabbos in Moscow with Yosef Begun is like having a seder with Nachshon Ben-Aminadav," whose plunge into the Red Sea caused it to divide."