Machanaim

Machanaim is an organization dealing with the spiritual absorption of Jewish people from the former USSR in Israel.

The movement's work and its goals spawned its name, the Hebrew word מַחֲנָיִם‎ from Genesis 32:3 meaning "two camps", in this case referring to Jerusalem and Moscow.

Machanaim began in Moscow behind the Iron Curtain in 1979, during the period of Brezhnev stagnation, as a group of young people who gathered to study Jewish history and tradition and pass on this knowledge on to their fellow Jews.

There they set two main goals: to work with new immigrants and to provide assistance in Jewish education for those Jews still in the CIS.

Its other main projects include teaching Judaism via the media, running a synagogue and other activities in Ma'aleh Adumim.