Shuvu Chazon Avrohom

"Shuvu" is the Hebrew word for "return", and since the organization's goal is to return unaffiliated Jews to their Jewish roots, it was named as such. After the death of Shuvu's founder, Rabbi Avrohom Pam, the words "Chazon Avrohom", Hebrew for "Vision of Avrohom", were added to its name.

{{see also|Soviet anti-religious legislation}}

Throughout the years of the Soviet Union, the government enacted several anti-religious campaigns. Besides for the thousands of religious leaders brutally murdered during the Red Terror and the Great Purge, numerous laws were passed to quash the observance and transmission of religion. For example, in 1929, high taxes were placed on all religious organizations; all citizens under the age of 18 were forbidden in partaking in religious gatherings and ceremonies; and a law was passed making the teaching of religion in schools illegal. Through the religious suppression of over seventy years, Judaism barely survived in the Soviet Union.{{cite web |title=Revelations from the Russian Archives: ANTI-RELIGIOUS CAMPAIGNS |url=https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/archives/anti.html |website=loc.gov |publisher=Library of Congress |access-date=24 January 2021 |quote=Attacks on Judaism were endemic throughout the Soviet period, and the organized practice of Judaism became almost impossible.}}

After the fall of the Soviet Union, there was an influx of Jewish immigration to Israel from the Former Soviet Union, with over a thousands Jewish immigrants arriving daily. The international Orthodox Jewish community therefore took responsibility to bring the secular Russians back to Jewish observance.{{cite journal |last1=Biderman |first1=Avraham |title=The Soviet Aliya: Responding to the Challenge |journal=The Jewish Observer |date=February 1991 |volume=XXIV |issue=1 |pages=6–12 |url=https://docs.google.com/viewerng/viewer?url=https://agudah.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/JO1991-V24-N01.pdf&hl=en_US |access-date=24 January 2021}}

File:Rpamryudin.jpg on the left]]

At the Agudath Israel of America Convention in 1990 in Parsippany-Troy Hills, New Jersey, Rabbi Avrohom Pam spoke about the situation of the Russian emigrants to Israel. "The future of Klal Yisrael (the Jewish people) is our hands," he declared, and said that if a proper Jewish school system for the Russian children wouldn't be set up soon, the thousands of emigrants would quickly assimilate into secular Israeli culture. On the same day as his address, a meeting was convened with the attendance of what would become Shuvu's leadership, namely Max Knopf, Sheldon Beren, and Avraham (Abe) Biderman.{{cite book |last1=Freedman |first1=Yael |title=Jewels for the Crown III: More Stories of Return |publisher=Shuvu Chazon Avrohom |pages=187–195}} Biderman was named the chairman of the organization.{{cite web |last1=Kamenetsky |first1=Rabbi Mordechai |title=The majesty of man |url=http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0802/rav_pam.asp |website=jewishworldreview.com |access-date=24 January 2021}} Shortly after the convention, Rabbi Pam wrote:

{{blockquote|...For the past seventy years there could be no expectations that Soviet Jews would provide their children with a Torah education. Any attempt to do so could have been punishable by death. Now, however, that as many as a million Soviet Jews can be expected in Eretz Yisroel, what is to prevent them from enrolling their children in a Torah school? Only our indifference to their plight and our inaction in meeting this pressing, historic need will seal their fate. After all, who, if not we, recognizes, knows, and understands the nature of the choice before them?{{cite journal |last1=Pam|first1=Rabbi Avraham |author-link=Avraham Pam |title=The Soviet Aliya: Responding to the Challenge |journal=The Jewish Observer |date=February 1991 |volume=XXIV |issue=1 |page=7 |url=https://docs.google.com/viewerng/viewer?url=https://agudah.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/JO1991-V24-N01.pdf&hl=en_US |access-date=24 January 2021}}}}

After a meeting of Agudath Israel's Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah, it was decided to send a group to Israel to meet with the Russian immigrants and see if they would be receptive to Orthodox Jewish education. After speaking to many Israeli and Russian activists and hundreds of Russian immigrants, including children, the emissaries came to the conclusion that the immigrants were in fact receptive. They then turned to the leading rabbis in Israel, Rabbi Elazar Menachem Man Shach, Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach, and Rabbi Moshe Yehoshua Hager of the Vizhnitz Hasidic court, who advised them to reach out to the immigrant children in particular, who had not yet been given a complete atheist education. They hoped that having the children learn Judaism in school would influence their homes as well. During their trip, the group visited Orthodox rabbis and activists throughout the country who had already started reaching out to the immigrants but who didn't have the necessary funds to do anything drastic. They also visited a few Chinuch Atzmai schools that already had Russian children enrolled in them.

Although the first Shuvu classes were given in travel trailers, the organization has since expanded drastically to include 77 schools and after school programs throughout Israel as well as fifteen summer camps.{{cite journal |last1=Eller |first1=Sandy |title=Mission: Siyum |journal=Yated Ne'eman |date=January 29, 2021 |volume=33 |issue=5 |page=10}} In 2016, Dayan Yonason Abraham was appointed as nasi (president) of the organization,{{cite web |last1=Rosenblum |first1=Yonasan |author1-link=Jonathan Rosenblum |title=Hail the Nasi |url=https://mishpacha.com/hail-the-nasi/ |website=mishpacha.com |publisher=Mishpacha Magazine |access-date=31 January 2021}} although it seems he resigned shortly after in 2019. Shuvu's US division (essentially a fundraiser) has since adopted a "Vaad Hanesius," i.e. a "Council of Presidency," namely Rabbis Reuven Feinstein (of Yeshiva of Staten Island){{cite web |title=Mission Siyum – Learning entire Torah & Talmud |url=https://shuvu.org.uk/news-events/mission-siyum-learning-entire-torah-talmud/ |website=shuvu.org.uk |access-date=5 April 2022}} and Elya Brudny (of the Mir Yeshiva),{{cite news |title=10-10-19 by Yitzy Halpern |url=https://issuu.com/jewishhome/docs/currentissue_a79057f9ae52f4 |access-date=5 April 2022 |publisher=Five Towns Jewish Home |date=October 11, 2019 |website=issuu.com/jewishhome}} to serve at its helm. In 2022, Shuvu saw a boost in enrollment with the arrival of new refugees from Ukraine, who had fled the Russian invasion.{{cite news |title=Ukrainian children find refuge at Israeli school for Russian speakers |url=https://www.jweekly.com/2022/03/30/ukrainian-children-are-finding-refuge-in-an-israeli-town-and-its-school-for-russian-speakers/ |access-date=5 April 2022 |publisher=Jweekly |date=March 30, 2022}}{{cite web |title=An Israeli town and its school for Russian speakers offer temporary relief for Ukrainian refugees |url=https://ukrainecrisis.org/686266020-an-israeli-town-and-its-school-for-russian-speakers-offer-temporary-relief-for-ukrainian-refugees |website=ukrainecrisis.org |access-date=5 April 2022}}

Rabbi Pam remained involved in the organization throughout the years. After his death, its name was changed from "Shuvu" to "Shuvu Chazon Avrohom" in his memory.

Shuvu's methodology is to offer a high level of secular studies aside from the Judaic studies, convincing parents to send their children.

This method was backed up by a poll done by Israeli pollster Rafi Smith, who was commissioned by Shuvu to conduct a poll of secular Israeli parents on whether high-level secular studies would convince them to enroll their children in Shuvu schools. Three quarters of those polled were completely secular (hiloni) and nine percent identified as traditional (masorti); altogether 90% didn't observe Shabbat. The poll revealed that 58% of non-religious parents wanted more Jewish studies than secular or an equal amount. When asked if they would enroll their children in a school within fifteen minutes of their home that had excellent secular studies, Judaic studies, and an emphasis on discipline and preventing violence, twelve percent said that they would enroll their children, and thirty-eight percent said they probably would. The poll also showed parents' satisfaction in their children's schooling at Shuvu, which at times was better than in the secular school system.

• Independent Education System (Israel)
• Lev L'Achim

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Category:Orthodox Jewish outreach

Category:Jewish organizations established in 1991

Category:Baalei teshuva institutions

Category:Jewish charities based in Israel

Category:Children's charities based in Israel

Category:Jewish education in Israel

Category:Jewish summer camps

Category:After school programs

Category:Russian diaspora in Israel

Category:1991 establishments in the United States

Category:Words and phrases in Modern Hebrew