Boris Kaufman

Who is Boris Kaufman?

Boris "Dov" Kaufman is a native Birobidzhan rabbi. Rabbi Kaufman has been a part of the Jewish Autonomous Oblast's Jewish community through its transitions from the 1990s into the 21st Century. His congregation has been transformed, as has he, from practicing a blend of Jewish and Christian religious practices to mainstream Judaism. Rabbi Kaufman is the leader of Beit T'shuva, a small Jewish community located in Birobidzhan's old synagogue.

In 2010, the Christian Science Monitor reported that, "Nowhere are the ties between Jews and non-Jews here clearer than in Birobidzhan's tiny second synagogue, located on the outskirts of the city. It is Sabbath and it could be a 19th- century Jewish village were it not for the phone in the corner. The building is no more than 40 paces long, with low ceilings and a tin roof. A dozen mostly middle-aged parishioners sit on benches, a simple curtain separating men from women. The rabbi, Dov Kofman, an affable man who walks with a cane, says when the ceremony is over: "I love Israel, my son is now there serving in the army, but this is my fatherland." Suddenly a non-Jewish neighbor stops by to say hello, sitting down on one of the benches.