H eadlines
Philly Faces: Rabbi Akiva Pollack
Russian Jews sitting in their
center, learning about Judaism,
going on trips. And I fell in
love with the program when
he told us that,” Pollack said.

He contacted the New York
office and told them he’d love
to bring RAJE to Philly.

Today, Pollack is the CEO
of RAJE Philly, teaching and
traveling with young local Jews
to Israel, Poland and elsewhere
in Europe. Participants who
complete the Leadership
Fellowship are eligible for
those free trips.

“We’re really
trying hard to help create more
Jewish leaders,” Pollack said.

And name aside, they don’t
discriminate: Around 75% of
their participants are Russian-
American Jews.

P H I LLY FACES
JESSE BERNSTEIN | JE STAFF
THERE WASN’T ANYTHING
quite like the organization
Russian American Jewish
Experience in Philadelphia
before Rabbi Akiva Pollack
showed up.

Pollack, 45, learned about
RAJE in 2009, having just
come to Philadelphia to work
at CBS Community Center,
home to Congregation Beth
Solomon in Somerton. Soon
after he arrived, he met a rabbi
who worked with RAJE in New
York, which was the only place
at the time to get involved with
the organization.

“And he told us all about
programming, and he told
us all about how they liter-
ally have hundreds of young
Rabbi Akiva Pollack speaks at Chachmei Lublin Yeshiva in Poland during
a RAJE trip. 
Photo by Paul Minkovsky
since 2009. Are you still
attracted to the organization’s
mission for the same reasons?
I’ll tell you the truth, maybe
you shouldn’t put this in print,
but I do it for the free trip
[laughs]. I do love going from
place to place, I love traveling.

So that’s always very exciting,
which actually makes it a little
bit hard now, because every-
thing’s closed, you can’t really
get around.

But I love teaching about
Judaism, teach about Israel,
and then actually going and
seeing it in practice.

That’s what really gets me
excited, to be able to teach that
and give it over to everybody
and show how real Judaism is,
how ancient Judaism is.

What’s the most significant
You’ve been a part of RAJE change you’ve seen in the
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