Discover Jewish Yalta

Facing south towards the Black Sea and surrounded by wooded mountains, Yalta s a city and a port in the Crimea, Ukraine. It offers a Mediterranean climate, vineyards, orchards and a flourishing Jewish community!

While the Jewish side of Yalta is not as evident as it would be in many Western European capitals, Yalta does hold remnants of its tumultuous past. For most of the city’s history, Jewish residence was heavily restricted, however, after the prohibitions were lifted at the turn of the last century, about 1,025 Jews lived in Yalta. By 1926, their numbers had risen to 2,353, but most were eventually rounded up into a ghetto once the Germans occupied the Crimea at the end of 1941. 

The Jewish community of Yalta is now one of the most quickly developing Jewish communities in all of Ukraine. In 2005, a community and charity center called Hesed Naftul was founded, and a Sefer Torah was brought to town by a group of rabbinical students. Today, 200 community members gather on Shabbat to celebrate their heritage. And in 2008, 1,000 Jews from around the world came to the city for the first ever Limmud FSU Ukraine conference, devoted to Limmud FSU’s mission of revitalizing the Jewish community in the former Soviet countries. Come and discover the amazing history and current culture of this Black Sea Riviera!