How Exile and Imprisonment Forged Kazakhstan’s Jewish Community

Over the weekend, hundreds if not thousands of Jews came from far and near to visit the grave of Levi Yitzhak Schneerson in the city of Almaty (formerly Alma-Ata), which from 1929 to 1997 was the capital of Kazakhstan. Schneerson, who died in 1944, was the father of the late Lubavitcher rebbe Menachem Mendel and thus a sainted figured among the latter’s followers. The vast, sparsely populated former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan was a favorite place for both tsars and Bolsheviks to deport undesirables, and for many decades a significant portion of its population resided in prison camps.