Almaty’s Jewish community and its institutions

Why Almaty cannot be reduced to its “main synagogue”

In discussions of Jewish life in Almaty, several different things are often combined under the word “community”.

The local religious association, the Jewish Community of the City of Almaty, is a separate legal entity. Chabad operates at several addresses, with rabbis, synagogues and religious services. The Mitsva Association is a secular public association of legal entities that runs ethnocultural, educational and charitable programmes. Hesed Polina and Rimon also operate in the city. The Jewish Congress of Kazakhstan, Sokhnut, JDC, cultural centres and other bodies have operated or been mentioned at different times.

A person may take part in several organisations at once, or in none.

“Almaty’s Jewish community” can refer to the city’s network of people and institutions, without necessarily meaning a single legal entity.

The city’s history predates post-Soviet organisations

By the late 1870s, a small Jewish community had formed in Verny, the future Almaty. Historical and encyclopaedic sources describe its early members primarily as former servicemen of the Russian Empire and their families.

The city’s first synagogue opened on 31 May 1884 in a small wooden building. In 1897, Verny itself had 99 Jewish residents, while the entire district, including the city, had 177. A Jewish prayer society was registered in 1908. The pre-revolutionary community remained small.

Sources also describe activities beyond prayer at the early synagogue. The community helped people in need and kept records of births, marriages and deaths. Even then, one urban institution performed religious, social and administrative functions.

Soviet Almaty became a very different Jewish city

In the 1920s and 1930s, Kazakhstan’s Jewish population grew through internal Soviet migration and political exile. During the Second World War, Alma-Ata became an evacuation destination for people from the western parts of the USSR, including Jews.

The modern urban community cannot be presented as a direct institutional continuation of the pre-revolutionary synagogue. Soviet anti-religious policy destroyed or restricted many forms of open religious life. Jewish identity survived in families, informal networks and particular religious practices.

The life of Rabbi Levi Yitzchak Schneerson became one of the best-known stories of this period.

The Salmas dialect as a trace of migration

In Geoffrey Khan’s 2018 research, Almaty appears as a place where speakers of the Jewish Neo-Aramaic dialect of Salmas lived. He reconstructs the community’s journey from the Salmas district in northwestern Iran to Tbilisi, from where it was forcibly resettled in Almaty in 1950. He also notes that Almaty’s speakers had shifted to Russian in everyday conversation.

This journey adds an Iranian and Caucasian strand to the city’s history, extending beyond the resettlement of Ashkenazi families from Eastern Europe. The 2018 study does not provide a current number of speakers. The Salmas dialect cannot be equated with Hebrew or automatically attributed to every Almaty family of Iranian origin.

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Boris Belilovsky beyond institutional history

Boris Vladimirovich Belilovsky was born in 1924, fought in the war and served in the Soviet Army. He died in 2009. He spent much of his life in Alma-Ata outside formal community organisations. Born in Odesa and raised in Aleksin, he served in Alma-Ata from 1963 to 1967. After a posting in Andijan, he returned to the city and transferred to the reserve on 1 October 1969.

From 1972 to January 1989, Belilovsky worked as a military instructor at Alma-Ata’s secondary school No. 12. His notes describe everyday life in the city, including the school, colleagues, district institutions, his flat, family, dacha and work among Kazakh teaching colleagues. He recalled friendly relations with colleagues and school and family dastarkhans, or shared meals. He also wrote wryly that he had never learnt Kazakh despite living there for many years. In 1975, he received the “Excellence in Public Education of the Kazakh SSR” badge. In 1984, he was awarded the title “Excellence in Education of the USSR”. An independent local-history entry from Aleksin’s library confirms these details.

In his autobiography, Jewishness appears primarily as ancestry and social identity. He was in a mixed marriage with his Russian wife, Antonina, and family life was secular. In one army episode, he wrote that opposition to his appointment as battalion commander seemed to him to be linked to his Jewish ancestry. His memoir presents this as his perception of events.

Belilovsky left Alma-Ata for Israel in 1994.

This account draws on his memoirs on Yurbor / Orthogrammer. The Aleksin Centralised Library System confirms dates and details of his work.

Levi Yitzchak Schneerson and memory in Almaty

Levi Yitzchak Schneerson, former chief rabbi of Yekaterinoslav and father of the future Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, was arrested by Soviet authorities in 1939 and exiled to Chiili, now Shieli in Kyzylorda Region. In 1944, as his term of exile neared its end, he received permission to move to Alma-Ata, where he died on 9 August. This sequence is described in the Chabad.org biography.

He was buried in the Jewish section of the city cemetery. Over time, his burial site became one of Kazakhstan’s best-known Jewish places of remembrance and a pilgrimage destination for Chabad followers and other visitors from various countries.

Chabad of Kazakhstan’s current website directly connects its main Almaty centre with the site, stating that the grave is about a ten-minute walk from the main Beit Menachem branch.

In 2020, JTA reported that Kazakhstan had added the burial site to its list of national heritage sites. The report gives no registry entry number, exact legal designation or boundaries of the protected area.

Almaty’s religious life revived in the 1990s

Rabbi Yeshaya Cohen arrived in Almaty in 1994 as a Chabad emissary. Chabad of Kazakhstan’s current website dates the founding of the main Beit Menachem branch to 1994. In 1997, JTA reported the opening of a new Beis Menachem complex with a synagogue, classrooms, a library, a mikveh, offices and a soup kitchen.

Current registry data confirm that the local religious association, the Jewish Community of the City of Almaty, is active in 2026. Its legal address is 206E Raiymbek Avenue. The registry aggregator used here, citing electronic government data, names Yeshaya Elazar Cohen as its head. This is the same address that Chabad of Kazakhstan’s current website gives for its main Beit Menachem branch.

Chabad has several centres in Almaty

Chabad of Kazakhstan’s own website explicitly describes three branches in different parts of the city.

The main Beit Menachem centre

The main branch is at 206E Raiymbek Avenue. It has a synagogue, mikveh, kosher shop, dining room, event hall, children’s centre, guest rooms and the chief rabbi’s office. It holds prayers, holidays, religious ceremonies and classes on Judaism.

Beit Chabad Levi Yitzchak in the city centre

The second branch is at 68 Kabanbay Batyr Street. The international Chabad Lubavitch World Headquarters directory calls it Bais Chabad Levi Yitzchak and lists its active emissaries.

Chabad / Ohr Avner on Klochkov Street

The third branch is at 28 Klochkov Street. The international directory calls it Ohr Avner Chabad. Chabad’s Kazakhstan website also lists this branch and contact information for Rabbi Shevach Zlatopolsky.

The international directory lists three Chabad addresses or branches and a separate entry for the Jewish Community of Almaty. These entries do not establish the existence of four separate communities.

The Mitsva Association brings together cultural organisations

The Association of Jewish National Organisations of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Mitsva, emerged in the early 1990s and has a different organisational basis from Chabad.

It brings together public and ethnocultural bodies and works on culture, historical memory, education, public programmes and charity. The World Jewish Congress names Mitsva as its affiliated organisation in Kazakhstan.

Government registry aggregators show the association as active in 2026 at 88 Makataev Street, with Alexander Baron as its head. The official OpenAlmaty city directory also continues to list Mitsva among the city’s national and cultural centres.

In March 2025, the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress reported a new volume, «История. Память. Люди» (History. Memory. People), published by Mitsva from the proceedings of an international conference in 2024. The volume confirms the association’s continuing publishing and research work.

Chabad and Mitsva cannot therefore be described as two names for a single body. They operate within the same city, may take part in joint events and serve overlapping audiences, but have different organisational structures.

Hesed Polina provides social assistance

The republican Jewish charitable public association Hesed Polina works in social assistance.

OpenAlmaty lists it at 88/35 Makataev Street, with Alexander Baron as its head and social assistance as its field of activity. Registry data for 2026 also show the organisation as active.

Mitsva’s website describes Hesed Polina’s historical programmes, including food assistance, home care, children’s initiatives, rehabilitation equipment, medical consultations and medicines, and volunteer work. This archived list refers to earlier programmes. A JDC article dated 4 May 2026 describes Hesed Polina’s current help with food, medicines and home care, as well as JOINTECH, a programme helping older participants stay in touch. These activities are discussed in the overview of contemporary community life.

Rimon ran programmes in 2025; its legal status is not specified

The Rimon Jewish community centre has historically been connected with the same premises and network at 88 Makataev Street. Mitsva’s archived website describes it in detail as a centre of cultural and community life.

According to the website of the Association of Jewish Communities of Kazakhstan, Rimon hosted JDC and Sokhnut camps in July 2025. The Jewish community’s own day camp ran alongside them. This directly confirms the centre’s activity in a recent period.

City directories mention Rimon as a community centre, but its separate legal status in 2026 has not been established. The centre is connected with Mitsva and Hesed Polina.

International organisations worked with Almaty’s communities

Older directories list JDC’s regional office and Sokhnut alongside Almaty organisations. These entries concern international organisations working with local programmes, not two separate Almaty communities.

JDC, also known as the Joint, is an international Jewish humanitarian and community organisation. It has historically supported Heseds and community programmes across the post-Soviet region. Its connection with Almaty is confirmed by both older infrastructure and Rimon’s programmes in 2025.

Sokhnut, or the Jewish Agency for Israel, is an international organisation connected with Jewish identity, Israel, education and migration programmes. Its summer camp at Rimon in 2025 confirms an active programme. It does not prove that the position and telephone number of a head listed in Mitsva’s old directory remain current in 2026.

Former officeholders’ names and telephone numbers in archived entries do not establish current contacts in 2026.

What the old directory shows

Mitsva’s archived Almaty page lists Hesed Polina, Rimon, the Jewish Congress of Kazakhstan, the Jewish Cultural Centre, Sokhnut, the synagogue, JDC’s office and the Aviv cultural and charitable centre.

It also contains officeholders’ names and telephone numbers without a contemporary dated status.

The old directory is useful as a historical source. Current registry data and dated publications establish the present status of particular organisations.

A distinct ethnocultural layer

City and Assembly directories also show other forms of self-organisation. For example, Almaty’s Ethnic Navigator separately lists the Shalom Ethnocultural Association and the republican Hesed Polina charitable association.

Shalom operates as a separate city organisation. Religious and charitable organisations have other functions.

Pilgrimage to the grave

Visitors come particularly for the anniversary of Levi Yitzchak’s death in the Jewish calendar. Chabad’s website also describes guest accommodation beside its main branch.

Institutions and the evidence for their status

In brief

• Late 1870s. A small Jewish community formed in Verny.
• 31 May 1884. The city’s first synagogue opened in a small wooden building.
• 1908. A Jewish prayer society was registered.
• 1944. Levi Yitzchak Schneerson died and was buried in Alma-Ata. His grave later became an international pilgrimage destination.
• 1994. Yeshaya Cohen began his work in Almaty. Chabad today dates the founding of the main Beit Menachem branch to that year.
• 1997. JTA reported the opening of the Beis Menachem complex. The active religious association is registered at 206E Raiymbek Avenue.
• 2026. Chabad lists three branches in Almaty, at 206E Raiymbek Avenue, 68 Kabanbay Batyr Street and 28 Klochkov Street.
• 2026. Registers confirm that the Mitsva Association and Hesed Polina are active as separate organisations at 88 Makataev Street.
• 2025. Rimon ran summer community programmes, including JDC and Sokhnut camps. Its separate registry status in 2026 has not been established.
• 2020. International sources reported that Levi Yitzchak’s burial site had been added to the national heritage list. Available material does not establish its current state protection category.