[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 65 (Friday, May 1, 2015)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E647]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




   HONORING RABBI LEONID FELDMAN OF TEMPLE BETH EL IN WEST PALM BEACH

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                         HON. ALCEE L. HASTINGS

                               of florida

                    in the house of representatives

                          Friday, May 1, 2015

  Mr. HASTINGS. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor Leonid Feldman, who 
is the rabbi of Temple Beth El in West Palm Beach, Florida. Rabbi 
Feldman has led a remarkable life. Growing up in the Soviet Republic of 
Moldavia, where the open practice of Judaism was forbidden, he was 
unaware that he was Jewish. At age 21, he had learned enough to become 
a passionate Zionist and applied for a visa to emigrate. For this, he 
was imprisoned by Soviet authorities as a ``refusenik.''
  Eventually, Rabbi Feldman was allowed to leave the Soviet Union and 
emigrated to Israel, where he became a citizen and served honorably in 
the Israeli army. Following his time in Israel, he became Director of 
Education for Soviet Emigres in Italy. Rabbi Feldman eventually came to 
the United States, where he decided to attend the Jewish Theological 
Seminary, becoming the first and still the only Soviet-born 
Conservative rabbi in America.
  Rabbi Feldman has testified in front of the U.S. Congress and the 
Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (the Helsinki 
Commission). A respected and much in demand lecturer, he has spoken to 
audiences in 37 states and 19 countries and authored featured articles 
in national newspapers. Rabbi Feldman has been a visiting professor at 
the Jewish University of Moscow and the Jewish Theological Seminary in 
New York, his alma mater.
  Since 2004, he has been the spiritual leader of Temple Beth El in 
West Palm Beach where, in 2013, he was bar mitzvahed at age 60. Rabbi 
Leonid Feldman is widely known and much loved by the members of his 
congregation, his fellow clerics of all denominations and people 
throughout Palm Beach County. I am pleased to honor this remarkable 
man, who is truly deserving of being recognized in the annals of our 
nation.

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