Evan Gershkovich - has a "deepening jewish connection," Russia arrested him

[yankeedoodle]

Wonder if he's working for Israhell, even though he's working for the Wall Street Journal.

On Wednesday, March 29, 31-year-old Evan Gershkovich, an American reporter for the Wall Street Journal, was arrested in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg on charges of espionage, becoming the first American correspondent held as a spy in Russia since the end of the Cold War.  Evan, his family, the Wall Street Journal, and the US Government vehemently deny any accusation that he's a spy.  If convicted, Evan could be imprisoned for up to 20 years.

Here are six pressing facts that you need to know about Evan Gershkovich.

1. Born into a Russian-Jewish Family in America
Aish
Evan's parents Ella and Mikhail fled the Soviet Union in the 1970s, escaping the crushing antisemitism under which they lived.

Ella remembers her own mother, a Ukrainian Jew who survived the Holocaust, used to cry as she recalled treating survivors in a Polish military hospital at the end of the war.  Ella fled the USSR when she was 22 years old, after hearing rumors that Jews were about to be deported to Siberia. She traveled using Israeli documents and moved to Detroit where she met Mikhail, a fellow Soviet Jew who'd also recently settled in the United States.

The Gershkovich family soon moved from Detroit to Princeton, New Jersey, where they raised Evan and his older sister Danielle. The family always spoke Russian at home. Even today, when Evan was allowed to write a precious letter to his parents, he wrote to them in the family's native Russian language.

[...]

3. Deepening Jewish Connection
In Russia, Evan became more interested in his Jewish identity than ever before. His mother Ella recalled visiting him in Russia and taking him to a synagogue. She'd passed by it as a teenager but had always been too afraid to enter. As a child, she recalls being told that anyone walking into the building would be photographed and even arrested by the KGB.

On her visit, she and Evan entered the synagogue together. "That's when Evan started to understand us better," she explained. He understood the fear that drove his parents to emigrate and build knew lives in the United States.

At The Moscow Times, Evan reported on Jewish life in the city. In an 2019 article, for instance, he described hundreds of Jews gathering to openly celebrate Hanukkah in Ploshchad Revolyutsii, a square in the center of Moscow. "Taking place just a stone's throw from the Kremlin, which promoted a policy of state-sponsored antisemitism during the Soviet era," he wrote, "what has become a ritual nonetheless continues to surprise those who participate, given the country's history."

The foregoing is excerpted from this larger article:
4Evan Gershkovich: 6 Things You Need to Know about the Imprisoned WSJ Reporter
https://aish.com/evan-gershkovich-6-things-you-need-to-know-about-the-imprisoned-wsj-reporter/