One hundred years ago today, December 12, 1919, the steamship Ruslan landed in the port of Jaffa, carrying on its packed decks 671 new, mainly young, Zionist immigrants, who had boarded the ship in Odessa.

Today, organized by Limmud FSU (former Soviet Union) together with Amigour, the Jewish Agency public housing subsidiary company that provides sheltered housing to elderly FSU immigrants, and the Jewish Agency, a ceremony marking the centenary took place in Jaffa port, a few meters from where the ship had landed. The festive event was attended by a group of young Russian-speaking youth, and a group of distinguished people whose ancestors were among that group of immigrants.

They included Prof. Fania Oz-Salzberger, whose great uncle, Prof. Yosef Klausner, was on the vessel, Uri Milstein, great nephew of the poet Rachel, Amnon Rechter, whose grandfather, Zeev Rechter, the noted architect who built, among other iconic buildings, the Frederic Mann Auditorium (now called the Bronfman Auditorium), Binyanei HaUma in Jerusalem, and the Tel Aviv District Court building, was also among
those who arrived in pre-state Israel on board the Ruslan.

The event was enlivened by a group of some 15 elderly olim from the FSU who now live in Amigour sheltered housing complexes, and who sang songs in Russian, Yiddish and Hebrew, with the folk singer, Dorit Reuveni, contributing ballads and songs of Eretz Israel of that period. The Ruslan re-enactment set off the eleventh Limmud FSU three-day festival of Jewish learning that took place in Ashdod with some 800 Russian-speaking participants from across the country.

The arrival of the Ruslan on the shores of Palestine was an epochal event. The Jewish population of the entire country at the time was only about 65,000, so that the new arrivals represented more than one percent of the Jewish yishuv. Its importance lay not only in the number of men and women involved, but in the fact that many of them became extremely prominent in the arts, literature, academia, architecture and medicine.

Among the new arrivals was also Rosa Cohen, known as "Red Rosa," mother of prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin, Baruch Agadati, who introduced dance to Israel, Moshe Glikman, the first editor of the Ha'aretz newspaper, Yehuda Magidovitch, a prominent architect and the first chief engineer of Tel Aviv, Dr. Haim Yassky, who would later serve as the director of Hadassa Hospital and was murdered when a convoy of hospital staff was ambushed on the way to the hospital in 1948.

Among others celebrating the vent were Justice Elyakim Rubinstein, former Supreme Court vice- president, whose uncle was on the Ruslan, Matthew Bronfman, chair of the Limmud FSU International Steering Committee, Chaim Chesler, founder of Limmud FSU, the organization's co-founder, Sandra Cahn, and historian Dr. Joel Rappel, who compered the event.

Limmud FSU Chair of the International Steering Committee Matthew Bronfman: "Ruslan left the port of Odessa exactly 20 years after the ship my grandfather was on arrived to Canada from the exact same city. Therefore, I have a big emotional connection to this beautiful event. "

"Marking the arrival of the Ruslan is a tribute to those early Russian-speaking pioneers who are an inspiration to us all," said Chaim Chesler, "and were the forerunners of the one million Russian-speaking immigrants who, over the past 20 years, have so enriched our modern society."