The Spring issue of CONTACT focuses on the Jewish experience in lands as disparate as Moscow and the Catskills, and in contexts as diverse as communal living in New Orleans and New York narratives woven together in the Hebrew language.

Beginning with an examination of the challenges, contradictions and potential trade-offs inherent in Chabad Lubavitch’s activities among Russian Jews, the issue also features explorations of two experiments in community-building in America: the rise of Jewish communal living homes and a new program to connect people through the age-old custom of Shabbat dinners. We also continue our new feature exploring the lives of people charting their own paths to Jewish identification, and end with Marisa Scheinfeld’s searing photographs of broken-down resorts that once collectively formed an idyll for generations of American Jews.

Taken together, the articles paint a vibrant and diverse portrait of Jews — both individually and collectively, historically and in our own time — building connections and paving creative new avenues towards Jewish life and the larger world.