To mark the end of Hanukka, Russian 'oligarch' and Jewish philanthropist Alexander Mashkevich invited Moscow’s elite to the annual reception of the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress at the city’s prestigious Safisa Palace banquet hall on Thursday night.
With some of the Russian capital’s richest and most powerful residents in attendance, Mashkevich called for an emergency fund-raising drive to aid Israel in recovering from the Carmel forest fire and announced a project to bring hundreds of European members of parliament to the Jewish state on a solidarity mission in February."