Pinchas Polonsky is a known popularizer of Judaism

Judaism

Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...

 as well as original thinker in the middle of Russian

Russian language

Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...

-speaking Jews

Jews

The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...

. He has written several books as well as translations.

Biography

Born in Moscow in 1958 as Piotr Polonsky, was fond of math

Mathematics

Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...

 and took prizes in regional Olympiads. Graduated pedagogical college of Moscow. Later got interested in Judaism, took name Pinchas. During 1980th years was able to organize a network of Torah

Torah

Torah- A scroll containing the first five books of the BibleThe Torah , is name given by Jews to the first five books of the bible—Genesis , Exodus , Leviticus , Numbers and Deuteronomy Torah- A scroll containing the first five books of the BibleThe Torah , is name given by Jews to the first five...

 study, organized a clandestine printing popular books by the method of photocopy, while official editions were forbidden during the communist era in USSR.

Lived several years as refusenik

Refusenik (Soviet Union)

Refusenik was an unofficial term for individuals, typically but not exclusively, Soviet Jews, who were denied permission to emigrate abroad by the authorities of the former Soviet Union and other countries of the Eastern bloc...

 and finally repatriated to Israel

Israel

The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

 in 1987.

He is one of the founders of Machanaim

Machanaim

Machanaim is a word from book of Book of Genesis meaning "two camps".It is also a name of organization dealing with spiritual absorption of Jewish people from the former USSR in Israel. The organization produced many books, classes, especially for conversion...

 organization, in its framework he wrote "Two stories of the World Creation", edited popular prayer book "Gates of prayer" and recently a fundamental study of r. Kook

Abraham Isaac Kook

Abraham Isaac Kook was the first Ashkenazi chief rabbi of the British Mandate for Palestine, the founder of the Religious Zionist Yeshiva Merkaz HaRav, Jewish thinker, Halachist, Kabbalist and a renowned Torah scholar...

 philosophy.

Teaches Torah in Bar-Ilan University

Bar-Ilan University

Bar-Ilan University is a university in Ramat Gan of the Tel Aviv District, Israel.Established in 1955, Bar Ilan is now Israel's second-largest academic institution. It has nearly 26,800 students and 1,350 faculty members...

, writes periodically in newspapers in Russian. Father of eight.

Published works

• Series on Jewish holidays - 8 books
• "Two stories of the World creation" - original
• Prayer book "Gates of prayer" with Russian translations, instructions and commentaries, no less than 50 000 copies
• Video and audio courses on problems of Judaism
• Creative audio and video guide for Passover celebration (no less than 30 000 copies)
• "Philosophy of R.A.I. Kook: religious Zionism and modernization in the orthodox Judaism" - opus magnum
• "Two thousand years together. Jewish view on Christianity". Machanaim, 2008 (in Russian)