The 79ers is a SF Bay Area community of young adults (20s and 30s) who emigrated from the former Soviet Union as children. We are a generation of Americans with a second culture and language, a Jewish heritage, Russian roots and a defining experience of immigration and assimilation. We've wrestled with our "hybrid" Russian-Jewish-American identity throughout our lives.

This community was founded for us to come together, share, learn, and socialize. It is an opportunity to explore questions of common interest – How did immigration and assimilation impact our lives? How do we fit into the history of one of the largest migrations of Jews ever? How do we maintain our Russian heritage and language? What is our connection to Russian and Jewish community? Together we will answer these questions through social and educational programs like mixers, lectures, panels, film and book discussions, heritage trips, and more.

The name 79ers comes from the year some of us arrived - the highest volume during that wave of immigration. Others followed in the later wave. Some were born here to newly immigrated parents. We were all young kids when we became "Resident Aliens". Some overachieving assimilators were already preteens. This community is for us all. You know who you are:

• Your parents speak to you in Russian and you answer them in English
• You had to figure out being Jewish while you were busy figuring out being American
• You're not comfortable speaking Russian because you can’t fully express yourself without switching to English
• You’ve had the thought before... “Wouldn’t it be great to read Dostoevsky in Russian?”
• You're a highly assimilated “Russian-in-hiding” and have spent most of your life avoiding Russian gatherings
• You may know some Russian-Jewish-American “hybrids” like yourself, but never had a community to connect and interact together

Now you do. Welcome to our community!!