I returned yesterday from a trip to Moscow with a group of New York rabbis. We were there to witness the work UJA supports in the former Soviet Union.

Our group stood out on the streets of Moscow — nine New York rabbis from across the denominational spectrum, six wearing kippot. But, as our guide predicted, we elicited hardly a glance, even while riding the Metro at night. Remarkably, today one walks more comfortably as a Jew in Moscow than in Paris.

Even more surprising is the vibrancy of Jewish life. Despite 70 years of total Soviet repression, we saw diverse, passionate, innovative expressions of Judaism all around us. Just to name a few: a Jewish preschool rivaling any New York program, a “winter camp” focusing on new media through a Jewish lens for kids over school break, a cutting-edge Jewish museum, Jewish film and music festivals, and an immense network of “Heseds” providing for the needs of the elderly.

Perhaps the most surprising — and stirring — element of this Jewish renaissance is that it’s overwhelmingly led by young adults, many of who only learned they were Jewish as teens or even later. And we take for granted that young Jewish leaders often have parents or grandparents as role models. But in the FSU, as a young woman told us: “Every teenager starts her Jewish journey by herself.”

For more than 25 years, UJA has spent millions of dollars annually, working with grassroots organizations and our primary overseas partners — the Jewish Agency for Israel and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee — in helping revitalize Jewish life in the former Soviet Union. And while surely there have been missteps, and also real challenges ahead, we’re enormously heartened by the results.

Our proudest achievement: enabling young adults to lead. In that vein, on our last night in Moscow, we met about a dozen recent winners of our annual “Grassroots Competition,” where individuals or groups with innovative ideas for engaging young Jews can get the resources they need to turn their ideas into reality. It was an amazing display of talent, one more impressive than the next: Chabad rabbi and songwriter; serial entrepreneur working with people with disabilities; movie director; klezmer musician; IT whiz — all radiating an unforgettable grit, ingenuity, and energy.

The rabbis and I later reflected on what we’d witnessed. One rabbi recounted a memorable childhood experience when, at the height of the movement to free Soviet Jewry, Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach gave a concert and began with Shalom Aleichem, the song we traditionally sing at our Friday night dinner tables. As Rabbi Carlebach told the audience, the song welcomes angels of God who are there to help us usher in the Sabbath. But although the Sabbath has just begun, the song unexpectedly concludes with our wishing the angels well as they take their leave. Rabbi Carlebach explained that the angels leave because other Jews in the world, like those longing for freedom in the Soviet Union, are more in need of their assistance.

The rabbi on our trip concluded by saying, only half in jest, that it might be time for the angels to return to America.

And then we all sang Shalom Aleichem.

Shabbat shalom