Mikhail Gorbachev dies at 91

(JTA) - Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet leader whose reforms, including allowing massive numbers of Jews to emigrate to Israel, changed his country and the world, died at 91.

Russian media said Gorbachev died Tuesday in a Moscow hospital.

"Michail Gorbachev has died," Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, Moscow's chief rabbi from 1993 until this year, said Tuesday on Twitter. "3 million Soviet Jews owe him their freedom."

It was clear when Gorbachev rose to power in 1985 that he would be different from his predecessors as secretary general of the Communist Party. He was younger, more vibrant, more open to...