JEWISH WORLD

26 JEWISH WORLD • AUGUST 11-17, 2023 continued from page 8 Russian Jews easily pinned down. (Goldschmidt cited estimates ranging from 90,000 to 350,000.)Approximately 100,000 Jews now seek to leave Russia, in addition to 100,000 who have al- ready left since the war began, Goldschmidt said. Rabbis arriving from abroad to serve Russia’s Jewish communi- ties “are being stopped at the bor- ders” and harassed, he said, their smartphones inspected and possi- bly implanted with eavesdropping devices, and the philanthropic funding of Jewish institutions has shriveled due to Jewish business- people emigrating. “The fact that at any communal gathering, you have two or three characters who show up uninvit- ed—you know right away these are FSB characters,” Goldschmidt said, referring to the security service that succeeded the KGB. “We are back to the Soviet era. The question is: Do Jews want to live in the Soviet Union? The answer is no.” As the situation further deteriorat- ed last summer, Goldschmidt said, he and other Jewish officials grew concerned by two major develop- ments: a possible military mobiliza- tion of Russian men, including Jews; and the government’s closing of the Jewish Agency, a Jerusa- lem-based organization that helps Jews in scores of countries to pre- pare to move to Israel. Russia’s Jews, he sensed, would, as in the Soviet era, be squeezed both if they remained and attempted to leave. That’s when Goldschmidt called on them to emigrate. “I feared that as a result, it’s going to be much more difficult to cross the border,” he said. Goldschmidt’s son Benjamin, a congregational rabbi in Manhat- tan, considers his father “coura- geous” for urging Russian Jewish emigration. His parents had “put their whole lives” into rebuilding Moscow’s Jewish infrastructure, but “a rabbinic judge must rule based on the facts in front of him,” he said. “There’s no rabbinical commandment that says you have to live in Russia.” “We Jews have to be optimists,” Pinchas Goldschmidt said when asked whether he can imagine living again in Moscow. “One day it’ll be possible to return, but when it is I don’t know.” Returning his pulpit is complex, too. “We’re going to have to see what percentage of the community is still there. Number two, what the new political realities are, the economic realities,” he said. “Based on that, it is going to be possible to make an educated decision.” Meanwhile, in Israel, he remains busy. He leads classes online on Jewish topics, including in Russian. He’s writing two books: on how Jewish law views civil marriages and on his time in Moscow. He vis- its his father, Sol, 91, a retired busi- nessman who lives nearby and has dementia. And he spends much of his time in Munich, the headquarters of the European Conference of Rab- bis, which he serves as president. In that role, Goldschmidt op- posed Scandinavian countries’ ef- forts to outlaw circumcision and kosher slaughter. “Over the years, he hasn’t been afraid to speak his mind,” said Mark Levin, the Washington, D.C.-based CEO of the National Coalition Sup- porting Eurasian Jewry, who has known Goldschmidt since before the latter served in Moscow. The issues on which Goldschmidt has made an impact both in Moscow and with the ECR is “a long list,” Levin said. “He’s one of the—I say this in all sincerity—important international figures in Jewish life in the last 20-something years,” Levin said. “He’s a rare combination of a diplo- mat and an advocate. It demon- strates his ability to meet and ad- dress all challenges.” Now, Moscow’s Jews face the new reality without their spiritual leader, although synagogues, the Russian Jewish Congress, and other key organizations continue to func- tion. Goldschmidt maintains contact with many Muscovites, while oth- ers, he said, “are afraid to talk to me” now. “The fear of Big Broth- er—this has come back. It’s part of life in Russia today,” Goldschmidt said. He’s less concerned by “street antisemitism,” and more by government pro- nouncements, such as For- eign Minister Sergey Lav- rov in May 2022 comparing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zel- ensky to Hitler and claim- ing that Hitler was partial- ly Jewish. After Lavrov’s state- ment, Goldschmidt said, he received reports from Moscow of “an ava- lanche” of antisemitic posts on social media. “The system, which became so anti-Western and so insular—it’s impossible that the system isn’t go- ing to bring with it manifestations of antisemitism,” he said. “Putin is not an antisemite. But the moment there’s a sign coming from above that from now on it’s [antisemitism] allowed, I would be very worried about the security of Jewish institu- tions and every single Jew.” He’s led fundraisers to assist Ukrainian Jews and visited Ukrainian Jewish refugees in Ro- mania, Hungary, Austria, and Ger- many. Zelensky invited him to Ukraine, and he may lead an ECR delegation there. Its goal would be “very simple,” Goldschmidt said: “to support the Jewish community.” “The great tragedy of this war,” said Goldschmidt, “is that two Jew- ish communities are being de- stroyed: the Jewish community of Russia and the Jewish community of Ukraine.” Hillel Kutler has contributed to such publications as ‘Tablet,’‘The NewYork Times,’ ‘The Washington Post’ and ‘The Wall Street Journal.’’ Pinchas Goldschmidt, who was the Chief Rabbi of Moscow since 1993, left Russia in the wake of Putin’s invasion after being pressured to support the war. “Two communities are being destroyed by this war. The Jewish community of Russia and the Jewish community of Ukraine.” International DJ Prince Available For All Events And All DJ Needs Corporate, Private, Bar Mitzvah, Bat Mitzvah, Weddings, Proms, After Parties, Touring, Song Remixes, etc. For Bookings Contact Management at 646-287-6228 and his Instagram page for reference https://www.instagram.com/iamd- jprince01/