RUSSIA IS PROMOTING ANTISEMITISM BECAUSE JEWS OPPOSE WAR—FORMER MOSCOW RABBI
Clouds are gathering over the Jews in Russia; that is the situation since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, comments Pinkhas Goldshmidt, who now is the former chief rabbi of Moscow. He has left for Israel because of his anti-war position.
"Pressure was exerted upon the Jewish community, like any other organizations, especially educational ones, in order to get them to support the war openly. But our community did not support the war."
Recently, at the suggestion of Russian authorities, a trial was begun for the liquidation of the office in the Russian Federation of the "Sokhnut" Jewish Agency for Repatriation. Officially it was because of a number of violations. But the most telling of the charges was facilitating the emigration of scholars and highly qualified workers, to Russia's detriment. And this was not the only victim of the worsening of Russian-Israeli relations," Rabbi Pinkhas Goldshmidt says.
His words were posted on the Podrobitsi website.
He said that if Russia wished to stop the brain drain among its best scholars and artists, a better way to do this is not to shut down the Jewish agency but to halt the war.
Since February, already more than 16 thousand Jews have left Russia. In all, in this year, according to statistics of the Israeli government, documents for repatriation from the Russian Federation have been submitted by more than 50,000 persons. This is almost double the previous years. (tr. by PDS, posted 2 August 2022)
Editorial disclaimer: RRN does
not intend to certify the accuracy of information
presented in articles. RRN simply intends to certify the
accuracy of the English translation of the contents of the
articles as they appeared in news media of countries of
the former USSR.
If material is quoted, please give credit to the
publication from which it came. It is not necessary to credit
this Web page. If material is transmitted electronically, please
include reference to the URL,
https://www2.stetson.edu/religious-news/