Former Russian chief rabbi urges Jews to leave the country

News2023.01.03. 10:15
DAVOS/SWITZERLAND, 25JAN13 – Pinchas Goldschmidt, Chief Rabbi and President, Conference of European Rabbis, Russian Federation smiles during the session ‘Open forum: Is Religion Outdated in the 21st Century?’ at the Annual Meeting 2013 of the World Economic Forum at the Swiss alpine high school in Davos, Switzerland, January 25, 2013. Copyright by World Economic Forum swiss-image.ch/Photo Michael Wuertenberg

Exiled former Chief Rabbi of Moscow urges Jews to leave Russia “while they still can.”

The former Chief Rabbi of Moscow, Pinchas Goldschmidt, who resigned and left Russia in 2022 after facing pressure for refusing to support the invasion of Ukraine, believes that Jews should leave Russia “while they still can” before they are made “scapegoats” amid the armed conflict in Ukraine, reports the EuroWeekly.

According to Goldschmidt, the Russian authorities could easily redirect the anger and discontent of the masses onto the Jewish community if things took a turn for the worse in the former Soviet territory.

“When we look back on Russian history, whenever the political system was in danger, you saw how the government tried to redirect the anger and discontent of the masses to the Jewish community,” he said in an interview, adding that “We saw this in tsarist times and at the end of the Stalinist regime. That’s why I think the best option for Russian Jews is to leave.”

“We’re seeing rising antisemitism while Russia is going back to a new kind of Soviet Union, and step by step, the iron curtain is coming down again. This is why I believe the best option for Russian Jews is to leave,” he continued.