Chief Rabbi of Moscow Pinchas Goldschmidt

At present, Pinchas Goldschmidt is the largest public figure representing the Jewish community of Russia on the world political scene. His biography and formed the basis of this article. As President of the Conference of European Rabbis, which unites representatives of more than forty states, he is doing his best to eradicate anti-Semitism, a hideous remnant of past centuries.

The son of the venerable Solomon Goldschmidt

July 21, 1963 in Zurich, in the family of religious Jews, followers of one of the prevalent Jewish currents - Hasidism, the future chief rabbi of Moscow Pinchas Goldschmidt was born. In this Swiss city the family had deep roots. And the boy's parents were already her fourth generation. His father is Solomon Goldschmidt. He was always respected, he was known as a successful and energetic entrepreneur.

The father's ancestors settled in Switzerland during the First World War, arriving there from France. Relatives on the maternal line lived in Austria. After her capture by Germany, they were in a concentration camp, from which they were not destined to return. The only exception was Pinhasa's grandmother, who contracted tuberculosis. In 1938, several weeks before the invasion, Hitler came to Switzerland for treatment, where she had to stay.

Today's head of the Jewish community of Moscow Pinchas Goldschmidt chose the path of a Jewish spiritual leader in life. He is not only a descendant of a deeply religious family, but also the great-grandson of the chief rabbi of Denmark, who later headed the rabbinate of Zurich. This same path was also chosen by his younger brother, who today is a rabbi in South Africa.

Years of study for the future rabbi

Contrary to the widespread misconception, in Judaism the rabbi is not a clergyman. The very word is translated as "teacher". And he who is awarded this title is called to be the tutor and interpreter of the sacred books of the Torah and the Talmud. In addition, he is obliged in any situation to give wise and reasonable advice to everyone who turned to him for help. Therefore, he himself must be a person deeply educated and erudite.

Pinchas Goldschmidt, like no other, meets these high standards. He has spent years in the two largest yeshivas (Jewish religious schools) in Israel and America. The result of the training was the rabbinical smiha - a diploma giving the right to lead the community, teach in yeshiva, and also to be a member of a religious court. In addition to the traditional Jewish, he also received a higher secular education, graduating from the University of Baltimore.

Moving to Moscow

His work Pinchas Goldschmidt began in 1987 a member of the rabbinate of the Israeli city of Nazeret-Ileth. Two years later, as a representative of the World Jewish Congress and the chief rabbinate of Israel, he was sent to Moscow. At that time, the Institute for the Study of Judaism was established at the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, headed by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz. He needed help from a qualified employee, who could also take on the duties of a lecturer.

Arriving in the capital and taking up his duties, Pinchas Goldschmidt, still quite young in those years, received an offer from Chief Rabbi of Russia Adolf Shaevich to head the rabbinical court of the country. The competence of this body includes such issues as Jewish weddings, divorces, Jewish confirmation for going to Israel, etc.

On the way to the revival of national traditions

Demonstrating in this post high organizational skills, as well as prudence in decision-making, in 1993 Goldschmidt received the post of Chief Rabbi of Moscow. Thanks to his active work, the program developed by the Israeli Foreign Ministry began to be implemented in Russia, aimed at returning the Jews to their national roots.

These were the years when fresh perestroika trends created a favorable atmosphere for the revival of the national self-consciousness of many peoples, primarily Russian. From the faceless internationalism of the Soviet period, people turned to their age-old traditions. It was then that the process of returning the Russian church taken away from her churches began, the creation of new Orthodox communities. Representatives of other nationalities who inhabited the country, including Jews, did not stay away from the general movement.

An initiative not accepted by a part of society

Since the early nineties, Moscow's chief rabbi, Pinchas Goldschmidt, has launched extensive work to create and develop various Jewish public structures, as well as day schools, colleges, kindergartens and even yeshivas. In this he relied on the support of the Congress of Jewish Organizations and Associations of Russia. Unfortunately, his work was not fully understood by all layers of Russian society.

The result of the misunderstanding was the appeal of 500 citizens of the country, including cultural figures, editors of individual newspapers and nineteen deputies sent in 2005 to the Russian Prosecutor General V. V. Ustinov. It contained a demand to ban the activities of all Jewish national associations on the territory of the Russian Federation, recognizing them as extremist. As a justification for their demands, the persons who sent the letter quoted quotations from the Judaic code "Kitsur shulkhan arukh" published shortly before in Russian.

Despite the fact that many leading politicians such as Gennady Zyuganov, Dmitry Rogozin, Heydar Jemal and others have sharply condemned this appeal, and the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement that it has nothing to do with the position of the government, Pinchas Goldschmidt was deported from the country . He continued his activities as the chief rabbi and chairman of the Jewish court of Moscow in 2011.

The wrestler with anti-Semitism

Nowadays, Pinchas Goldschmidt, whose photo is presented in the article, is one of the leaders in the struggle against anti-Semitism deployed in the world. This hot issue he repeatedly raised in his speeches in the American Senate, the Council of Europe, the European Parliament, the University of Oxford, as well as many other influential public organizations. In his work he finds support among many progressive politicians.