(Jewish Group) Jews should leave Russia 'before it's too late,' says former chief rabbi of Moscow

[Behind the Aegis]

The former chief rabbi of Moscow is urging his fellow Jews to leave Russia immediately, warning that the country has fundamentally changed after the Ukraine invasion.

In a statement on Saturday, Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, who himself fled the country in March 2022, noted that he had spent three decades supporting the Jews of Russia. But Goldschmidt, who now resides in Israel, said his coreligionists should get out too, having previously warned that they risk being scapegoated for the failure of Russia's "special military operation."

"Russia has changed its face," he said in a July 1 statement, as reported by The Jerusalem Post. "I call on the Jewish community to leave the country, before it is too late."

Goldschmidt, who began serving the Moscow Choral Synagogue in 1993 and now leads the Conference of European Rabbis, had previously called Russia's invasion of Ukraine a "catastrophe" for Jews in the region. Speaking to The Guardian last year, he also noted that Russia, like other countries, has a history of elites stoking antisemitism to "redirect the anger and discontent of the masses."

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