Golden era of Moscow Jewry

Schneur Zalman of NY asks: Who are the true spiritual leaders of Russian Jewry who emigrated to the West? By 1990 there were only a few old real rabbis left in European Russia. The rabbis of Moscow and Leningrad, Riga and Kiev were all trained in the rabbinical seminary in Hungary. Lubavitch is appointing rabbis as political leaders not as dayanim who know no Jewish history. I doubt R. Lazar knows much about Jewish history or secular history. I am sure he has no idea who Molotov was? But he outmaneuvered rabbis Shayevitch and Goldschmid and took over.

Shneur, as you know there were two waves of Lubavitch emigration from Russia. 1st was after the WWII when thousands of Lubavitchers left USSR pretending to be displaced Polish citizens. The second emigration was in the late 60s. That�s when the last of Geza Lubavitchers like Mendel Futerfas, Bisk (Labkovsky) from Moscow, Mishulovins from Samarkand, Osher Sassonkin from Donezk (?), Yosif Mochkin from Tashkent, etc. left USSR. By the late sixties the world wide wave of spiritual revival reached Moscow but there were virtually no Geza Lubavitchers left. There is this big myth that Lubavitch kept religion alive in Russia. I can tell you that by the end of 70s there were no Lubavitchers in Moscow. Except a few whom I can count on one hand like Reb Geitcha Zal, Reb Sholom der Soyfer (not even sure they were original Geza).

There was a window of tremendous grown in Jewish learning between 1977 and 1987. When I say leaders I do not mean appointees I mean people who had influence on others and had a big role in those years. I call this the golden era of Moscow Jewry.

Firstly there was Reb Avrohom Miller, Zal (a talmid of Chofetz Chayim) who for years had a daily gemora shir in Moscow. He taught people what is limud. Then there was Eliyahu Essas (currently in Jerusalem), who despite allegation of being in the KGB pocket attracted countless people, Michael Schneider (currently in Maale Adumim) a spiritual giant, Pinchas Polonsky (currently in Bet El) who continues to be the most exciting thinker amongst Russian Jews today and finally my blood brother Zeev Meshkov, a poet and philosopher (sorry no Morristown degrees) (currently in Daniel, Gush Etzion). There were number of great Jews who revived Ivrit as a gateway to Jewish culture. They created an underground school who�s educational excellence was never duplicated anywhere in the world.

Birobidzan born Shayevitch came to replace Rabbi Fishman. He was an official appointee and subsequently he could not be taken seriously, although he is a nice man and a decent Jew.

But the key to understanding the "success" of Lazar and others is the deep secret about Russian culture that many overlook. Hidden within a Russian soul is the belief that foreigners are better. That is why they imported Italian architects to built Kremlin, mimicked Dutch in planning Saint Petersburg to resemble Amsterdam, made sure that French was a "mama loshen" of Russian aristocracy and had German engineers run all important factories during the Industrial revolution. So Shayevitch can not match an appeal (rooted in inferiority) of foreign born Rabbis nor can he match their undisputable authenticity.


The picture of Reb Geitcha Zal, I took it on my trip back to Moscow in 1988. Behind Reb Geitcha is is his portrait painted by my friend an artist Anton Rosenberg. People do not like to talk about it but Anton Rosenberg killed himself after living in Crown Heights. Anton, you adored Rembrandt, I post his paintings in your memory.