“Moscow Memoirs” – Chief Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt

Vision

The story of the historic renaissance of Judaism behind the Iron Curtain after the fall of Communism has not been written yet. This is a first, the story from the inside, not a hagiography, but a historical first person account of the trials and turbulence in the post Soviet countries, giving a remarkable insight into one of the most interesting periods in Jewish history.

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The memoir of Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt is part page-turner and part inspirational — this story takes the reader on a breathless adventure across Switzerland, Israel, and Russia. Spanning 1989-2022, it travels from the bleakness of Soviet Moscow to the chaos of the post-communist era, from the glitter of the oligarchs’ yachts to the current collapse of Russian society with its brutal invasion of Ukraine.

Rabbi Goldschmidt and his wife Dara arrived in Moscow as a young couple; he quickly grew to prominence when he was elected as chief rabbi of Moscow in 1993. From orphanages to rabbinical courts, from day schools to political organizations, Goldschmidt was at the center of building it all. This memoir tells the story of an impossible renaissance that took place in Russia’s capital: The flourishing of a Jewish community in the very heart of a land that for centuries was committed to its destruction. It is a story replete with never-before told history, heartrending anecdotes about what it means to be a Jew in Russia, firsthand testimonies of meetings with heads of state and public figures, all while helping a community awaken from a state-enforced silence to rediscover its heritage.

This memoir describes numerous run-ins with the KGB and then the FSB secret service; the emergence of Russia’s oligarchs and their massive influence on the Moscow Jewish community; the in-fighting within the developing community; the local antisemitism under the surface; and the maturation of Russian Jewry to where it is today.

Rabbi Goldschmidt was at the pulsing heart of Russia’s roller coaster for the last thirty years — and the story he has to tell, from his front seat in Russia’s most historic synagogue, is unlike any other about Russia today.

Now, for the first time ever, Rabbi Goldschmidt is finally free to share his story.

This book is a crossover between the powerful and historically significant memoir of Rabbi Israel Meir Lau and the Moscow-set memoir of Bill Browder— a story of Russia that is not only riveting but is inspiring, telling the story of sacrifice, of what community-building is really like, appealing to secular and religious readers alike.

It will be first published in Hebrew by Yediot Achronot publishing.

Ask your Father and he will tell you, your grandfather will tell you the story.

- Devarim 32:7

Chief Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt

Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt was born in Zurich, Switzerland. He studied in the Ponevezh and Ner Yisroel yeshivas, and in Johns Hopkins University. He is fluent in Russian, French, German, Hebrew, Yiddish, and English.
In 1989, he arrived in Russia with his wife Dara, and worked at re-establishing Jewish communal life including schools, a rabbinical court, a burial society, kosher soup kitchens, rabbinical schools and political umbrella structures, such as the Russian Jewish Congress and the Congress of the Jewish Religious Organizations and Associations in Russia.
Goldschmidt was deported from Russia in September 2005, but was allowed to return to the community three months later after an international campaign; in 2010, by special order of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, he was made a citizen of Russia.
In 2011, Goldschmidt was elected president of the Conference of European Rabbis, where he continues to serve in overseeing the unified Orthodox rabbinate of Europe. On 27 July 2016, the Government of the French Republic made him a Chevalier of the National Order of the Legion of Honor for contributing to relations between Russia and France. He has addressed the US Senate, the EU Parliament, the Council of Europe, the Israeli Knesset, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s “Neeman Commission,” Oxford University, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe Berlin Conference on anti-Semitism, and Harvard University.
In March 2022, the Goldschmidts fled the country after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, aware that religious leaders were being pressured to support the war. His departure, and subsequent commentary, captured the world media’s attention, and he finally wrote about his first Yom Kippur in exile in the pages of the New York Times in September 2022.
Today, Goldschmidt has an international reputation for his unbreakable convictions, unusual for most religious leaders today — both on the global and communal stages, between his decision to leave Russia and his moderating influence on his own Orthodox Jewish community, calling for reason and candor.