Posted on 08/17/22
| News Source: i24
At least one in eight of the estimated 165,000 Jews in Russia left the country after the start of the war
Nearly 20,500 Russian Jews moved to Israel since the beginning of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, according to the Jewish Agency.
Overall, at least one in eight of the estimated 165,000 Jews in Russia left the country after the start of the war, BBC News learned. Among them was Moscow’s chief rabbi since 1993, Pinchas Goldschmidt.
"I felt that I had to do something to show my total disassociation and disagreement with this invasion of Ukraine, but I would have endangered myself if I had done that staying in Moscow," he told the BBC.
Two weeks after the invasion began, Goldschimdt’s family fled to Hungary and then moved to Israel in a move that was criticized by some members of the Russian Jewish community.
"I received some messages saying 'How can you leave us alone?' but I would say the great majority were extremely supportive. It was not a minor conflict to decide whether to go, for me and my wife the community was our lives," the rabbi was quoted as saying.
He added that many Moscow Jews have followed his lead.