How Russia’s Jews found a richer future

“Russian Jewry is today the wealthiest Jewish community in the world,” says Aryeh Zuckerman, secretary-general of the European Jewish Fund, hosts of tonight’s event. “It’s very close to the Jewish community of the US [in wealth], and much smaller. If we are talking about mega-billionaires, we have a few. If you’re talking about multi-millionaires, then we have loads.”

The EJF — a body concentrating on reviving communities in the former Soviet Union, and headed by billionaire philanthropist Moshe Kantor, himself building an empire in international Jewish politics — is just one of the many organisations competing for their favours.

The aim? “We want to be a leading force in world Jewry,” asserts Zuckerman.

This is an exiting time for the Russian Jewish community — not least because this is the first time in history when one has formally existed on such a scale. For hundreds of years, isolated pockets of Jewish life continued in the Pale of Settlement shtetls. The 1917 revolution eased some restrictions, but religious repression continued throughout the communist era.

With its fall came another paradigm shift. Suddenly Jews were free to leave the country — and indeed some two million left the former Soviet Union over the next two decades, about half to Israel. Many believed that Jewish life in Russia was effectively over, and that those left behind would quickly assimilate.

That assumption has been proved wrong. It emerged that there were far more Russian Jews than anyone had expected. And then there were the stratospheric opportunities afforded to young entrepreneurs, many Jewish, who were to become known as the oligarchs.

Some — such as Roman Abramovich — have become household names, even in Britain. Others, who entertained ambitions to political power or influence, such as Boris Berezovsky and Vladimir Gusinsky, fell out spectacularly with former President and current Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

Yet the Putin era proved hugely beneficial to the community, and not just because of the lavish funding provided by many of these new oligarchs.

“Under Putin, there was no question that the Russian Jewish community was renewed and revived and finally people could be proud of being Jewish,” says Rabbi Berel Lazar, Chabad emissary and the Chief Rabbi of Russia. “We actually hope there are not too many changes [under new President Dmitry Medvedev], as the situation in Russia is more or less stable.”

Cynics mutter darkly that many of these private donations came on orders directly from the Kremlin, to show how Jewish life was thriving and how close the community felt to Israel. This had dual benefits — improving life for the Jews not only plays well in the West, but it helps strengthen ties with Israel at a time when Moscow wants to play a wider role in Middle East diplomacy.

“Putin’s time was very good for Israel-Russia relations,” explains Anna Azari, Israel’s ambassador to Russia, “especially in comparison to some parts of the relations between Russia and the Western world — even if you put aside Great Britain. Our relations were getting closer and better all through Putin’s time, and peaked with Putin’s visit in 2005. We assume the same policy lines will guide Medvedev’s too.”

And there is no question that the Jews have been useful. Rabbi Lazar is fond of telling one particularly revealing anecdote. In a meeting room on the top floor of the vast Marina Roscha community centre, its walls lined with glass cabinets full of medals the rabbi has been awarded by the government, is the decades-old guest book of the Moscow community. Amid messages spanning the gamut from Jewish tourists to Israeli ministers, Lazar points to one from the late US senator and Holocaust survivor Tom Lantos.

“When he came here and saw this centre, he had tears in his eyes,” Lazar recalls. “He told me: ‘I have spent my whole life fighting against Russia — but now I am going to fight against Jackson-Vanik [the US law restricting trade relations with countries including Russia].’”

Yet when it comes to influencing Russian policy — for instance, lobbying against the country’s involvement in Iran’s nuclear development, an issue which Jewish communities worldwide have adopted as a campaigning issue — the community is silent, quite literally. When the leadership is asked about this, even the most loquacious decline to comment.

Communism might be gone in Russia, but government is strictly vertical here. To observe the debate in the parliament, the Duma, citizens need to apply at least a week in advance for security clearance. It is hard to imagine that anyone even bothers.

And yet, as one senior community figure puts it, “Putin is incredibly popular in this country. The West doesn’t like to hear it, but it’s true. The Russian intelligentsia and middle class have bartered their civil liberties for money because the standard of living rose so much.”

The grey Soviet-era buildings now have massive digital video screens attached to them advertising Rolex, and the iconic GUM department store in Red Square is fully stocked with the latest styles from Chanel. With prosperity has come stability. Jews, having been all too often scapegoated for Russia’s financial and social crises, have particular reason to appreciate that.

The community’s facilities, too, are expanding at a furious rate. Across town, building work is in full swing at a complex dedicated to community life. A multi-storey college is under construction, next to a sparkling new medical centre. Inside, room after spotless room, sponsored by billionaire businessman Mikhail Bezeliansky, contains state-of-the-art facilities for everything from urology to minor surgery, with equipment so advanced, boasts the centre’s director, “that even the doctor enjoys the operation”.

Next to the medical centre, a bus garage designed by noted avant-garde architect Konstantin Melnikov is being turned into a vast Jewish museum. In the meantime, it will host a temporary art gallery, curated by Abramovich’s fiancée Daria Zhukova.

Rabbi Lazar himself presides over the immense community centre, the flagship of the FEOR, Russian Jewry’s representative body which operates in 202 communities across the country. The centre is largely funded by Israeli diamond mogul Lev Leviev, now London-based. From the top floor, where computer users learn internet skills in the Jewish-interest library, to the (single-sex) flamenco classes in the 700-person-capacity sports hall, services are offered free to all who register, halachically Jewish or not.

“We try to bring them all in, but they know we do not consider them Jewish,” says Lazar. He says that they perform up to 30 Orthodox conversions each month, with hundreds more waiting to convert.

The Jewish community is widening out its power base. While acknowledging Leviev as the largest donor to the FEOR operations that, claims Rabbi Lazar, cost upwards of $70m annually, he also attributes their success to hundreds of others.“In Moscow we have close to 1,000 donors,” he says. “Our success is not from the oligarchs.”

This new generation wants more out of Jewish life than the mega-oligarchs who have exerted power through a confusing array of bitterly opposed communal organisations.

“Many kids in their twenties and thirties have made real-estate money in the last five or six years,” says Rabbi Pinhas Goldschmidt, the Chief Rabbi of Moscow, in his office at the Choral Synagogue.

“There are more Jewish billionaires in Moscow than there are in New York, and this younger batch have stronger ties to the community, they need services, are involved in the Jewish community, have life-cycle rituals.”

Opposite his sumptuous synagogue, the Jewish Agency’s cultural centre has just undergone a £6 million revamp. Thousands of students have enrolled in courses run by the Israel’s Open
University or study in classes here.

The lure of the Jewish state is no longer so strong, but most have relatives who have made aliyah, and Israeli culture is all the rage. As Chaim Ben-Yaakov, who heads the Jewish Agency’s Russian operations, points out: “Israel is a very important part of Russian Jewish identity. Religious festivals are something theoretic; Israel is something practical.”

The untapped potential is huge. All agree that, despite the best efforts at outreach, a maximum of only 20 per cent of the community is involved.

“That’s why it’s important to organise big events,” continues Ben Yaakov, “to get attention, so that people realise it’s OK to be Jewish, and that the government is not against us, and the media is not against us.”

Indeed, a month-long celebration of Israel’s 60th anniversary — also sponsored by Bezeliansky — has proved wildly popular, with an oversubscribed Israeli film festival, exhibitions and a public party for 7,000 guests.

Its closing flourish is a sell-out gig featuring the Israeli band the Idan Raichel Project, where, like all good Moscow parties, there is a VIP section protected by the collection of huge, no-necked Russian security men. Young Israeli diplomats boogie alongside Jewish Agency envoys and leggy Russian beauties, gyrating rather awkwardly in their stilettos and absurdly tight clothes.

Kantor, a good friend of Bezeliansky, makes an appearance, along with a good handful of other community figures. Even Rabbi Goldschmidt shows up for the last 10 minutes, and gazes with some bemusement at the mostly Jewish crowd of Muscovites shrieking with delight and singing along in Hebrew. “The future of the Jewish community is young people,” says Bezeliansky happily. “To feel a sense of community, to feel they are part of the Jewish nation.”

It is a strange mix, but a potent one — old guard, new money and a young generation overflowing with Russian-Jewish pride and intent on celebrating what looks like being a dazzling future.

 

Russian Jewry: need to know

Russia’s official census cites around 400,000 Jews in Russia. Others estimate that the real figure could be up to a million. Only Israel and the United States have bigger Jewish populations.

The two main cities, Moscow and St Petersburg, are said to have approximately 200,000 and 100,000 Jewish residents respectively. In addition, there are several dozen communities of over 1,000 Jews in cities such as Samara, Omsk, Yekaterinburg and Perm.

Jewish education and culture have grown dramatically in recent years. There are four Jewish universities in Moscow and in St Petersburg, in addition to three yeshivahs, two girls’ seminaries and two Talmud study centres, all in Moscow.

Despite great steps towards outreach in recent times, only 20 per cent of the wider Jewish community is believed to be actively participating in Jewish life.

All post-Soviet governments have legislated against and condemned anti-Jewish sentiment, but the European Jewish Fund believes it has “not taken specific steps to crack down on antisemitic organisations or publications”.

Prominent Russian Jews include Chelsea FC owner Roman Abramovich, singer-songwriter Regina Spektor and Boris Berezovsky, the businessman and politician, currently living in self-imposed exile in the UK.