Goldschmidt was born in
Zurich to a family that had lived in Switzerland for four generations. He arrived in Russia in 1989 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 (CJROAR). In 1990 he created the guidelines in conjunction with the
Israeli Ministry of Interior to reconfirm Jews who hid their Jewish identity during
Soviet times. 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, discussing the state of the Jewish Community and threats to it. ,
José Manuel Barroso and
Herman Van Rompuy,
Brussels, 2011 In January 2005, five hundred people, including newspaper editors, public intellectuals and nineteen
Duma deputies published an appeal to the
Prosecutor General of Russia calling for the closure of Jewish organized life in Russia. A subsequent television call-in show, during which 100,000 people phoned in, said that 54% of the participants supported the idea of banning all Jewish organizations in Russia. Goldschmidt wrote a response addressed to
Dmitriy Rogozin, leader of the nationalist
Rodina (Motherland) party, who then apologized and distanced himself from the petition. 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 Russia's president,
Dmitry Medvedev, he was made a citizen of Russia. He chairs the
Standing Committee of the
Conference of European Rabbis, an umbrella group of four hundred European rabbis. 2013 In the spring of 2009 Goldschmidt was
visiting scholar at the Davis Center in
Harvard. In 2011, Goldschmidt was elected president of the Conference of European Rabbis by its Standing Committee. 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. On 9 May 2024, he was awarded the
Charlemagne Prize at
Aachen, Germany. In 2008 the
Jerusalem Post put Goldschmidt in 31st place in its yearly list of the fifty most influential Jews in the world. He is considered an influential faith leader, whose statements on areas of public interest are featured in the press.
Russian invasion of Ukraine On 7 June 2022, his daughter-in-law, Avital Chizhik-Goldschmidt, tweeted that Goldschmidt and his wife had left Russia for
Hungary in March 2022, after they allegedly refused to publicly support the
2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, something which was also retweeted by his son Benjamin Goldschmidt. Chizhik-Goldschmidt's allegation was rebutted by multiple sources in the Moscow Jewish community, including the press service of the Moscow Choral Synagogue, where Pinchas Goldschmidt was reelected as Chief Rabbi of Moscow on the same 7 June. According to sources, after attending the opening ceremony for the
Conference of European Rabbis in Munich on 30 May in which he delivered a speech attacking the war, at the time of reelection as chief Rabbi of Moscow he was not located in Russia, instead living permanently in Israel. He delegated authority to Rabbi David Yushuvaev as the interim Chief Rabbi of Moscow in his place while being absent from Russia. He had previously told Israel's Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper that he did "not define myself as an exiled rabbi, I am a rabbi who is not living in his community". Contacted by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Goldschmidt declined to comment or to answer questions about whether he believes that he will return to Russia. Goldschmidt declared in a 7 September 2022 interview with international broadcaster
Deutsche Welle that Russia is entering a period of deep isolation and the promulgation of a new "
Iron Curtain" between regions, both actions of which he views as morally repugnant. He recommended that all
Jews living in Russia leave for their own safety and security. Looking back, he remarked that the "red lines" between
authoritarianism versus
democracy versus
totalitarianism can be fundamentally unclear yet they do exist, with his country proceeding negatively. Given his role in speaking for the benefit of the
Jewish community, Goldschmidt has commented that he's been a magnet for personal threats of violence by
antisemitic extremists. ==See also==