1. Any review of Jewish life in Moscow must necessarily
consider the number of Jews residing in the Russian capital. However,
this statistic remains elusive and even controversial. Difficulties
stem not only from defining Jewish identity,4
but also from questions of status peculiar to Soviet and post-Soviet
conditions.
Jewish heritage was recorded as Jewish nationality
in Soviet internal passports. Yet many halakhic Jews attempted to
evade designation as Jews by obtaining a false passport nationality
(usually as Russians). Still others have converted to Christianity,
but insist that they remain Jews, citing the Soviet designation
of Jewish heritage as a nationality -- and contending that Jewish
nationality is compatible with Christian religious identification.
The accuracy of Soviet census data regarding the
Soviet Jewish population has long been suspect because Soviet census
recorders generally did not require proof of claimed nationality.
As no advantage was gained by asserting Jewish identification, it
has been assumed that at least some Jews declared another ethnicity.
It is likely that similar misstatements will be made in census surveys
in the post-Soviet successor states, some of which are planning
census studies in 1999 or 2000.
2. The Jewish Agency for Israel, the Lishkat Hakesher,
and several respected academic demographers place the Jewish population
of Moscow in the range of 175,000 to 200,000 individuals. In speaking
with both local and foreign Jews holding responsible positions in
Moscow Jewish communal institutions and in academic Judaic studies,
the writer heard estimates of the Moscow Jewish population as high
as 500,000 and 800,000. As is common throughout the post-Soviet
transition states, the average age of Jews in Moscow is believed
to be in the mid-fifties.
3. Whatever its total
Jewish population, Moscow is unique in the successor states in that
its Jewish population has increased in recent years. Between 30,000
and 50,000 Sephardic Jews from
Georgia (Gruzia), the Caucasus
Mountain region, and the Central Asia area have migrated to the
Russian capital since the collapse of the Soviet Union. A large
number of heads of households are traders in the various markets
or bazaars in Moscow and its immediate surroundings. Many Mountain
Jews have settled in the area near the Izmailovo market in the eastern
part of the capital city.
Rabbi Pinchas
Goldschmidt, Chief Rabbi of Moscow, has assisted the different
Sephardic groups in organizing their own communal structures and
in engaging rabbis indigenous to specific Sephardic cultures. Rabbi
Goldschmidt intends to develop a Jewish
day school in the Izmailovo area that addresses the needs
of Mountain Jewish children. Many youngsters from this community
speak only halting Russian, have various social problems, and drop
out of school at an early age. He anticipates an initial enrollment
of 150 to 200 youngsters in 1998.
4. Other than a few areas populated by recent Sephardic
Jewish migrants, Moscow Jews are not concentrated in particular
neighborhoods. Their dispersal throughout a sprawling city of 12
million residents generates severe service delivery difficulties
for Jewish organizations attempting to sponsor various communal
programs.
5. In addition to indigenous and post-Soviet migrant
Jews, an increasing number of expatriate
Jews is residing in Moscow as diplomats, aid workers, lawyers,
business people, and journalists. Several hundred have participated
in Jewish holiday celebrations, such as sedarim
and Chanukah parties, developed for the foreign Jewish population.
Among the leaders in organizing such events are: Dr.
Eugene Weiner, Director of Special Projects for the American
Jewish Joint Distribution Committee in Moscow; Anita
Weiner, also employed by JDC; and Faye
Siegel, originally from Atlanta. These efforts have been
supported by the Embassy of the United
States, which has provided space for various functions, and
by Chief Rabbi Goldschmidt.
The writer visited six of the seven Jewish day
schools in Moscow, noting several differences between them and Jewish
day schools in Ukraine: (1) Moscow lacks the large day schools that
are well established in Ukraine, such as those in Dnipropetrovsk
[700+ pupils] and Kyiv [550+]; (2) day schools in Ukraine operate
fleets of buses to transport pupils between home and school, whereas
most day schools in Moscow rely on the extensive Moscow Metro system
for pupil transport; (3) computer equipment is more extensive and
up-to-date in most Moscow schools, an outgrowth of the Russian Jewish
Congress policy to provide day schools with such technology; (4)
reflecting more precarious economic conditions in Ukraine, a primary
attraction of day schools there is the provision by schools of two
or three meals daily to all pupils, whereas pupil safety seems to
be a more compelling appeal in crime-ridden Moscow; and (5) reflecting
much higher Jewish emigration in Ukraine, Zionism appears more influential
in several schools there and enrollment is less stable as families
depart for Israel and other countries.
6. Achey Tmimim
and Beit Rivka are the boys'
and girls' schools respectively of the Chabad movement in Moscow.
The two schools operate separate classes in the same building, enrolling
250 youngsters in grades one through eleven and 30 in a kindergarten
program. Achey Tmimim and Beit Rivka are often referred to collectively
by the name of the boys' school or as "the Kuravsky school,"
the latter in reference to its principal Zev
Kuravsky.
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