Chabad Lubavitch of Russia

Dominant Chabad-Lubavitch organisation in the Russian Federation

Chabad Lubavitch of Russia
Logo	Emblem of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia
Type	Religious organisation / Federation
Founded	1990s (post-Soviet formalisation); Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia 1999
Founder(s)	Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson (via emissaries)
Headquarters	Moscow, Russia
Key people	Rabbi Berel Lazar (Chief Rabbi of Russia); Rabbi Alexander Boroda (FJCR president)
Website	https://www.fjc.ru/ (Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia)

Chabad Lubavitch of Russia (Russian: Хабад-Любавич в России), also widely known through its main institutional body the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia (Федерация еврейских общин России, FJCR), is the largest and most influential Chabad-Lubavitch organisation operating in the Russian Federation. Since the early 2000s it has become the de facto representative body of organised Jewish religious life in Russia, controlling the majority of registered synagogues, schools, kindergartens, community centres and kosher infrastructure.

History

Origins in Lyubavitchi

The Chabad movement was founded in 1775 by Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi in Liozna/Liadi (then part of the Russian Empire). In 1813 the leadership moved to the town of Lyubavichi (Lubavitch), which served as the headquarters of the movement for over 100 years until 1915.

Escape of the Rebbe to New York

Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn: Latvian passport issued in Riga, 1933

The sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn (the Rayatz), was arrested by the Soviet secret police (OGPU/GPU) on the night of 14–15 June 1927 in Leningrad. He was charged with “counter-revolutionary activity” for maintaining underground Jewish religious education and opposing the Yevsektsiya (the Jewish section of the Communist Party).

International pressure for his release came primarily from American Jewish leaders and the U.S. government. The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) and the American Jewish Committee played key roles, with Chief Rabbi of Palestine Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak HaKohen Kook wiring the JDC urgently. Prominent American Jewish figures lobbied the U.S. State Department, which in turn pressed Soviet authorities. President Calvin Coolidge’s administration was also involved. The pressure succeeded because the Soviet Union was seeking diplomatic recognition, trade agreements, and improved relations with the West at the time; releasing the Rebbe was a low-cost gesture to reduce international criticism and avoid further isolation.

After his release and exile to Kostroma, continued pressure led to his full liberation on 12–13 Tammuz 1927 (celebrated as the Festival of Liberation in Chabad). He left the USSR in 1928, first for Riga (Latvia) and then Warsaw (Poland).

In late 1939–early 1940, following the Nazi invasion of Poland in September 1939, the Rebbe and his family were trapped in occupied Warsaw. His rescue was an extraordinary operation involving high-level diplomatic and intelligence coordination. American Jewish leaders, including New York State Senator and Judge Philip Kleinfeld, Senator Robert F. Wagner, Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, Congressman Sol Bloom, and Congressman Adolph J. Sabath, lobbied the U.S. State Department intensively. Key State Department contacts included Assistant Secretary Breckinridge Long and Robert T. Pell (assistant chief of the European Affairs Division). These officials contacted Helmuth Wohlthat (head of Hermann Göring’s Four-Year Plan office), who in turn approached Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, head of the Abwehr (German military intelligence).

Canaris, who opposed many Nazi policies and was later executed by the regime in 1945, authorised the mission and assigned Major Ernst Bloch (a highly decorated officer of partial Jewish descent, “aryanised” by Hitler) to lead it on the ground. According to historian Bryan Mark Rigg, Canaris instructed Bloch:

“You’re going to go up to Warsaw and you’re going to find the most ultra-Jewish Rabbi in the world, Rabbi Yoseph Yitzchak Schneersohn, and you’re going to rescue him. You can’t miss him, he looks just like Moses.”

Bloch, accompanied by two other Abwehr officers, located the Rebbe in Warsaw despite initial denials from frightened Jews. The group of 18 people (the Rebbe, his wife, daughter, secretaries, and aides) was disguised and escorted out of Poland. They were rerouted via Berlin (to avoid SS detection) to Riga (Latvia), where the Rebbe held citizenship, then to Stockholm, and finally sailed on the SS Drottningholm to New York, arriving on 19 March 1940 (28 Sivan 5700).

The operation succeeded due to a combination of U.S. diplomatic pressure (the Roosevelt administration wanted to maintain backchannels with Germany and avoid further escalation) and Canaris’s willingness to act against SS interests as a favour to American contacts and out of his own anti-Hitler sentiments. Bloch reportedly risked his life multiple times at checkpoints, once threatening SS officers to protect the group.

The Rebbe’s daughter Sheina and her husband Menachem Mendel Horenstein, Polish citizens ineligible for U.S. visas at the time, were left behind and later perished in Treblinka.

Rigg's account in Rescued From the Reich

Rigg's book Rescued From the Reich (Yale University Press, 2004) deals directly with the 1927 Soviet pressure, the American lobbying effort of 1939–1940 and the details of the Nazi-assisted escape. Rigg writes that Canaris ordered Major Ernst Bloch to go to Warsaw, find "the most ultra-Jewish Rabbi in the world", Rabbi Yoseph Yitzchak Schneersohn, and rescue him, telling Bloch that he could not miss him because "he looks just like Moses". On the 1927 arrest, Rigg says that the Rebbe was released after international pressure, which succeeded because the Soviet Union was then seeking diplomatic recognition, trade agreements and better relations with the West; releasing the Rebbe was a low-cost gesture to reduce international criticism.

For 1939–1940, Rigg names the American Jewish leaders who lobbied the U.S. State Department intensively – New York State Senator and Judge Philip Kleinfeld, Senator Robert F. Wagner, Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, and Congressmen Sol Bloom and Adolph J. Sabath – and their key State Department contacts, Assistant Secretary Breckinridge Long and Robert T. Pell. He asks why, with the involvement of Secretary of State Cordell Hull, the U.S. government engaged in diplomatic contacts with Nazi political and military figures to ensure the safety of a Jewish religious leader at a time when antisemitism in the United States was at its height. He traces the chain of command inside Nazi Germany: these officials contacted Helmuth Wohlthat, head of Hermann Göring's Four-Year Plan office, who approached Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, head of the Abwehr; Canaris authorised the mission and assigned Major Ernst Bloch to it. Rigg notes that Canaris was not of Jewish origin, and suggests that his agreement to take part might be seen as an early sign of his later disaffection with Hitler.

On the escape itself, Rigg writes that Bloch risked his life at checkpoints, once threatening SS officers to protect the group, and that the group was disguised and rerouted via Berlin to avoid SS detection, then taken to Riga (Latvia), on to Stockholm, and from there by ship (the SS Drottningholm) to New York.

Underground in the Soviet Union

From the 1920s until the late 1980s Chabad Lubavitch operated almost entirely underground in the USSR, maintaining a clandestine network of secret chadarim (elementary schools), yeshivot, mikvahs, minyanim, and matzah-baking operations in cities including Moscow, Leningrad, Samarkand, Tashkent, Dushanbe, Riga, Kishinev, and many smaller towns. Chabad families smuggled religious items (tefillin, mezuzot, prayer books, handwritten seforim), produced matzah in secret, ran underground Torah classes for children and adults, performed clandestine circumcisions and weddings, and preserved Jewish identity at great personal risk of arrest and Gulag imprisonment.

Key figures in the underground network included Rabbi Shmuel Levitin, Rabbi Yitzchak Goldin, and dozens of Chabad families who remained in the Soviet Union after the sixth Rebbe’s departure in 1928. The seventh Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, directed the operation from New York, sending coded instructions and spiritual guidance through secret couriers.

Chabad maintained clandestine contact with Jews across the country and actively encouraged aliyah (emigration to Israel). While the public international Soviet Jewry campaign was largely coordinated by Israel’s Nativ liaison bureau (founded 1953 under Shaul Avigur), Chabad’s internal network provided the essential spiritual and logistical backbone inside the USSR. Nativ operatives such as Alexander Melnetzer (Zvi Netzer), Ilya Goberman, and later Yaakov Kedmi worked with various Jewish groups, including Chabad contacts, to facilitate emigration and information flow.

Sharansky

Prominent refusenik and human rights activist Natan Sharansky was released on 11 February 1986 after nine years' imprisonment in the Soviet Union.

Speaking at the 2011 General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America in Denver, Sharansky, then chairman of the Jewish Agency, drew on his time as a refusenik and pointed to the role played by Chabad's underground network of emissaries in the Soviet Union, according to Lubavitch.com. The federations' vice-president for public policy, William Daroff, summarised his remarks in a tweet as saying that Chabad-Lubavitch "was an essential connector to Soviet Jewry during the Cold War".

According to an article by Rabbi Zusha Wolf on the Russian-language Chabad.org site, US Senator Chic Hecht, whom the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, had asked to act as his representative in pressing for Soviet Jews, gave President Ronald Reagan a list of refuseniks that included Sharansky's name; Reagan later passed the list to his arms negotiator Max Kampelman. At a 19 Kislev gathering in Moscow on 29 November 2015, Sharansky told the audience, according to Chabad.org, that "the Rebbe’s secretary Rabbi [Binyomin] Klein called my wife and told her that this time they would be releasing me". Days later, at a Yud Tes Kislev event for women at the Menorah centre in Dnipro (then Dnepropetrovsk), he "also spoke about the connection of the Lubavitcher Rebbe to his release", COLlive reported.

On the Rebbe's stance towards the public campaign for Soviet Jewry, Chabad.org's history of Chabad and Soviet Jewry says that he was "a prominent opponent of the Western Soviet Jewry movement’s loud and often bombastic protests" and argued that only quiet diplomacy would succeed, and Rabbi David Eliezrie, a Chabad emissary, wrote in 2012 in an article republished by COLlive that the Rebbe "by and large opposed the public confrontation approach" and saw "the road to freedom" as lying "through quiet diplomacy".

At a conference of the Rebbe's emissaries to the former Soviet Union held in Jerusalem in June 1999, Sharansky, then an Israeli government minister, said that Chabad did not forget even the smallest communities and that "in whatever cities of my former homeland I have been, everywhere I have been struck by the scale of Chabad's activity" (translated from Russian), according to the news pages of the Federation of Jewish Communities of the CIS in the Moscow journal Lechaim. In a 2010 interview with Lubavitch.com, Chabad's news site, he said: "We can learn a lot from the determination, stubbornness and persistence of Chabad shlichim", and said that he was "very much in favor" of Jewish Agency representatives and Chabad sharing each other's facilities in the former Soviet Union.

Chabad’s underground efforts were independent yet overlapped with the broader campaign run by Nativ and Western Jewish organisations, providing the critical on-the-ground infrastructure that kept illegal activities alive during the decades of Soviet rule.

Post-Soviet emergence and nationwide expansion

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Chabad experienced explosive growth. Emissaries were sent from New York and Israel to every major city and many smaller towns. Within a decade hundreds of institutions were established. The Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia (FJCR), under Chabad leadership, became the dominant Jewish organisational body in Russia. JTA reported in 2007 that Chabad had in effect split in 1996 from KEROOR, the post-Soviet religious umbrella group founded in 1993, to create the federation (FEOR) under Rabbi Berel Lazar; Politico dated the creation of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia to 1999, when, it said, Putin enlisted Lev Leviev and Roman Abramovich to set it up as a rival to Vladimir Gusinsky's Russian Jewish Congress.

Chabad v. Russian Federation

Agudas Chasidei Chabad of United States v. Russian Federation is a long-running lawsuit by Agudas Chasidei Chabad (Chabad) seeking recovery of its historic library and archive of sacred books and manuscripts held by Russia.

The collection includes over 12,000 books and 381 manuscripts assembled by Chabad Rebbes since 1772. The Library was seized by Bolsheviks in 1917 and placed in the Lenin State Library (now Russian State Library). The Archive was seized by Nazis in Poland and recovered by Soviet forces in 1945.

Chabad pursued return through Soviet/Russian courts in 1991, securing favourable rulings that were not enforced. Russian authorities reversed decisions and retained the items.

On 9 November 2004 Chabad filed suit in the United States District Court for the Central District of California under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA), arguing expropriation in violation of international law, against the Russian Federation, the Russian Ministry of Culture and Mass Communication, the Russian State Library and the Russian State Military Archive.

On 14 July 2005 the California court transferred the case to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia (case no. 1:05-cv-01548), without ruling on the remaining grounds of the motion to dismiss. On 4 December 2006 Judge Royce C. Lamberth held that the court had jurisdiction over the claims concerning the Archive but not the Library, adding that the act of state doctrine would in any case bar the Library claims; he dismissed the claims regarding the Library and refused to dismiss those regarding the Archive. In 2008 the D.C. Circuit ruled that U.S. courts had jurisdiction over the suit against the Russian Federation and its agencies: the claims concerning both the Library and the Archive were barred neither by sovereign immunity under the FSIA nor by the defendants' forum non conveniens or act of state defences (528 F.3d 934). Rehearing en banc was denied on 6 October 2008.

After answering the complaint on remand, the defendants told the court on 26 June 2009 that they "decline[d] to participate further in this litigation" and would not consider its orders binding. On 30 July 2010 the court entered a default judgment against all four defendants, finding that they had expropriated both the Library and the Archive in violation of international law, and ordered them to return the collection to Chabad. In July 2011 the court allowed Chabad to pursue execution of the judgment but declined to impose sanctions at that time; it noted that Russia had announced it would refuse to lend cultural artefacts to U.S. institutions for fear that they would be attached in satisfaction of the judgment.

On 16 January 2013 the court held the defendants in civil contempt and imposed sanctions of $50,000 a day until they complied with the 2010 order. On 10 September 2015 it entered an interim judgment of $43,700,000 for sanctions accrued up to 20 August 2015. Later interim judgments ordered the defendants to pay an additional $78,300,300 and then, in a revised interim judgment, $178,800,000. On 27 February 2023 the court denied, without prejudice, Chabad's motion to attach Russian property held by VEB.RF and Tenex to satisfy the sanctions judgments, because the defendants had not been served with those judgments, and directed Chabad to serve them.

"As succinctly noted by one scholar, 'The controversy and debate of returning cultural property have reached new heights and intensity.'"

The litigation highlighted tensions over looted cultural property and set precedent for using U.S. courts to recover items held abroad.

Financial supporters

Lev Leviev in 2021

Roman Abramovich in 2008

The rapid expansion of Chabad Lubavitch of Russia / Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia (FJCR) after 1991 was financed primarily by Russian-Jewish oligarchs and businessmen, many of whom were closely aligned with the Chabad movement:

• Lev Leviev – Israeli-Uzbek diamond magnate. Politico wrote in 2017 that by 2008 he "had become the single largest funder of Chabad worldwide", and the Jewish Chronicle called him Chabad's "biggest donor" in 2008. He founded and was the primary backer of the Or Avner educational network, which in 2008 had 120 schools and 60 kindergartens in the FSU, Eastern Europe, Germany, North America and Israel, and to which, according to the Jewish Chronicle, he had given an estimated £50 million a year in the preceding years; he was then also president and main benefactor of the FJCR. JTA reported in 2007 that FEOR was mainly funded by Leviev. He has also helped fund FJCR building projects: JTA reported that he was among the backers of the $6 million Jewish community centre in Ufa, opened in April 2008.
• Roman Abramovich – chairman of the FJCR's board of trustees, according to The Moscow Times. In 2018 the FJCR honoured him for giving more than $500 million over 20 years to Jewish causes in Russia, Israel and elsewhere; its president, Alexander Boroda, said that some 80 per cent of the developments in Jewish life in Russia were thanks to him, and that he supported all of the federation's more than 160 communities. He was ranked Russia's top philanthropist in 2013 for giving $52 million to the FJCR, among other causes. He was reported to have donated $5 million to build the Marina Roscha Jewish community complex in Moscow (one of the largest Chabad centres in Europe), and has supported various schools and welfare programmes.
• Mikhail Fridman – co-founder of Alfa Group; has provided significant funding to Jewish communal projects in Russia, including Chabad-affiliated schools and community centres (though his support is more broadly directed toward Jewish organisations in general).
• German Khan – business partner of Fridman in Alfa Group; has donated to Chabad institutions in Russia and Ukraine, including support for educational and welfare programmes.
• Moshe Kantor – fertiliser magnate and former president of the European Jewish Congress. JTA reported in 2007 that he was also president of the Russian Jewish Congress, which had been largely marginalised in the struggle that led to the Chabad-led federation's dominance. He has been described as a major donor to Chabad projects in Russia and the FSU, including funding for community centres and Holocaust education initiatives. The documented Chabad gift found so far is a Torah scroll he donated in 2011 to the Chabad House of Geneva, Switzerland.
• Arkady Rotenberg and Boris Rotenberg – brothers and close associates of Vladimir Putin. Alexander Smukler, a Russian-born businessman living in the United States, told the Jewish Standard in June 2023 that the brothers "are very philanthropic and supportive of the Jewish community" and "gave lots of money to the community, and particularly to the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia"; he did not name any specific donation.
• God Nisanov – Azerbaijani-Jewish businessman and developer (co-owner of Moscow's largest shopping malls); has donated substantial sums to Chabad centres and educational projects in Russia.

These donors, many of whom rose to prominence in the 1990s–2000s, provided the financial backbone for Chabad's rapid institutional growth across Russia after the Soviet collapse.

Relationship with Putin and Berel Lazar

Rabbi Berel Lazar in April 2021

In 2000 Rabbi Berel Lazar (born USA, emissary to Russia since 1990) was elected Chief Rabbi of Russia by the FJCR. With strong backing from President Vladimir Putin, Lazar and Chabad became the Kremlin's preferred Jewish representative body, effectively displacing the more liberal, Zionist-oriented Russian Jewish Congress (led by figures such as Vladimir Gusinsky). Rabbi Lazar meets regularly with Putin and is widely described as “Putin’s rabbi”. JTA wrote in 2015 that Lazar's ties to the Kremlin had helped Chabad's Russian branch eclipse all the other Jewish groups trying to reshape the community, and quoted the former Israeli MP Roman Bronfman, who called the Putin–Lazar relationship a "beneficiary symbiosis" and said Lazar's support for Putin was "the basis of his claim to the title of chief rabbi". Josh Tapper, writing in 2015, reported the allegation that Jewish oligarchs who wanted to curry favour with Putin after he became president in 2000 had been told to donate to Chabad.

Tensions and controversies

Chabad's dominance has generated tensions.

Omsk

In Omsk, Siberia, the local Chabad emissary Rabbi Osher Krichevsky (also spelled Asher), an Israeli citizen who had lived in the city with his family for more than a decade and was elected chief rabbi of the Siberian Federal District by the FJCR's congress in February 2015, had his residence permit annulled by the regional police migration office on 23 March 2018. No reason was given; in court the police said the decision was based on material from the Federal Security Service (FSB), and the case was moved to the Omsk Regional Court to be heard in closed session because the file contained state secrets. An earlier attempt by the migration service to remove him had failed in the courts in December 2014. In October 2018 the court rejected his appeal; JNS reported that he was found to have engaged in activities constituting a threat to the Russian Federation or its citizens, and that he and his family were to be deported. In November 2018 he was refused entry to Russia at Moscow on his return from New York. The family later moved to London, where in 2022 they opened a new Chabad centre.

Sochi

In Sochi, the Chabad emissary Rabbi Ari Edelkopf, who had come to the city in 2002 and headed the Sochi City Jewish Community from 2015, had his residence permit annulled in December 2016 on the basis of an FSB letter saying that his actions threatened Russia's security. The courts upheld the decision in January and March 2017, and he left Russia with his family in early April 2017. The FSB's evidence was never made public, and Edelkopf denied the allegation. He later became Chabad's emissary in Montenegro; see Chabad Lubavitch of Montenegro#Expulsion from Russia (2016–2017).

Other disputes

Similar disputes have occurred in other cities over control of communal property and representation.

Crimea

Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in March 2014.

Before 2014

Chabad's mission in Crimea was based in Simferopol, where Rabbi Yitzchok Meyer Lipszyc and his wife Leah had served as Chabad emissaries for more than two decades by 2014. Lipszyc said that for 22 years under the Ukrainian government "everything has been going very well". Lubavitch.com, the movement's headquarters site, put Simferopol's Jewish population at some 13,000. In Sevastopol, according to the FJCR's own listing, Rabbi Binyomin Wolff arrived in March 2004 at the invitation of the city's traditional Jewish community and was appointed chief rabbi of Sevastopol by the Chief Rabbinate of Ukraine on 1 March 2004; a Chabad kindergarten and school followed in September 2004.

2014

When armed men took control of Simferopol in late February 2014, Leah Lipszyc left on the advice of Chabad headquarters in New York, on the last train out to Donetsk; her husband, who was in the United States, could not fly back into Crimea. The couple set up temporary headquarters in Brooklyn. The synagogue was cordoned off by Russian troops, and its Torah scrolls were moved to a safer place in Simferopol, where services were held for several weeks.

In July 2014 the FJCR organised a Holocaust commemoration in Sevastopol with funding from the Russian state and, according to the organisers, at the initiative of President Putin. JTA called it the first state-sponsored Jewish event in Crimea since the annexation. A delegation of 16 senior Chabad rabbis from across Europe attended, including Berel Lazar.

After 2014

In 2017 the FJCR sent Rabbi Yechezkel (Yehezkel) Lazar, a son of Berel Lazar, to Simferopol. He said that the decision came from the FJCR, that its goals were "not political but spiritual", and that it had started with Simferopol and hoped to cover all of Crimea; asked whether the move would be seen as support for the annexation, he said he "hadn't thought of that". The FJCR says he visited Crimea regularly from 2014, including with a "Mitzvah tank".

Centres and federation claims

The FJCR lists four Crimean communities as its own, all placed under the "Republic of Crimea, Crimean Federal District": Simferopol (rabbi Yechezkel Lazar), Sevastopol (the "Jewish Community of Sevastopol 'Chabad'", rabbi Binyomin Wolff), Yalta and Yevpatoria.

Lubavitch.com lists Crimea as a separate entry, under neither Russia nor Ukraine, with three institutions:

• Chabad Lubavitch of Crimea, Simferopol: Yitzchok Meyer and Leah Mindle Lipszyc, with Ukrainian contact numbers; a synagogue, the Bais Menachem school and a summer camp.
• Jewish Community of Simferopol (postcode district 295011): Yechezkel and Chaya Mushka Lazar, with a Russian contact number.
• Jewish Community of Sevastopol (postcode district 299008): Binyomin and Bella Wolff.

State ties

Documented links with the Russian state are the state-funded 2014 Sevastopol commemoration described above and Berel Lazar's statement in January 2019, during a meeting with Israel's Sephardi chief rabbi, that with Putin's help a historic synagogue in Simferopol had been returned and rebuilt, and now served the city's Jews under a new emissary.

Criticism

Leaders of the Dnipropetrovsk Jewish community in Ukraine criticised the rabbis who attended the 2014 commemoration, saying that "these actions inevitably facilitate and legitimize the seizure and annexation" of Ukrainian territory. Boruch Gorin, a senior associate of Lazar, said that the FJCR was vocal about antisemitic acts but was prepared to cooperate when the government showed that it wanted Jews to live peacefully.

Major Chabad centres in Russia

Counts of the network differ by source. Lubavitch.com, the movement's headquarters site, lists 103 institutions in Russia under 52 city entries (as at 23 October 2026), not counting Crimea, which it lists separately. In 2018 the FJCR's president, Alexander Boroda, said it had "more than 160 communities in all of Russia", and the federation was reported to connect 160 communities in 144 cities and to run a higher-education institution, 30 schools, 29 preschools and 94 Sunday schools. Chabad Lubavitch of Russia / Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia (FJCR) has also been described as maintaining approximately 200–250 centres, synagogues, schools, nurseries, community centres and youth programmes across the Russian Federation.

Most were established between 1992 and 2015. The list below includes all major documented centres with known rabbis and approximate founding dates where available.

National umbrella bodies

• Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia (FJCR) – Moscow (national headquarters); Chief Rabbi Berel Lazar (since 2000).

Moscow

• Marina Roscha Synagogue and Jewish Community Center – Moscow; Rabbi Berel Lazar (chief rabbi); major complex developed in the 2000s–2010s.
• Chabad Moscow Central (multiple branches including Frunzenskaya, Lefortovo, Leninsky Prospect, etc.).
• Chief Rabbinate of Russia – Moscow; Rabbi Berel Lazar, supported by rabbis including Zalman Shimon Deren and Israel Feldsherov.

St. Petersburg

• Chabad Lubavitch of St. Petersburg – Rabbi Menachem Mendel Glukhovsky (established early 1990s).

Siberia and Far East

• Chabad Lubavitch of Novosibirsk – Rabbi Shalom Dovber Gorelik (one of the first major post-Soviet centres, early 1990s).
• Chabad Lubavitch of Irkutsk – Rabbi Aharon Wagner.
• Chabad Lubavitch of Krasnoyarsk – Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Itkin.
• Chabad Lubavitch of Omsk – Rabbi Osher Krichevsky (until his expulsion in 2018).
• Chabad Lubavitch of Birobidzhan (Jewish Autonomous Oblast) – small symbolic centre.
• Chabad Lubavitch of Vladivostok – regional Far East centre.
• Chabad Lubavitch of Khabarovsk – regional Far East centre.

Ural and Volga regions

• Chabad Lubavitch of Ekaterinburg – Rabbi Yitzchak Kogan (mid-1990s).
• Chabad Lubavitch of Samara – Rabbi Yossi Shmulevich (1990s).
• Chabad Lubavitch of Nizhny Novgorod – Rabbi Shneur Zalman Gopin.
• Chabad Lubavitch of Perm – Rabbi Zalman Gurevich.
• Chabad Lubavitch of Kazan – Rabbi Yitzchak Gorelik.
• Chabad Lubavitch of Ufa – Rabbi Shmuel Kaminezki.
• Chabad Lubavitch of Togliatti – local shluchim.

Southern Russia

• Chabad Lubavitch of Rostov-on-Don – Rabbi Chaim Danishevsky.
• Chabad Lubavitch of Sochi – Rabbi Ari Edelkopf (until his expulsion in 2017).
• Chabad Lubavitch of Astrakhan – local shluchim.
• Chabad Lubavitch of Derbent (Dagestan) – historic Caucasus community.

Western and Central Russia

• Chabad Lubavitch of Kaliningrad – Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Zaklos.
• Chabad Lubavitch of Voronezh – local shluchim.
• Chabad Lubavitch of Chelyabinsk – local shluchim.
• Chabad Lubavitch of Smolensk – local shluchim.
• Chabad Lubavitch of Bryansk – local shluchim.
• Chabad Lubavitch of Kostroma – local shluchim.

Educational network

• Or Avner Chabad Educational Network (full legal name: **Or Avner Foundation** or **Or Avner Chabad Educational Institutions**) – the largest Chabad school and kindergarten network in the FSU, founded and primarily funded by Lev Leviev. It operates dozens of kindergartens, day schools, and yeshivas across Russia (Moscow, St. Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Ekaterinburg, Samara, and many smaller cities).

Youth organisation

• Tzivos Hashem (full name: **Tzivos Hashem – Chabad Youth Organization**) – active in nearly every major Russian Chabad centre with local branches (e.g. Tzivos Hashem Moscow, Tzivos Hashem St. Petersburg, Tzivos Hashem Novosibirsk, etc.). Runs children’s programmes, summer camps, and youth activities nationwide.

Many smaller towns and regional centres (e.g. Tyumen, Saratov, Tomsk, Barnaul, Yakutsk, Murmansk, Arkhangelsk, etc.) have one- or two-family shluchim teams established between 1992 and 2015. Most major centres also include associated nurseries, cheders (supplementary schools), and local Tzivos Hashem chapters.

Total Chabad Presence in Russia

Region	City / Town	Center	Rabbi / Leader	Notes
Russia-wide	—	Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia (FJCR)	Berel Lazar	National headquarters, Moscow; umbrella for more than 160 communities (FJCR figure, 2018); Lubavitch.com lists 103 institutions (2026); a figure of ~200–250 centres has also been given
	—	Or Avner Chabad Educational Network	—	Largest school/kindergarten network across Russia (dozens of sites)
	—	Tzivos Hashem	—	National youth organisation with branches in nearly every centre
Moscow and Moscow Oblast	Krasnagorsk	Chabad Lubavitch of Krasnagorsk	—	Local shluchim
Moscow and Moscow Oblast	Malakhovka	Chabad Lubavitch of Malakhovka	—	Local shluchim
Moscow and Moscow Oblast	Moscow	Marina Roscha Synagogue and Jewish Community Center	Berel Lazar	Major complex, chief rabbi
Moscow and Moscow Oblast	Moscow	Chabad Moscow Central (multiple branches: Frunzenskaya, Lefortovo, Leninsky Prospect, etc.)	Berel Lazar (supported by Zalman Shimon Deren, Israel Feldsherov)	Multiple branches
Moscow and Moscow Oblast	Moscow	Tzivos Hashem (Moscow)	—	Youth programmes
Moscow and Moscow Oblast	Mytishchi	Chabad Lubavitch of Mytishchi	—	Local shluchim
Moscow and Moscow Oblast	Pushkino	Chabad Lubavitch of Pushkino	—	Local shluchim
Moscow and Moscow Oblast	Zhukovka	Chabad Lubavitch of Zhukovka	—	Local shluchim
Northwestern Russia	Kaliningrad	Chabad Lubavitch of Kaliningrad	Yosef Yitzchak Zaklos	Local centre
Northwestern Russia	St. Petersburg	Chabad Lubavitch of St. Petersburg	Menachem Mendel Glukhovsky	Established early 1990s
Northwestern Russia	St. Petersburg	Tzivos Hashem (St. Petersburg)	—	Youth programmes
Northwestern Russia	Veliky Novgorod	Chabad Lubavitch of Veliky Novgorod	—	Local shluchim
Volga & Ural Regions	Kazan	Chabad Lubavitch of Kazan	Yitzchak Gorelik	Local centre
Volga & Ural Regions	Naberezhny Chelny	Chabad Lubavitch of Naberezhny Chelny	—	Local shluchim
Volga & Ural Regions	Nizhny Novgorod	Chabad Lubavitch of Nizhny Novgorod	Shneur Zalman Gopin	Local centre
Volga & Ural Regions	Perm	Chabad Lubavitch of Perm	Zalman Gurevich	Local centre
Volga & Ural Regions	Samara	Chabad Lubavitch of Samara	Yossi Shmulevich	Local centre
Volga & Ural Regions	Togliatti	Chabad Lubavitch of Togliatti	—	Local shluchim
Volga & Ural Regions	Ufa	Chabad Lubavitch of Ufa	Shmuel Kaminezki	Local centre
Volga & Ural Regions	Ulyanovsk	Chabad Lubavitch of Ulyanovsk	—	Local shluchim
Volga & Ural Regions	Yekaterinburg	Chabad Lubavitch of Yekaterinburg	Yitzchak Kogan	Established mid-1990s
Southern Russia	Astrakhan	Chabad Lubavitch of Astrakhan	—	Local shluchim
Southern Russia	Derbent	Chabad Lubavitch of Derbent	—	Historic Caucasus community
Southern Russia	Krasnodar	Chabad Lubavitch of Krasnodar	—	Local shluchim
Southern Russia	Nalchik	Chabad Lubavitch of Nalchik	—	Local shluchim
Southern Russia	Rostov-on-Don	Chabad Lubavitch of Rostov-on-Don	Chaim Danishevsky	Local centre
Southern Russia	Sochi	Chabad Lubavitch of Sochi	Ari Edelkopf (until 2017)	Local centre
Southern Russia	Stavropol	Chabad Lubavitch of Stavropol	—	Local shluchim
Southern Russia	Taganrog	Chabad Lubavitch of Taganrog	—	Local shluchim
Southern Russia	Volgograd	Chabad Lubavitch of Volgograd	—	Local shluchim
Western & Central Russia	Bryansk	Chabad Lubavitch of Bryansk	—	Local shluchim
Western & Central Russia	Chelyabinsk	Chabad Lubavitch of Chelyabinsk	—	Local shluchim
Western & Central Russia	Dzerzhinsk	Chabad Lubavitch of Dzerzhinsk	—	Local shluchim
Western & Central Russia	Ivanovo	Chabad Lubavitch of Ivanovo	—	Local shluchim
Western & Central Russia	Kaluga	Chabad Lubavitch of Kaluga	—	Local shluchim
Western & Central Russia	Kostroma	Chabad Lubavitch of Kostroma	—	Local shluchim
Western & Central Russia	Kursk	Chabad Lubavitch of Kursk	—	Local shluchim
Western & Central Russia	Lipetsk	Chabad Lubavitch of Lipetsk	—	Local shluchim
Western & Central Russia	Oryol	Chabad Lubavitch of Oryol	—	Local shluchim
Western & Central Russia	Penza	Chabad Lubavitch of Penza	—	Local shluchim
Western & Central Russia	Saratov	Chabad Lubavitch of Saratov	—	Local shluchim
Western & Central Russia	Smolensk	Chabad Lubavitch of Smolensk	—	Local shluchim
Western & Central Russia	Voronezh	Chabad Lubavitch of Voronezh	—	Local shluchim
Siberia & Far East	Birobidzhan	Chabad Lubavitch of Birobidzhan	—	Symbolic centre (Jewish Autonomous Oblast)
Siberia & Far East	Irkutsk	Chabad Lubavitch of Irkutsk	Aharon Wagner	Local centre
Siberia & Far East	Kemerovo	Chabad Lubavitch of Kemerovo	—	Local shluchim
Siberia & Far East	Khabarovsk	Chabad Lubavitch of Khabarovsk	—	Regional Far East centre
Siberia & Far East	Krasnoyarsk	Chabad Lubavitch of Krasnoyarsk	Yosef Yitzchak Itkin	Local centre
Siberia & Far East	Novokuznetsk	Chabad Lubavitch of Novokuznetsk	—	Local shluchim
Siberia & Far East	Novosibirsk	Chabad Lubavitch of Novosibirsk	Shalom Dovber Gorelik	One of the first major post-Soviet centres (early 1990s)
Siberia & Far East	Novosibirsk	Tzivos Hashem (Novosibirsk)	—	Youth programmes
Siberia & Far East	Omsk	Chabad Lubavitch of Omsk	Osher Krichevsky (until 2018)	Local centre
Siberia & Far East	Tomsk	Chabad Lubavitch of Tomsk	—	Local shluchim
Siberia & Far East	Tyumen	Chabad Lubavitch of Tyumen	—	Local shluchim
Siberia & Far East	Vladivostok	Chabad Lubavitch of Vladivostok	—	Regional Far East centre

See also

• Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia
• Berel Lazar
• Berel Lazar and the Kremlin
• Russian oligarchs and Chabad
• Soviet Jewish underground
• Adolf Shayevich
• Chabad Lubavitch of Montenegro

External links

• Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia
• Chabad.org directory – Russia