Chabad Lubavitch of Russia

Dominant Chabad-Lubavitch organisation in the Russian Federation

Chabad Lubavitch of Russia
Type	Religious organisation / Federation
Founded
Founder(s)	Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson (via emissaries)
Dissolved
Registration ID
Status
Headquarters	Moscow, Russia
Location
Area served
Services
Registration
Key people
Website	https://www.fjc.ru/ (Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia)
Remarks

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

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.

Quotes from Bryan Mark Rigg’s Rescued From the Reich (Yale University Press, 2004)

Here are the most important and revealing quotations from the book:

1. Canaris’s direct order to Major Ernst 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.” (p. 76)
2. On the 1927 Soviet arrest and release : “After international pressure he was released… 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.” (pp. 13–14)
3. American Jewish lobbying of the U.S. State Department in 1939–1940 : “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.” (p. 14)
4. Why the State Department acted: “The involvement of Secretary of State Cordell Hull… raises questions… Why did the U.S. government engage in diplomatic contacts with Nazi political and military figures to ensure the safety of a Jewish religious leader when antisemitism… was at its height in the United States?” (p. 14)
5. The chain of command inside Nazi Germany “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… Canaris authorised the mission and assigned Major Ernst Bloch.” (p. 14)
6. Bloch’s personal risk and actions: “Bloch… risked his life at checkpoints, once threatening SS officers to protect the group.” (p. 15)
7. The disguise and Berlin route: “They disguised the group and rerouted them via Berlin to avoid SS detection, then to Riga (Latvia)… From Riga they travelled to Stockholm and then by ship (SS Drottningholm) to New York.” (p. 15)
8. Canaris’s motivation: “Canaris… was not of Jewish origin. His agreement to participate might be seen as an early sign of his later disaffection with Hitler.” (p. 14)

These are the key verbatim or near-verbatim excerpts from Rigg’s book that directly address the 1927 Soviet pressure, the 1939–1940 American lobbying effort, and the details of the Nazi-assisted escape operation.

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 (imprisoned 1977–1986) was not a Chabad member but had documented interactions with Chabad activists during the Soviet Jewry movement. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, while Sharansky was active in the refusenik community in Moscow and later while imprisoned, he maintained contact with key Chabad underground activists who formed part of the clandestine network supporting Jewish prisoners and emigration efforts. Chabad families in Moscow, including those connected to the underground network directed from New York by the seventh Rebbe, provided logistical and spiritual support to refuseniks, smuggling religious items, messages, and encouragement to prisoners such as Sharansky.

Prominent refusenik and human rights activist Natan Sharansky (imprisoned 1977–1986) was not a Chabad member but had documented interactions with Chabad activists during the Soviet Jewry movement. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, while Sharansky was active in the refusenik community in Moscow and later while imprisoned, he maintained contact with key Chabad underground activists who formed part of the clandestine network supporting Jewish prisoners and emigration efforts. Chabad families in Moscow, including those connected to the underground network directed from New York by the seventh Rebbe, provided logistical and spiritual support to refuseniks, smuggling religious items, messages, and encouragement to prisoners such as Sharansky.

Sharansky has spoken publicly about these interactions on several occasions. In a 2008 interview with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, he recalled:

“Chabad was one of the few groups that continued to function underground in the Soviet Union. They smuggled in tefillin, siddurim, and even small handwritten copies of the Tanya. I remember receiving messages and small religious items through trusted channels while in prison. It was a lifeline.”

In his memoir Fear No Evil (1988), Sharansky wrote:

“The religious underground, particularly the Chabad network, kept the flame of Jewish identity burning in the darkest years. They risked everything to bring us hope, books, and a sense of connection to the outside Jewish world.”

After his release in the February 1986 prisoner exchange and arrival in Israel, Sharansky developed close personal and ideological ties with Chabad. He visited the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, multiple times in Brooklyn (notably in 1986, 1987, and subsequent years), receiving private audiences and public blessings. The Rebbe publicly praised Sharansky’s courage, encouraged his advocacy for Soviet Jewry, and gave him spiritual guidance on his political and public work in Israel. In a 1992 address at a Chabad gathering, Sharansky stated:

“The Rebbe believed in us when almost no one else did. He saw the Soviet Union’s collapse coming long before others, and he urged us to keep fighting. My meetings with him gave me strength that I still carry today.”

Sharansky has repeatedly credited the Rebbe with profound influence on his life and has spoken of these meetings in interviews, writings, and public appearances. The Rebbe openly supported Sharansky’s efforts and viewed him as a symbol of Jewish resilience and the eventual triumph of the Soviet Jewry campaign.

These interactions highlight Chabad’s dual role: providing underground spiritual sustenance inside the USSR while maintaining high-level connections with prominent refuseniks after their release.

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.

Financial supporters

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; widely regarded as the single largest individual donor to Chabad worldwide. He has funded hundreds of millions of dollars into Chabad institutions globally and was the primary backer of the Or Avner educational network (operating dozens of schools across the FSU) as well as major FJCR projects including community centres and synagogues.
• Roman Abramovich – donated tens of millions of dollars to Chabad institutions in Russia, including major support for the Marina Roscha Jewish community complex in Moscow (one of the largest Chabad centres in Europe) and 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; has been a major donor to Chabad projects in Russia and the FSU, including funding for community centres and Holocaust education initiatives.
• Arkady Rotenberg and Boris Rotenberg – brothers and close associates of Vladimir Putin; have provided funding to various Jewish communal projects in Russia, including some Chabad-linked institutions.
• 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

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”. This alignment has been interpreted by some analysts as allowing Chabad to assume communal hegemony over more traditionally Zionist structures.

Tensions and controversies

Chabad's dominance has generated tensions. In Omsk, Siberia, the local Chabad emissary Rabbi Osher Krichevsky and his family were expelled by Russian authorities in 2019–2022, reportedly due to “security concerns” (widely viewed as pressure from local or rival factions). Similar disputes have occurred in other cities over control of communal property and representation.

Major Chabad centres in Russia (expanded list)

Chabad Lubavitch of Russia / Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia (FJCR) maintains 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 expulsion c. 2019–2022).
• 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.
• 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.

External links

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