Chabad Lubavitch of Russia

Dominant Chabad-Lubavitch organisation in the Russian Federation

Chabad Lubavitch of Russia
Type	Religious organisation / Federation
Logo
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.

Underground in the Soviet Union

From the 1920s until the late 1980s Chabad operated almost entirely underground in the USSR. Secret chadarim, yeshivot, mikvahs and minyanim were maintained in Moscow, Leningrad, Samarkand, Tashkent, Dushanbe, and many smaller cities. Chabad families smuggled religious items, produced handwritten seforim, and kept Jewish identity alive at great personal risk. Chabad emissaries maintained clandestine contact with Jews across the country and encouraged aliyah. While the public Soviet Jewry campaign was largely coordinated by Israel's Nativ liaison bureau and Western organisations, Chabad's internal network provided the spiritual and logistical backbone inside the USSR.

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