Unable to support Vladimir Putin's war, he fled Russia for Jerusalem.
 | By Max Strasser Senior Staff Editor, Opinion |
Sundown tomorrow begins Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish year. It's a solemn holiday of fasting, contemplation and atonement. |
This year I will observe it in New York, with my family, for the first time in years. In the past, I've marked Yom Kippur in a variety of places, including Ohio, London, Washington, Cairo and Amman, Jordan. But no matter where I am, there is a continuity to the holiday: the renouncing of vows made over the last year, the woozy feeling from lack of eating as sundown approaches; the sound of the shofar, the ram's horn blown on the High Holy Days, that closes out 25 hours of fasting and prayer. |
I was thinking of my Yom Kippurs around the world — and those continuities — while reading a guest essay by Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, which we published yesterday. Starting in 1993, he led services in the Choral Synagogue in the center of Moscow as the city's chief rabbi. This year, he is in Jerusalem. The reason is Vladimir Putin. |
Rabbi Goldschmidt had to leave Moscow after Russia invaded Ukraine in February. As Putin's regime tightened its control over every aspect of society, religious leaders weren't spared. "One day," he writes, "a government source informed the synagogue that we would be expected to support the war — or else." The rabbi had been able to find a way to live and pray under Putin's government before, but being asked to support this war was too much. |
So now he finds himself far from the city he called home for more than 30 years. Exile is a strange feeling, Rabbi Goldschmidt writes. But he also knows that there will be continuity; this ancient holiday is marked by the same prayers, the same texts, the same rituals no matter where you are. Whether you are in Moscow or Jerusalem you can hear the shofar. |
"According to the Bible, the shofar blow is the sound of freedom," writes Rabbi Goldschmidt. "It was historically blown at the beginning of the jubilee year — the year which freed all slaves and returned all sold ancestral property. The sound of the shofar blow is meant to remind us of both freedom and equality." |
Even in the four Ukrainian territories that Russia illegally annexed on Friday, Jews will be listening to the shofar, contemplating God's judgment, wondering what the new year will bring and hoping for freedom. |
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