Goldschmidt, Pinhas Solomonovich

Pinchas Goldschmidt was born in 1963 in Zurich. Maternal grandfather from the Carpathian Hasidim. Parents - religious Jews, live in Zurich, this is the fourth generation. Father Solomon is engaged in business - the development of automated systems for delivering clothes to warehouses. Mom's name is Elizabeth. The younger brother is a rabbi in South Africa. His great-grandfather was the chief rabbi of Denmark, then the chief rabbi of Zurich. The ancestors of Pinchas Solomonovich’s father arrived in Switzerland from France in World War I. Mother’s relatives lived in Vienna. In 1938, my grandmother fell ill with tuberculosis, a few weeks before the Anschluss of Austria (her merger with Germany), they arrived in Switzerland and stayed there. Maternal grandfather's parents, all his brothers and sisters remaining in Austria, died in the Auschwitz concentration camp (near the Polish city of Auschwitz). So Pinchas Goldschmidt has no direct "Russian" roots.

Pinchas Goldschmidt has a spiritual and secular education. He received his traditional Jewish education in two yeshiva of the world: Ponevezh (Bnei Brak, Israel), Ner Yisroel (Baltimore, USA). In parallel, he graduated from Hopkins University in Baltimore. He has a master's degree. Has a rabbinical mind (diploma).

In 1987-1989 He worked in the rabbinate of Nazareth Ilit (Israel), where he took an active part in the spiritual absorption of returnees from the USSR .

In 1989, at the direction of his spiritual mentor, Rabbi Moshe Soloveitchik, as well as on behalf of the Chief Rabbi of Israel and the World Jewish Congress, he arrived in Moscow as a lecturer at the Institute for the Study of Judaism at the USSR Academy of Sciences , headed by Rabbi Adin Steinzaltz. In 1989, at the invitation of the Chief Rabbi of Russia Adolf Shaevich, he headed the rabbinical court of the USSR, and since 1993 became the chief rabbi of Moscow.

In 1990, Goldschmidt, together with the Israeli Ministry of the Interior, found a way to return the Jews of Russia to their roots. Goldschmidt played an important role in the creation and development of Jewish community structures, colleges, day schools and kindergartens, with the help of organizations such as the Russian Jewish Congress and the Congress of Jewish Religious Organizations and Associations in Russia (KEROOR).

In January 2005, about five hundred people, including newspaper editors, social intellectuals and 19 deputies, issued an appeal to the Prosecutor General of Russia demanding the closure of Jewish organizations in Russia. This situation was actively discussed on television and 54% of the participants supported the idea of ​​banning all Jewish organizations in Russia. Goldschmidt wrote a letter in response to these statements and turned to Dmitry Rogozin, the leader of the patriotic party Rodina, who, having received a letter from Goldschmidt, apologized for this statement and distanced himself from such actions.

Goldschmidt was deported from Russia in September 2005, he was allowed to return to the community only after three months.

Since July 2011, Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt is the chief rabbi and head of the rabbinical court (Av Beit Dean) of Moscow.

Goldschmidt represents the Jewish community of Russia on the political field. It is published in the international press. Pinchas Goldschmidt spoke at the US Senate, the European Parliament, the Council of Europe, the Knesset, Oxford University, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the Berlin Conference against Anti-Semitism, and at Harvard University, discussing the state of the Jewish community and the threat of anti-Semitism . Pinchas took an active part in interfaith meetings with Christians and Muslims in New York, Paris, Astana, Seville, Vienna and Moscow.

The chief rabbi of Moscow, Pinchas Goldschmidt, was elected the new president of the Conference of European Rabbis, a public organization uniting Jewish communities and their religious leaders from 40 European countries. He was elected at a meeting of the CER Standing Committee in London and succeeded the former chief rabbi of France (1987-2009), Joseph Chaim Sitruk, who held this post since 1999. Rabbi Goldschmidt is the fourth president of CER for the entire 54-year history and the first in this position from Western Europe.

Pinchas Goldschmidt holds the Conference of European Rabbis (brings together more than seven hundred rabbis of all European countries) as chairman of the Standing Committee.

Rabbi Goldschmidt was awarded certification as a candidate for the post of Chief Rabbi of Israel or in one of the cities of Israel by the Council of Chief Rabbi of Israel in 2002. In the spring of 2009, Goldschmidt was a visiting fellow at the Davis Center at Harvard University .

The wife's name is Dara Brody - a native of the United States from a family related to the Rothschilds, her grandfather is from Minsk. Goldschmidts bring up seven. At the same time, Dara is the founder of the Ez Haim Jewish school and the Pessin-Waxman Center Jewish children's boarding school for orphans. Dara is a creative person, an artist. At the last Purim festival, her paintings were sold at auction. “Dara is a rare woman, I am happy that I found her ...”, - P. Goldschmidt.

Alexander Mashkevich (on the occasion of the approval of Pinchas Goldschmidt as an authorized representative of the World Jewish Congress (WJC) for relations with Eastern Christian churches.): “Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt has significant experience in the field of communication with representatives of other faiths, gained, including in the framework of EAJC activities to promote dialogue among civilizations. Being not only the religious leader of the community, but also a scholar-theologian and at the same time a man of the modern world, Rabbi Goldschmidt will undoubtedly make a significant contribution to the development of fruitful communication between the Jews of Eurasia and representatives of Orthodoxy, and, first of all, by virtue of the position of chief rabbi Moscow - with the Russian Orthodox Church . I want to wish Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt a new post of fruitful work, which, in essence, will be the continuation of our many years of efforts to strengthen mutual understanding and mutual respect of people of different faiths and nationalities. "

Pinchas Goldschmidt is the author of many scholarly works on Halacha, of which the most fundamental is the Zikaron be-sefer response book, devoted to the specific Halacha issues that arose among Russian Jews of the late and post-Soviet period ^[1] .

On July 27, 2016, the Government of the French Republic awarded Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt the title of Cavalier of the National Order of the Legion of Honor for his primary contribution to strengthening relations between Russia and France ^{[2] [3]} .