Moscow's 'rebel rabbi' says Russian Jewish community being held 'hostage'

(Israel Hayom via JNS) — On March 7, about a week-and-a-half after the start of the Russia-Ukraine war, Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, who was then still the chief rabbi of Moscow, and his wife Dara left their home in the Russian capital, hoping to get out of the country as quickly as possible.

“We got to the Moscow airport, each of us carrying a single suitcase, and that was it,” Goldschmidt says in an interview with Israel Hayom’s weekend magazine. “At the airport police stopped us and asked us why we were leaving. I explained that my father was in the hospital in Israel, and I wanted to visit h...