Moscou

Contacts between Moscow and the Jewish world are ancient but tenuous. From medieval Muscovy, Jewish merchants coming from Lithuania, Poland, or southern principalities occasionally frequented the fairs and commercial routes leading to the city, without a permanent community forming there [Encyclopaedia Judaica, art. « Moscow »]. Russian historiographical tradition reports, at the end of the 15th century, the so-called affair of the « Judaizers » (jidovstvouïouchtchie): a religious movement that appeared in Novgorod and then in Moscow, accused by ecclesiastical authorities of tendencies inspired by Judaism. Sources on this episode remain largely polemical, emanating mostly from its adversaries, and historians still debate the actual share of Jewish influence and the share of inquisitorial construction [Encyclopaedia Judaica, art. « Judaizers »].

From the 16th century onward, Muscovy manifested explicit hostility toward Jews. Tsar Ivan IV, known as Ivan the Terrible, refused entry to Jewish merchants on his lands, and this mistrust perpetuated itself under his successors. When, through the partitions of Poland at the end of the 18th century, the Russian Empire absorbed the largest Jewish communities in Europe, the authorities chose not to open its interior cities, but to confine this population to the Pale of Settlement. Moscow, the ancient capital and great commercial center, remained in principle forbidden to permanent Jewish residence [Encyclopaedia Judaica, art. « Pale of Settlement »]. Community memory and administrative archives converge here: the city was long perceived as a threshold that Jews could cross only in exceptional circumstances.

During the nineteenth century, breaches opened in the wall of exclusion. Imperial legislation progressively authorized certain categories of Jews to stay and reside outside the Pale of Settlement: merchants of the first guild, university graduates, certain artisans, soldiers who had completed their long military service (the cantonists and veterans known as "of Nicholas"), as well as members of the liberal professions. These exemptions, granted under Alexander II as part of measured reforms, permitted the formation in Moscow of a restricted but active community, composed mainly of wealthy merchants, industrialists, physicians and jurists [Encyclopaedia Judaica, art. "Moscow"].

It was in this context that religious life gradually became organized. The first places of prayer, initially discreet, developed over the decades. The community, though numerically modest on the scale of a metropolis with hundreds of thousands of inhabitants, acquired genuine economic and cultural visibility. Veterans of military service, authorized to remain where they had served, constituted one of the oldest and most stable nuclei of the Moscow Jewish population. The status of these residents nonetheless remained precarious, dependent on the goodwill of the administration and on revocable individual permits. The Jewish presence in Moscow in the nineteenth century thus stemmed from a conditional, fragile tolerance, in perpetual negotiation with tsarist bureaucracy [Encyclopaedia Judaica, art. "Moscow" and "Russia"].

The year 1891 marks one of the darkest pages in Moscow's Jewish history. Under the reign of Alexander III, when Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich had just been appointed governor general of Moscow, the authorities decided on the mass expulsion of artisans and numerous Jewish residents from the city. Thousands of families, who had nonetheless established themselves legally through previous exemptions, were forced to leave Moscow, often under brutal conditions and within a very short timeframe. This episode, which provoked indignation among part of European opinion, illustrates the reactionary hardening of imperial policy following the assassination of Alexander II and the wave of pogroms in the early 1880s [Encyclopaedia Judaica, art. "Moscow"; YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe].

It was in this ambivalent climate that the history of the city's main synagogue also unfolded. The Moscow community had undertaken, in the final decades of the century, the construction of a choral synagogue worthy of its status — the Great Moscow Choral Synagogue. The building, conceived in a monumental style, was completed at the end of the nineteenth century, but the authorities long prohibited its public religious use, only permitting its opening as a synagogue at the beginning of the twentieth century, after the 1905 revolution and the edict of tolerance that accompanied it [Encyclopaedia Judaica, art. "Moscow"]. This edifice became the symbolic heart of Moscow's Jewish life and remained so throughout the twentieth century, traversing the trials of the Soviet regime.

The fall of the tsarist regime in 1917 abolished the Pale of Settlement and, with it, the restrictions that had weighed on Jewish settlement in Moscow. Having become the capital of the Soviet state in 1918, the city attracted a considerable influx of Jews from the former regions of the Pale, seeking education, employment, and integration into the new social order. The Moscow Jewish population then experienced rapid growth, making Moscow one of the largest Jewish centers in the Soviet Union [Encyclopaedia Judaica, art. "Moscow"; YIVO Encyclopedia].

The early Soviet years witnessed a paradoxical flourishing: while the authorities repressed religion and Zionism, deemed "reactionary" or "bourgeois," they encouraged for a time a secular Jewish culture expressed in Yiddish. Moscow thus hosted leading institutions, including the famous Moscow State Jewish Theatre (the GOSET), led by actor Solomon Mikhoels, which flourished in the 1920s and 1930s [Encyclopaedia Judaica, art. "Moscow" and "Mikhoels, Solomon"]. This efflorescence was, however, closely monitored and progressively stifled. The late 1940s and early 1950s were marked by a wave of anti-Semitic repression: the assassination of Mikhoels in 1948, the dissolution of the Jewish Antifascist Committee, and the "campaign against cosmopolitanism" that specifically targeted Jewish intellectuals and artists. Moscow's institutional Yiddish culture was then largely annihilated [Encyclopaedia Judaica, art. "Anti-Semitism" and "Soviet Union"; YIVO Encyclopedia].

Among the figures who embodied inner resistance to Jewish life under the Soviet regime, Rabbi Yitzchok Isaac ben Dov Ber Krasilschikov, known as the "Gaon of Poltava," holds a singular place. Born in 1888 in Kritchev, in the Russian Empire, he had received his training at the famous yeshiva of Mir, one of the great Talmudic academies of Eastern Europe. Ordained as a rabbi, he served in Poltava, Ukraine, and had his work Tevunah printed in 1926, a commentary on the writings of the Rambam (Maimonides) — which is considered to be the last Jewish religious work published in the USSR during the Communist era [Neh Grant, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, archive; NEH grant RE-20294-83]. Soviet pressure then became relentless: around 1931, the authorities ordered the dissolution of Jewish study activities, forcing Krasilschikov and other rabbis to leave Poltava.

It was then that his double and secret Moscow life began. Settled in Moscow, he earned his living as an accountant, a profession unrelated to his training. But in the hours stolen from this ordinary labor, he quietly continued to perform certain rabbinical functions and, above all, undertook a monumental work: a twenty-volume commentary on the Jerusalem Talmud (Talmud Yerushalmi), written between 1952 and 1965, without a library, without an academy, without the support of any institution, in the sole intimacy of his reflection and his notes [Wikipedia, art. "Yitzchok Isaac Krasilschikov"; NEH grant RE-20294-83]. The undertaking was of extreme temerity: the study of the Torah was then liable to deportation to Siberia. The manuscripts were hidden at his daughters' homes, beyond any official scrutiny.

Rabbi Krasilschikov died in Moscow on May 13, 1965, without having been able to see his writings published or even leave the country. It took thirteen years of efforts for the manuscripts to finally be smuggled out of the USSR. They are today preserved at the Library of Congress in Washington. A grant of 56,000 dollars awarded by the National Endowment for the Humanities to the organization Al Tidom subsequently enabled the critical edition of these commentaries, published by the Mutzal Me'esh institute [NEH grant RE-20294-83; Jewish Telegraphic Agency, archive]. The history of these manuscripts is thus that of a double transmission: the transmission of knowledge that Soviet terror sought to extinguish, and the physical transmission of volumes wrested from the USSR at the end of more than a decade of patience. Moscow appears here not as a place of flourishing, but as the austere crucible of intellectual resistance without public brilliance — which makes it perhaps the most authentic form of continuity.

In the decades following Stalin's death, Moscow's official Jewish life was reduced to a minimal existence. The Great Choral Synagogue subsisted as one of the few authorized places, tightly controlled by the authorities, but it paradoxically became a rallying point. Spontaneous gatherings of young Jews in front of the synagogue on the occasion of Simchat Torah, starting in the 1960s, testified to an identity vitality that repression had not extinguished [Encyclopaedia Judaica, art. "Moscow"; YIVO Encyclopedia].

Moscow became the epicenter of the refusniks (otkazniki) movement: these Soviet Jews who, having requested permission to emigrate to Israel, were denied it and suffered in retaliation the loss of their jobs, harassment and sometimes imprisonment. The struggle for the right to emigration, carried by figures such as Anatoli (Natan) Shcharansky, made the cause of Soviet Jews an international issue in the 1970s and 1980s, even in Cold War negotiations [Encyclopaedia Judaica, art. "Aliyah" and "Soviet Union"]. The glasnost policy undertaken at the end of the 1980s by Mikhail Gorbachev gradually lifted the obstacles: mass emigration to Israel, the United States and Germany ensued, but also, for those who remained, the possibility of an open reconstruction of community life.

The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 opened a new era. Freed from ideological constraints, the Jewish community of Moscow experienced a spectacular institutional renaissance. Synagogues, schools, cultural centers, charitable organizations and publications came into being or reopened their doors. The Lubavitch (Habad) movement played a particularly active role there, as did other currents of contemporary Judaism [Encyclopaedia Judaica, art. "Moscow"; YIVO Encyclopedia].

Among the major achievements of this period was the opening, in November 2012, of the Jewish Museum and Center for Tolerance of Moscow (Evreïski mouzeï i tsentr tolerantnosti), housed in the former Bakhmetevsky bus garage, a masterpiece of Soviet Constructivist architecture, in the Marina Roshtcha district in the north of the city [journaux.openedition.org, art. "The Jewish Museum and Center for Tolerance of Moscow", 2012]. The institution quickly established itself as one of the world's great Jewish museums through the breadth of its collections, the sophistication of its museography and the diversity of its programs. The restored Great Choral Synagogue remains the historic seat of the community, alongside new community complexes. Estimates of the number of Jews living in Moscow today vary considerably depending on the criteria used — religious affiliation, ancestry, self-identification — but the metropolis is home to one of the largest Jewish populations in the post-Soviet space and Europe [Encyclopaedia Judaica, art. "Moscow"; Berman Jewish DataBank].

The international vocation of the Jewish Museum of Moscow was asserted brightly in July 2026, when a three-year cooperation agreement was signed between the Moscow institution, the State Hermitage Museum of Saint Petersburg and the "Hermitage 21st Century" fund. The agreement, concluded on July 8, 2026, bears the signature of Mikhail Piotrovski for the Hermitage, Alexandre Boroda for the Jewish Museum and Center for Tolerance, and Zorina Myskova for the Hermitage 21st Century fund [Interfax, July 8, 2026; STMEGI]. The joint program focuses on the influence of the Old Testament and the Jewish community of the Netherlands on Dutch Golden Age painting, and particularly on the work of Rembrandt. The first joint project announced is an exhibition devoted to "young Rembrandt," whose centerpiece will consist of a portrait with a lace collar and a series of engraved self-portraits [Interfax, July 8, 2026]. This agreement marks a significant milestone: it anchors the Jewish Museum of Moscow in scientific dialogue with one of the world's greatest European art collections, and makes biblical and Judeo-Dutch themes the ground of an unprecedented museum cooperation between the two Russian capitals.

This renaissance nonetheless remains traversed by the uncertainties of continued emigration and the vicissitudes of politics. Yet the institutions born after 1991, by giving themselves scientific and cultural ambitions recognized on the international scale, bear witness to a will for permanence that stands in sharp contrast to the precariousness that characterized Jewish presence in this city for so long.

Solomon Mikhoels (c. 1890–1948) — Mikhoels (born Solomon Vovsi) was the most celebrated actor and director of Soviet Yiddish theatre. Director of the Moscow Jewish State Theatre (GOSET) from 1929, he made it an internationally recognized center of avant-garde art. During World War II, he chaired the Jewish Antifascist Committee and advocated the Soviet cause to Jewish communities in North America. His assassination, ordered by the Stalinist regime on January 13, 1948 in Minsk, was disguised as a road accident. His death inaugurated the antisemitic campaign of Stalin's final years and sealed the destruction of institutional Yiddish culture in Moscow.

Anatoli (Natan) Shcharansky (born 1948) — A mathematician and civil rights activist, Shcharansky was one of the most visible figures in the Moscow refusenik movement of the 1970s. Arrested in 1977, accused of espionage and treason, he spent nine years in Soviet prisons and labor camps before his release in 1986 in a diplomatic exchange. After emigrating to Israel under the name Natan Sharansky, he became a politician and human rights activist. His struggle symbolized for millions the fight of Soviet Jews for the right to emigrate and religious freedom.

Rabbi Yitzchok Isaac ben Dov Ber Krasilschikov, known as the "Gaon of Poltava" (1888–1965) — Born in Kritchev (Russian Empire, now Belarus), trained at the Mir yeshiva, Krasilschikov was one of the last Orthodox rabbis to practice publicly in communist USSR. Author of Tevunah (1926), the last Jewish religious work printed in the Soviet Union, he withdrew to Moscow after the Soviet prohibition of Jewish religious activities, earned his living as an accountant, and secretly wrote between 1952 and 1965 a twenty-volume commentary on the Jerusalem Talmud, hidden in his daughters' homes. His manuscripts, smuggled out of the USSR thirteen years after his death, are now held at the Library of Congress. Their critical edition, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, was published by the Mutzal Me'esh institute.

Alexander Boroda (dates unknown) — General Director of the Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center in Moscow since its opening in 2012, Boroda is one of the leading figures of postsoviet institutional Jewish renaissance in the Russian capital. Under his direction, the museum has become a recognized player in international cultural life. In this capacity, he signed in July 2026 a three-year cooperation agreement with the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg, launching a program of exhibitions centered on the influence of the Old Testament in Dutch painting of the Golden Age and on the work of Rembrandt.

Mikhail Piotrovsky (born 1944) — General Director of the State Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg since 1992, son of his predecessor Boris Piotrovsky, he has steered the institution toward ambitious museum partnership policies. In signing the July 2026 agreement with the Jewish Museum of Moscow, he committed the Hermitage to an unprecedented cooperation structured around Rembrandt collections and Old Testament iconography, thereby opening a new dimension to cultural ties between the two Russian capitals.

The Jewish history of Moscow reads like a long oscillation between exclusion and presence, between prohibition and tolerance. A city from which Jews were long banned, situated outside the Pale of Settlement, it became a major Jewish center only in the twentieth century, through the combined effect of revolution and urbanization. But this new centrality was immediately subjected to the contradictions of Soviet power, which sometimes encouraged a secular Jewish culture, sometimes repressed it to the point of annihilation.

The trajectory of Rabbi Krasilschikov, composing in secret his twenty volumes of Talmudic work in a Moscow apartment while the regime persecuted anyone who dared study the Torah, condenses this paradox in itself: Moscow as a place of survival and concealment, a city where the transmission of knowledge could only be accomplished in the shadows, at the cost of a patience and courage that only the posthumous exfiltration of the manuscripts rendered visible.

From the expulsion of 1891 to the struggle of the refuseniks, from the ephemeral brilliance of GOSET to the opening of the Jewish Museum, from the clandestine work of the Gaon of Poltava to the cooperation agreement with the Hermitage in 2026, Moscow condenses the paradoxes of the Jewish experience in the Russian Empire and then in the Soviet Union. The vitality of its contemporary community, rebuilt from almost nothing after 1991 and now engaged in international scholarly dialogue, testifies to a tenacious continuity, made of transmitted memory and reborn institutions. The historian who traces this trajectory measures how much the Moscow Jewish presence was less an established fact than a conquest perpetually at stake.