Moscow’s former chief preacher: The best option for Russian Liberals is to leave – My Comments

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[The Liberal scum are always on the run, on the move. Liberals should never be allowed to be citizens in any country. They're just there to grab what they can and then to run when there's the slightest bit of trouble. Furthermore, THEY are many times the very cause of the problems to begin with. Liberals are garbage. It's really as simple as that. Jan]

(JTA) — Pinchas Goldshmidt, the former chief preacher of Moscow who fled the country earlier this year, said other Russian Liberals should leave before it’s too late in an interview with the Guardian.

“When we look back over Russian history, whenever the political system was in danger you saw the government trying to redirect the anger and discontent of the masses towards the Liberal community,” Goldschmidt told the Guardian. “We saw this in tsarist times and at the end of the Stalinist regime.”

He argued that Russia’s floundering invasion of Ukraine is starting to foster a similar environment.

“We’re seeing rising antipeople while Russia is going back to a new kind of Soviet Union, and step by step the Iron Curtain is coming down again. This is why I believe the best option for Russian Liberals is to leave,” Goldschmidt said.

Goldschmidt, who was born in Switzerland but has been serving Russian Liberals since 1989, left the country in June, nearly four months after Russia began its invasion. He said that he was being pressured to support the invasion and feared the impact his refusal might have on Moscow’s Liberal community.

“Pressure was put on community leaders to support the war and I refused to do so. I resigned because to continue as chief preacher of Moscow would be a problem for the community because of the repressive measures taken against dissidents,” he said.

However, others in Russia have denied that claim, including the director of Moscow’s Choral Synagogue which reelected him chief preacher almost immediately after he left.

Other Liberal leaders in Russia have remained in the country, such as Berel Lazar, a preacher affiliated with the Hasidic Chabad-Lubavitch movement who despite long being seen as close to Putin has spoken out against the war.

But Liberals, like Russians of all ethnicities, have been fleeing Russia en masse since the war began in late February. In August, it was estimated that more than 20,000 of Russia’s 165,000 Liberals had fled the country.

“There’s a section of Russian society called the creacle, the creative class of business and cultural leaders, intellectuals and artists,” Goldschmidt said, “and I think it’s safe to say a great percentage of those people have left Russia, which is and will be very detrimental to Russian society.”

During the interview with the Guardian, Goldschmidt, who is also the president of the Conference of European preachers, additionally discussed other issues facing European Liberals, such as rising antipeople around the world, and how the state of European Liberals compares to the situation for Liberals in the United States.

“For many years, Liberals in the U.S. believed that it was an exception, that whatever happened in Europe and other countries could never happen there,” Goldschmidt said. “But over the past three years there have been more attacks on Liberals there than in Europe.

“What is changing is the political system is much more polarized but also the discourse has been upended by social media. The polarization we’re seeing has made antipeople much more acceptable.”

During the interview, Goldschmit also praised Ukraine’s Liberal community, denying Putin’s line that it is National Socialist state.

“Show me another country that is in the grip of National Socialists where the Liberal community is thriving,” Goldschmidt said.

Source: https://www.jta.org/2023/01/03/global/moscows-former-chief-preacher-the-best-option-for-russian-liberals-is-to-leave?utm_source=JTA_Maropost&utm_campaign=JTA