Chabad Lubavitch World Headquarters “Deeply Disturbed” At Russian Court’s Decision To Expel Rabbi

BROOKLYN , NY — Russia’s Chief Rabbi Lazar To Appeal

A Russian district court on Wednesday overturned an appeal and upheld its ruling to expel Rabbi Yisroel Silberstein, Rabbi of the Primorye region in Russia’s far east.

According to a Federal Migration Service spokesman, Silberstein, a U.S. citizen working in Russia for the last two years, listed “cultural activities,” in his visa application, inconsistent with the religious work he was actually performing in Russia.

Director of the Federation of Jewish Communities in Russia, Alexander Boroda expressed “outrage,” at this decision which “targets Jewish spiritual workers. This trend could significantly redraw the map of faith-based work in Russia,” he warned.

Russia’s Chief Rabbi Berel Lazar took a more judicious tone, calling the decision an “unjust technicality”

“I don’t believe that this is a precedent for returning to the policies of repression,” he said. “But unfortunately, it’s not the first time that local authorities have taken actions reminiscent of Soviet Jewish religious persecution.”

Lazar referred to problems in Rostov-on-Don, where two rabbis were recently expelled on a similarly ambiguous basis, and said that local authorities “are playing a dangerous game.”

Article continued at Lubavitch.com