Her whole life, Marina wanted to be a Jewish mother with many children. With her first husband, she brought two children into the world and had three more in her second marriage. Raising children in the heart of a small Russian town, about a five-hour drive away from Moscow, was no small feat.
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And now, at the age of 62, Marina has to face a new and unexpected challenge: about a month ago, her son, Ilya – who is 25 years old, the fourth of five children – was drafted into the Russian military to fight the war in Ukraine.
She said that Ilya – or Ilyusha, as she calls him lovingly – "got the mobilization order like all the men in our town. They all went to be examined by a medical board, and those who were fit were taken to the army. Fifty of our men were recruited. Most of them are young, although in the initial screening they also took older men. These later returned home, so that only the young remained in the army, including some who had just recently finished their mandatory service in the Russian military, which lasted a year.
"They were released and recruited again. They sent Ilyusha to a military school, for basic training, and then for additional training in the Moscow region. He is not in Ukraine yet. When he has time we talk. We mostly correspond by text messages.
"I'm not the only one who worries about him. Neighbors and friends are thinking about him too, but what can they do to help? I don't have the strength to answer them all, so sometimes I ask that they don't call me at all. My family has lived in central Russia for decades. They were spared the threats of World War II . Only one of my grandmother's brothers enlisted in the Red Army and became a hero of that war. Apart from him, we were never touched by the wars. Until now. What more can I say about my feelings? I am a mother. Mothers only think about their children. I worry."
'Short-term aliyah'
It was not easy to find Russian Jews who were recruited into the military as part of President Vladimir Putin's conscription order that saw the addition of 300,000 soldiers in response to the increase in the Ukrainian counterattack against the Russian troops in the eastern parts of Ukraine, which were occupied and annexed.
Many of those I spoke with during my stay in Moscow – Jews and non-Jews alike – said that for them, the mobilization announcement was a trauma.
Russia's chief military rabbi knew of two young Jewish men who were recruited, one of them being Ilya, Marina's son. The rabbi's main work revolves around Jewish criminal prisoners rather than Jewish soldiers in need of help with religious services.
Given that many Jews in Russia are not affiliated with any particular community, are less interested in leading a Jewish lifestyle, or even hide their identity, significantly more Jewish soldiers may have been recruited into the Russian military.
One thing is certain: masses of men – Jewish and non-Jewish – have fled Russia since the mobilization was announced to avoid being sent to fight in the war against their will.
Whoever holds an Israeli or other passport or a visa to any Western country and can afford the astronomical flight prices that soared overnight managed to flee Russia. Others made their way by car or train to neighboring Georgia, Armenia, Kazakhstan, and even Mongolia, and crossed the border before supervision was increased.
The mobilization also led to a sense of alarm within the country's Jewish community, although things have calmed down since the conscription ended. And yet, the fear of another mass recruitment hangs in the air. Young Jews who fled to neighboring countries, often without the financial means to stay there long-term, are now flooding the offices of the various communities with requests for help.
Some of those who left for Israel have since returned. Others are looking to quickly get Israeli citizenship as a safety net for potential future negative developments in Russia. They are not necessarily thinking about settling in Israel, but seek what they called a "short-term aliyah," that is to move to Israel and return home as soon as things settle down.
Despite the freezing cold that struck without warning in the last few days, a long line of citizenship applicants at the entrance to the Israeli consulate in Moscow stretches into the evening. Leaflets from law firms are distributed in Jewish stores, offering their services to obtain Israeli citizenship, detailing all the benefits, such as healthcare and visa exemptions to Europe.
Valery, a young Jewish man in his 20s, told me that he submitted the documents to obtain citizenship as early as March and to this day, eight months later, he has not received an answer. He works in high-tech and event planning and has absolutely no intention of immigrating to Israel. But, as he said, you never know what might happen tomorrow and it is good to be prepared for every possibility. Not many in Russia know yet that some members of the future right-wing coalition in Israel seek to limit immigration to those with a Jewish parent and converts.
As for Ilya, Marina's son, he is, in a way, fortunate to have received military training before being sent to Ukraine. Because Dima, a non-Jewish student in his late 20s, overcome with emotions, said that two of his best friends from high school were recruited and sent to the front in Ukraine without any prior training, and were both killed.
"They were treated as completely expendable," he said, furiously, saying that the mothers of the deceased were devastated.
The Iron Curtain returns
Like many young people in Moscow, Dima too wants to leave Russia as soon as possible. To the United States, to Europe, to any country that will allow him to build a safe and calm future for himself. These young people are ready to travel for hours and hours to neighboring countries to obtain the coveted and hard-to-get entry visas at the various embassies. Others spend their savings on long vacations in countries that do not require visas from Russians, such as Dubai, Egypt, Thailand, and Indonesia. The main goal is to get away from the depressing atmosphere at home.
"Our parents remember the days of the Soviet Union," said Ola, an activist in a Jewish organization in Moscow, "even then life was conducted in complete isolation from the West, as is happening more and more today. In recent years we have all gotten used to going on vacations in the Baltic countries, to cheap shopping trips in Finland, to spending time in Italy and France. Now it seems that the time has turned back. The West is off-limits to us again. And there are the sanctions.
"Although I must admit that there are silver linings in the current situation. Because we cannot travel to Europe, we get to discover the wonderful tourist sites in Russia, because we cannot shop at Ikea, we discover the qualities of the traditional Russian furniture industry. We can also eat our good fish, which used to be exported to the US. As a matter of fact, there are even replacements for the stores of Western fashion brands, which have closed.
"Everything can be ordered, even if the prices are slightly higher. There are ways to circumvent the sanctions by importing products from neighboring countries, and rumors say that the stores of the brands that were closed continue to do business under the table. Their owners are not ready to give up the Russian market so quickly. China, Russia, and Arab countries – that's where the luxury brand manufacturers get most of the money. Not the German or British housewives."
Life behind the walls
The two weeks I spent in Moscow were full of dramatic developments with regard to the Ukraine war, which seems to have entered a new phase with the arrival of winter: the Russian troops' withdrawal from Kherson, the missile onslaught on Ukraine's energy infrastructure, the missile that landed in Poland, which was first suspected to have been sent from Russia and led to fear of WWIII.
Add to this the Dutch court's ruling on the Russian missile and Russia-affiliated factors behind the Malaysian plane crash over Ukraine eight years ago, in which 300 people were killed.
But with the exception of billboards glorifying the Russian military, the closure of several clothing and food franchises, and the endless television programs about Russian soldiers on the front line, the distant war is barely felt in Moscow now that the mass conscription has subsided.
In the tourist areas around the Kremlin and the Red Square, preparations are already being made in full force to welcome Christmas, with the most extravagant lighting compared to Europe, which is struggling with energy, which is definitely not the case in Russia.
The tourists that come to Moscow are mostly domestic and from countries that are not boycotting Russia, such as China, India, and those in South America. Businesspeople from these countries also fill the main hotels, where conferences are constantly held on every possible topic. The prestigious shopping centers and luxurious restaurants in Moscow City are bustling. The same goes for the stores of the American hamburger chain McDonald's, which was replaced by a local chain "Vkusno i Tochka", which translates to "Tasty and that's it." And it is indeed delicious, from personal experience.
To my surprise, I noticed a Ukraine-themed poster on the wall of the Manege exhibition hall, near the Red Square. The blue sky and golden wheat fields – the colors of the Ukrainian flag – appear on advertising signs for the large exhibition, now on display at the venue, titled "Ukraine – the End of an Era". The entrance to the hall is surrounded by iron fences, and those wishing to see the exhibition go through very strict security screening.
The exhibition tells the Russian version of the origin of the war, from the Middle Ages to the present. It particularly emphasizes the Ukrainian people's "cooperation" with the Nazis in the 19th century and how many leaders who worked with the Nazis continue to be revered in Ukraine, which is the basis for justifying the war and the need to "de-Nazify" the country.
I tell the Serbian student, who joined me as a guide during the exhibition, that I am from Israel. He lingers with me particularly near the Ukrainian textbooks that glorify the collaborators and show photographs of Ukrainians joyfully welcoming the German occupiers.
According to the guide, there is even a similarity between Russia-Ukraine fighting and Israel's conflict with Hamas.
"It started with their targeted attacks against population concentrations in Russian-speaking parts of eastern Ukraine, to carry out ethnic cleansing, and continued with their use of the Ukrainian population during the war as human shields. They attack from population centers to get the Russians to retaliate and cause civilian casualties so that Russia can be accused of committing war crimes. Like the Palestinians", he claimed.
The last exhibition hall is dedicated to the "war heroes," that is, the Russian soldiers who were killed in Ukraine. The exhibition attracts a fairly large and diverse crowd, including high school students who are brought here in groups. In some of the military museums I visited I saw many young visitors, including children, some of whom came with their parents. It would be a mistake to think that the entire Russian population, or most of it, opposes the war in Ukraine. Yes, there are those who no longer turn on the Russian television, because they no longer want to hear the pro-war government propaganda, but there are also those who consume it regularly.
'Antisemitism is propaganda'
The Jewish community in Russia deliberately refrains from expressing any support for the war and firmly denies the existence of pressure from the government in this matter, or refrains from expressing a critical opinion. However, there are quite a few community members who place the responsibility for the outbreak of the war on the West, and especially on the United States, who in their words pushed Putin into a corner, forcing him to respond in order to protect his country's national interests.
Even in the world of the Jewish community – that according to the latest government population registration conducted in 2010, numbered approximately 156,000 people, but estimates of its actual size range from 80,000 to a quarter of a million, and perhaps even a million according to the Law of Return – there is a clash between the liberal-progressive leftists, who wish to promote their values within the embrace of the Russian society, and the conservative rightists, who see this as an attack on their traditional values.
Moreover, said one of the members wishing to remain anonymous, "some people present Putin as a monster. But they don't ask themselves what will happen after him. Who will take power? Maybe it will be someone more nationalist? Maybe Russia will sink into anarchy like in the 90s? And what if Russia falls apart?
"Does the West even ask these questions? We have already experienced severe economic crises after the communist era. Times when the value of the ruble collapsed in a day and the costs spiked. Crisis and calm, another crisis and another calm, again crisis and again calm. Almost like in Israel. Russian society is quite resistant to external pressures and is not interested in losing the central control that exists today – even if no one knows how and when the war will end."
"Judaism contributed to my life," he said, "it gave me the wisdom to deal with life."
According to him, the pro-Jewish policy of the Russian government, which became very strong under Putin and is reflected in the renewed flourishing of Jewish life in the country, brings many people like him to be interested in religion, and through them, other relatives also find their closeness to Judaism. The administration, he emphasizes, also strengthens other religious communities, including Islam.
Not far from the Jewish center in the Maryina Roshcha neighborhood, in the northern part of the capital, is located the Moscow Cathedral Mosque – Russia's main mosque, which was inaugurated in 2015 in the presence of Putin, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas. It can house as many as 10,000 worshippers, and unlike in Western Europe, Jews do not report attacks by local Muslims.
"The emphasis in Russia on religious identity stands in complete contrast to the situation in Western Europe," he said, "where traditional values are not adhered to, and look at their situation. President Putin maintains good ties with religious leaders. In his eyes, traditional values are a good basis for the country. We maintain these values, while in Europe they are being erased. In Europe and the US, they want to make Russia similar to them. It doesn't suit our character. We oppose this culture and do not want it here."
Ilya also believes that the US administration aims for a conflict between Russia and the countries it is friendly with, including Ukraine. "Most of the people here have relatives in Ukraine," he said. "I was born in Moscow, but my father came from Ukraine, and every summer we used to vacation there. We never felt like it was a foreign country. We need to end this war as soon as possible, and do everything for it to end."
When asked whether he, a Jew who wears a kippah in public, has ever been targeted, Ilya said, "Not at all. Neither did my children feel any change since the outbreak of the war, I asked them. All these stories about the rise of antisemitism in Russia is propaganda."
Helping Ukrainian refugees
In contrast to Moscow, in the city of Rostov in southern Russia – about 650 kilometers (400 miles) from the border with Ukraine – the war is well felt. The airport in the city was closed, fearing that planes would fall into the range of fire between the armies.
The local Jewish community, with its 15 thousand members, took in hundreds of Jewish refugees who came from the Donbas region and most of them continued on – to Israel, to Germany, but also quite a few members of the community of Rostov left the city and Russia.
And yet, the positive change in the situation of Russian Jews is evidenced by the story of the local Soldier Synagogue, which was established in the second half of the 19th century. Then-emperor of Russia Nicholas I instituted anti-jewish policies designed to bring about assimilation to reduce the number of the country's Jews.
"He passed, among other things, a law that allowed Jewish children to be taken from their families, re-educated in order to keep them away from Judaism and enlist them in the ranks of the Russian army for 25 years of mandatory service," Rabbi of the Soldier Synagogue Menachem Danziger said. "When some of the soldiers returned to Rostov at the end of their military service, they didn't know much about Judaism and didn't feel comfortable in the existing synagogues, so they built their own synagogue, hence its name."
Today, religious Jews can obtain an exemption from military service in Russia.
"I don't know of anyone from our community who is currently being drafted into the army," Danziger, who was born in Canada, said. "It is also difficult to estimate how many Jews have left Rostov since the beginning of the conflict in Ukraine. This is undoubtedly a difficult time. People are full of worries about their future. The young men, aged 25-30, are the most worried. Quite a few Jews from Rostov traveled to Israel to obtain citizenship and returned here. Most of the community members remained, either because they have no possibility of leaving for other places, or because they are connected to Rostov. The Jews here are strong people. They hope that the situation will improve.
"Our main problem is a significant drop in donations, which allow us to provide services to community members and refugees. Some of our major donors are now on the Western sanctions list. Others are directing their donations to efforts to help communities in Ukraine.
He continued, "But Russian Jews are also suffering. There are many – old people, and families with many children – who need food, medicine, and health care. People have lost their sources of income. About 40% of our community members need immediate support. In 2022, no Jew should be hungry. We started cooking hot meals in the synagogue and sending them to the homes of the needy.
"I am very proud of my community, that during these difficult times, instead of closing in on itself and its problems, it did everything it could to help the Jewish refugees from Donbas – finding places to live, providing regular food, providing medical treatments. It was heartbreaking to hear what those refugees, some of them survivors Holocaust, went through. There are currently 50 refugees we care for. They usually arrive here with nothing – no money, no documents. There are places in Russia where people don't want to hear about refugees. We do not treat them as refugees, but as friends, and family. We want peace, pray for peace, and hope it comes as soon as possible."
Rostov is the burial place of the fifth Rebbe of the Chabad Lubavitch Chasidic movement, Sholom Dovber Schneersohn, who was deported to the city toward the end of WWI, and made it into the "capital of Chabad" for several years before passing away.
A decision by Schneersohn at the time to move a large collection of Torah books – a collection of about 12,00 – to storage in Moscow is currently the reason for a legal war in Russia, as members of Chabad are trying to regain the books that were seized and transferred to the Russian State Library (then Lenin Library) with the outbreak of the Bolshevik revolution.
After the fall of the USSR, efforts to transfer the collection to a Chabad library in the US were unsuccessful, despite court rulings on the matter. The government in Russia treats the collection as a "national treasure", and as a compromise decision to transfer a large part of it to the Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center in Moscow, which is a branch of the Russian State Library.
This museum, one of the most popular in the capital, was established exactly a decade ago by some of the leaders of Chabad in Russia, so apparently, the collection was handed over by Chabad.
But Lubavitchers in the US are not happy with the compromise and have filed a lawsuit against the Russian government in the Jerusalem District Court, in an attempt to seize Russian assets in Israel and thereby oblige the Russian government to respect a US court ruling in favor of transferring the collection from Russia.
As part of the celebration of the museum's ten year anniversary – which was held modestly due to the war – the most important books in the collection were presented to the general public, myself included.
The Chabad community in Moscow does not rule out that the potential continuation of the legal fight over the collection could contribute to the creation of an antisemitic atmosphere in Russia, nor do they rule out that this was the background to a document authored by a senior member of the Security Council of Russia dubbed Chabad a "supremacist cult."
The Russian government went out of its way to calm the storm that erupted following the remark. In the report of the antisemitic incidents of the Federal Agency for Ethnic Affairs, it appears among the five most serious antisemitic incidents recorded since the beginning of 2022 and which came to the knowledge of the general public.
"Since the beginning of the year, only 32 antisemitic incidents have been recorded, almost all of them on the Internet," said Oleg Sirutin, one of the agency's senior officials, "We have been monitoring antisemitic incidents since 2017. At a recent conference against antisemitism held by the Russian Jewish Congress, other statistics emerged regarding the dimensions of the phenomenon from Jewish organizations that carry out their own monitoring. Thirty-two events in a country as gigantic as Russia is very few. Unfortunately, other population groups face much greater hostility, especially Central Asian immigrants and refugees. Therefore, we are sure that there is no significant antisemitism problem in Russia."
Youth
At the "Mir Intellekta" Jewish school I meet with a group of teenage boys and girls to hear their take on antisemitism in Russia and their plans for the future in the shadow of the war. Nicole is 14 years old, Aryeh Leib is 16, Yefim is 15, Yaakov recently celebrated his bar mitzvah and Lior is also 16 years old and had returned with his father to Moscow from Israel last summer.
All of them were born in Moscow, all of them have not encountered antisemitic phenomena in their lives – even when they are with their non-Jewish friends, and most of them do not intend, as of now, to immigrate to Israel – for various reasons: the differences in mentality, the high cost of living in Israel and the strong personal connection to Russia.
Lior, who lived for a long time in Israel, is the only one who seriously thinks about serving in the IDF and living in the Jewish state.
Aryeh Leib, however, does not plan to enlist.
"Military service in Russia will not be a problem for me because I am religious, because I keep Shabbat and tradition I will not be drafted, which is good because I am a pacifist. I also don't feel that I should serve in the IDF," he said.
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As for Yafim, he said, "Maybe I will immigrate to Israel in ten years. First, I want to get a good education here in Russia, go to university, and travel around the world."
According to Lior, "It's easier to be a Jew here than in Israel. In Israel, it's more difficult to keep the tradition. Here people go to the synagogue, and pray. Although in Israel I felt freer as a Jew. Here you can't walk around wearing a kippah outside the synagogue."
Aryeh Leib added, "I have never felt discriminated against here in Moscow as a Jew. It's a multicultural city. People do not treat others' origin or religion in a special way."
Nicole concurred, saying that "non-Jews are greatly interested in Judaism."
And Yaakov, the youngest of the group, who does not think about moving to Israel at all, says he has never encountered antisemitism. Everyone agrees that the war in Ukraine has so far not caused any change in their lives. All of them also share the desire to see a quick end to the war, as far away and without impact on their lives as it is.
