FSU Monitor this week outlines a complex dispute between Russian authorities and one of Moscow's two competing Chief Rabbis, Pinchas Goldschmidt. In September, an immigration officer refused to readmit Goldschmidt to the country after he returned from a trip to Israel. No one is quite sure who pressed for this to happened. One theory focuses on Vladimir Slutsker, a banker and engineering tycoon who had been president of the Russian Jewish Congress. Slutsker is in a real estate dispute with Rabbi Goldschmidt.
Another theory is that Rabbi Berl Lazar who represents the Lubavitch-Chabad movement in Russia, and who is the competing Chief Rabbi, was involved. The U.S. State Department and the foreign ministries of both Israel and Switzerland have become involved in lobbying Russia on Goldschmidt's behalf. In early November, the Internal Affairs Ministry informed Goldschmidt that he had been deemed a threat to national security. However by the end of November, he was invited to re-apply for a visa. On December 2, Goldschmidt received word that a new one-month visa had been approved.
