When Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt and his wife Dara set out for a one-year trial in Moscow’s rabbinate they saw it as an adventure.
Childhood experiences and teenage encounters often form a chain leading a person to his destiny. Such has been the case with Moscow’s chief rabbi.
Pinchas Goldschmidt was eight years old when he first heard of Moscow. A neighbor with a television set invited a few families to watch “secret footage” of Chazan Alexandrovich sing from behind the Iron Curtain. The young Pinchas was mesmerized by the haunting medley the song of a trapped people rising forth from between the stately pillars of Moscow’s Archipova Synagogue.
Much later armed with little more than optimism energy and a supportive wife he would release the chazzan’s song building a kehillah for Soviet Jewry that would ring out throughout the world.
A Person Can Adapt
Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt has executive qualities. An impeccably dressed placid man who chooses his words carefully he is also an expert listener one of those people who seem to grasp immediately whatever he’s told.
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