Up to 90 percent of Jews ‘could leave Russia and Ukraine’

Researchers have said that the war between Russia and Ukraine has led to “signs of a Jewish exodus” from both countries.

Statisticians at the Institute for Jewish Policy Research (JPR) say that, on current trends, up to 90 percent of their Jewish populations will have disappeared by 2030.

It comes as Pinchas Goldschmidt, Moscow’s former chief rabbi, was branded a “foreign agent” by the Russian security forces in a designation announced on Saturday. It was greeted with contempt by Goldschmidt, who now lives in Israel.

“Russia has turned for the worse,” he said. “This is the first time since the beginning of the war that a religious leader has been declared a foreign agent and defined by the Russian government as a hostile threat.

“It’s very likely that this will mean the start of a new antisemitic campaign against the Jewish community in Russia. I’ve previously called on the local Jewish community to leave the country before it’s too late.”

A huge wave of Jewish immigration followed the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the collapse of communism in Soviet satellites. On average, 16,000 to 20,000 Jewish migrants came to Israel from each of Russia and Ukraine per year between 1995-2003.

By the early 2000s, this wave of migration had exhausted itself, dwindling to about 3,500 Jews making aliyah per year from Russia between 2003-13, and about 2,000 per year from Ukraine over the same period.

However, “new political developments over the last eight years have clearly manifested themselves in patterns of migration,” said JPR author Daniel Staetsky, referencing Russia’s annexation of Crimea and areas of the Donbas in 2014.

“In Ukraine, the number of Jewish migrants in 2014 was three times the number in 2013. A further rise, with migration figures stabilising at this new, higher level, was observed in later years,” he said. In Russia, a similar rise in migration took place.

“Given the timing and the sharpness of this increase in Jewish migration, it can be unambiguously linked to the start of Russo-Ukrainian hostilities and, more particularly, to the annexation of Crimea by Russia.

“The upward trend in Jewish migration from Russia from 2014-21 is a specific response to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, rather than to internal Russian developments in political stability.”