By FrumNews.com

In a disturbing video, a YouTuber is claiming that Russia’s Chief Rabbi and Chabad Head Shliach is Putin’s middleman in an Israeli conspiracy. 

YouTuber Roman Albertovich Abalin, who goes by his screen name NFKRZ, published a video to his millions of followers on the relationship between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Claiming that they are allies, despite Putin supporting Israel’s enemies—Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas—for decades. (The Israel-Russia relationship has been more transactional than friendly, as millions of Russian citizens live in Israel.)

In the video, NFKRZ tries to frame the Chief Rabbi as Putin’s middleman to Israel by correlating Putin’s rise to power and Rabbi Lazar’s appointment as Chief Rabbi around 2000, despite Lazar’s entry into Russia in 1990, when Putin was still operating as a KGB officer in Berlin. 

Rabbi Berel Lazar first arrived in Moscow in 1990—before the dissolution of the Soviet Union—as the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s Shliach to rejuvenate Yiddishkeit in Russia. Since then, as the Chief Rabbi, the Jewish community in Russia has flourished. Jews who hid their identity under the Soviets have openly celebrated Yiddishkeit at the grand Shuls of Russia, which was unimaginable 40 years ago. 

Since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, Rabbi Lazar has had to walk a fine line, as Chabad doesn’t endorse any government action, domestic or foreign. 

NFKRZ frames Rabbi Lazar’s refusal to condemn Putin, which would put Russian Jewry in danger and his public support for Eretz Yisroel’s right to exist, like any Lubavitcher Shliach, as part of a conspiracy between Russia, Chabad and Israel, that started with the Ukraine war. 

“We don’t get into the question of who is right and who is wrong,” Rabbi Lazar said as the war started. “It’s not our place to judge – that’s not what we’re here for.” 

Abalin uses Rabbi Lazar to argue that he is in Putin’s inner circle so deeply, that Putin must be connected to Zionism and Israel, contrary to the image of an “anti-Zionist leader projected by some.” (In reality, Putin plays both sides against each other as he often does, one day he will threaten Israel and support Hamas, and another day he attacks Hamas). 

The YouTuber also claims that Rabbi Lazar and the Shluchim have supported Putin’s war effort, and even pushed his propaganda, despite two facts: 1. Chabad, an NGO, doesn’t support any governments. 2. He and Chabad of Russia called out for peace at the start of the Russo-Ukrainian War. 

“Peace is one of the names of G-d,” wrote Rabbi Lazar in a letter released at the start of the war, “whom we pray to every day to give peace between man and fellow, and between the different nations, and that is also what we want. And we will do everything in our power to enable everyone to live together in peace.”

NFKRZ also claimed that the Chief Rabbi is a “supporter” of Putin, which is false, as he or Chabad of Russia has not made any public endorsement beyond some nice comments. The Shluchim have only pushed for the interests of the Jewish community. The relationship between Putin and Chabad has not been a secret conspiracy, as he claims.  

Run Away!

Abalin also quoted Rabbi Lazar as saying that he is happy that “not a single rabbi has left Russia,” despite the war, as a sign of support for it. But this misses the point, Chabad doesn’t abandon their communities! (The mentality of Chabad is that they will not abandon their place of Shlichus until the arrival of Moshiach or if they ch”v cannot operate in their place of Shlichus.)   

“Packing up and running away would probably be the last option to cross our minds.” Elchanan Poupko wrote on the subject in the Times of Israel. “None of us demand Rabbi Yehuda Gerami, the Chief Rabbi of Iran, abandon his community, nor did any British Jews judge German rabbis for not protesting in Berlin during WWI.”

These claims miss the fact that Chabad operates in about 100 countries, under many types of governments—China, Russia, the US, or Belgium. Yet Chabad has never endorsed a single government. 

This is not the first time someone has made the correlation. After Trump won the 2016 election, Politico alleged that Chabad helped Russia interfere in the election by connecting the Trump family and Putin. Haaretz ludicrously alleged that Russia has a “Chabad’s Long Faustian Bargain With Russia and Putin.”

“Defamatory revisionist history propagated against Chabad in outlets ranging from Politico to Ha’aretz has led this false charge against Chabad for their crime of remaining in Russia and servicing more than 175,000 Russian Jews,” Poupko wrote. “We cannot conflate servicing local Jewish communities with the actions of foreign governments.”

These comments, whether it be a YouTuber or a reporter, echo loudly as Jews for centuries have been positioned as if they have dual allegiances, whether it be Israel today, France during the Crusades, or Rome at the time of Churban Beis Sheini. It’s not that we are here and now, it’s that our communities, be it Russia, China, or Belgium, are attacked for existing where we find ourselves.