CER Standing Committee Meets in Moscow

Moscow - 1-Dec-09

Senior CER rabbis Dayan Menachem Gelley and Chief Rabbi Arye Ralbag sign certificates of semicha during the CER Standing Committee meeting in Moscow © www.creativejew.com

The Standing Committee of the Conference of European Rabbis held a three-day meeting in Moscow this week marking 20 years of the accession of its Chairman, Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, as Chief Rabbi of Moscow.

At a celebratory Hag HaSemicha held at the Moscow Choral Synagogue, CER rabbis presented rabbinical diplomas to eight Russian rabbinical students of Yeshivat Torat Chayim in Moscow under the leadership of CER Rabbinical Director, Rabbi Moshe Lebel. The students will now go on to serve Jewish communities across the Russian Federation.

Leading rabbis from France, Germany, Italy, Poland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, Ukraine, Russia and Britain attended the three-day meeting, discussing key items affecting Europe’s Jewish communities.

Meetings were held with Senator Sergei Mironov, President of the Russian Senate, while Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov came to the Choral Synagogue to bring greetings to the rabbis.

Senior advisor to the President of the European Parliament Jerzy Buzek, Fearghas O’Beara, presented a detailed description of the EU’s new Lisbon treaty and its effect on religious groups while reading out a letter of greeting from Mr Buzek.

A senior delegation of CER rabbis also held talks with H. H. Kyril, Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, at which relations between the Jewish and Christian communities in Russia were discussed.