Moshe Reuven Azman

Moshe Reuven Azman is the Chief Rabbi of Ukraine following an election for the position in 2005.^{[not verified in body]}

Biography[]

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Schneersohn family Chaim S. Z. of Liadi (1814–1880) Yitzchak Dovber of Liadi (1833–1910) Chana Schneerson (1880–1964) Chaya M. Schneersohn (d. 1860) Chaya M. Schneerson (1901–1988) Levi Y. Schneerson (1878–1944) Moshe Schneersohn (ca. 1784–before 1853) Sheina Horenstein (d. 1942) Shlomo Zalman Schneersohn (1830–1900) Shmaryahu Noah Schneersohn (1842–1924) Yehuda Leib Schneersohn (1808–1866)
Rabbonim Avraham Osdoba Chaim Gutnick Mordechai Ashkenazi Mordechai Gutnick Moshe Gutnick Pinhas Hirschprung Shneur Z. Fradkin Yaakov Schwei Yehuda K. Marlow Abraham Hecht Yitzchak Hendel Yosef Heller Yosef Y. Braun Zalman Dworkin Zelig Sharfstein Shmuel L. Medalia Shmarya Y. L. Medalia Sholom Rivkin
Mashpiim and scholars Aaron of Staroselye Shmuley Boteach Herman Branover Yehuda Chitrik Levi Cooper Manis Friedman Mendel Futerfas Yitzchak Ginsburgh Menachem Z. Greenglass Moshe Gutnick Moshe Havlin Zalman M. HaYitzchaki Aizel Homiler Simon Jacobson Yisroel Jacobson Yosef Y. Jacobson Yoel Kahn Abraham Y. Khein Yehoshua Mondshine Avraham C. Naeh Nissan Neminov Hillel Paritcher Ezra Schochet Adin Steinsaltz Shais Taub Sholom Dov Wolpo Shlomo Y. Zevin
Mazkirus and other leaders Leib Groner Jacob J. Hecht Chaim M. A. Hodakov Yehuda Krinsky Nissan Mindel Dovid Raskin Abraham Shemtov
Shluchim Moshe R. Azman Shmuley Boteach Menachem Brod Azriel Chaikin Shlomo Cunin Pinchus Feldman Gershon Garelik Yitzchok D. Groner Hanoch Hecht Gavriel Holtzberg Berel Lazar Shimon Lazaroff Sholom Lipskar David Masinter Yitzchok Moully Zalman I. Posner Menachem S. D. Raichik Aaron Raskin Arie Z. Raskin Shlomo Sawilowsky Mordechai Scheiner Abraham Shemtov Levi Shemtov Yehudah Teichtal Simcha Weinstein
Other notable figures Avraham Fried Benny Friedman Aharon Gurevich Joseph Gutnick Moshe Hecht Shea Hecht Bernard Levy Hendel Lieberman Michoel Muchnik Mendy Pellin Zvi Yair
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Azman's mother's family was Chabad, his father's Litvish. He is married to the daughter of Zusya Hirsh Lyubarsky, a shochet from Kharkiv. Azman was active in the refusenik movement since his youth and received ordination as a shochet (ritual slaughterer) when he was 18. In 1982, the central communist newspaper Pravda, reporting on Jewish refusenik activities in Leningrad, referred to him as "An enemy of Soviet Power." In 1987, he received permission from the Soviet government to leave the USSR and studied in Chabad yeshivas in Israel. He was appointed head of "Beit Chabad for Russian Jews" in Israel during the Russian aliyah of 1991, helping Russian-Jewish immigrants adjust to Israel life in Israel and reconnect to Judaism. Azman was also charged with bringing Ukrainian-Jewish children of Chernobyl to Israel and overseeing their medical and psychological rehabilitation.

In 1995, Azman returned to Kyiv^{[further explanation needed]} and began a synagogue in one of the rooms of the grand Brodsky Choral Synagogue in the center of the city, which had been turned into a puppet theater during the Soviet period. There he worked to rebuild Kyiv's Jewish community, which grew until the Kyiv government granted the entire synagogue to the Jewish community. Azman went on to found several communal soup kitchens, a chevra kadisha (burial service), 1 kindergarten, 1 school, an orphanage, and many other charitable and educational institutions throughout Ukraine. He also rehabilitated Kyiv's Jewish cemetery and has created a medical center where poor families receive free medical care by volunteer doctors. In 2001 Azman was officially awarded with the Badge of Honor by the Mayor of Kyiv, and in 2009 was awarded the Order of Merit of by the Ukrainian government.

In October 2005, Azman was elected as chief Rabbi of Ukraine by the delegates of the All-Ukrainian Jewish Congress and the United Jewish Community of Ukraine, both headed by wealthy Ukrainian-Jewish businessmen. His election caused considerable controversy in the Ukraine Chabad community,

Many Jews and the government of Ukraine still considered the chief Rabbi of Ukraine to be Yaakov Bleich.^{[1][2][failed verification][verification needed]}

A group of rabbis from the Chabad Federation of Jewish Communities, headed by government Chief Rabbi Berel Lazar of Russia, attacked the appointment describing it as "illegitimate" and "insulting to the feelings of every believer".^[3] 150 secular Jewish leaders sympathetic to the Federation later protested the vote as well.^[3] However, Azman has a large following in Kyiv and has spearheaded several non-partisan projects for the advancement of orthodox Judaism across the country.

Azman served in the IDF starting 1990 and has been present to care for soldiers during every war in Israel since then. Since 2012 he serves as the Rav of an elite Gdud in the Israeli army reserves. He has been at the forefront of efforts to aid East-Ukrainian refugees in Kyiv and Ukraine and at the beginning of the war in Donbass in 2014 led efforts to evacuate wounded people to hospitals in Israel and the West of the country. He is the founder of the project to resettle homeless Jewish refugees, due to the Russian military intervention in Ukraine, outside Kyiv in the village of Anatevka.^[4][5]

References[]