President Vladimir Putin will confer a state award on a Chabad Rabbi for helping stop a young man who burst into a Moscow Shul in January 2006 and stabbed nine people, as reported on Yeshivaworld. Putin awarded the Badge of Honor order to Rabbi Yitzhak Kogan.
The Rabbis son, Yosef, a student at the school who wrestled the attacker, is also due to receive an award from the Russian President.
Kogan jumped at Alexander Koptsev, at that time 20 years old, after the latter ran amok with a knife in the Shul on Bolshaya Bronnaya Street in central Moscow and helped seize him.
In September last year, the Moscow City Court sentenced Koptsev to 16 years of high-security imprisonment on charges of attempted murder and incitement of ethnic hatred and ordered compulsory psychiatric treatment for him.
(Source: FJC)
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9 Responses
I have long suspected that Putin respects and likes religious people. He is very close to Moscow Chief Rabbi Beryl Lazar.
Unbelievable! And this from the person who expelled a dozen Chabad bachurim from Moscow because of their kiruv activities!
This would have been unheard of in recent Russian history,under the communists or czars.
The Rabbi, Rabbi Kogen also happens to be someone who was moiser nefesh to stay frum through all the years in Russia. He never left until after the fall of communisim while staying fest frum all along. I saw him on my last trip to Russia and he is in his seventys and built like an ox!! As is his teenage son (the yeshiva bochur).
Actually, the person Putin Just nominated to replace him as his Presidential Succesor (Mr. Medvedev) is Jewish. He is definately not an anti semite, but he is rabidly Anti Israel.
Putin is better than communist times, but he is putting millions of Jews in Israel in danger by supporting Iran.
Shturem, I don’t know where you got that information, but wikipedia lists him as an orthodox christian.
jlq3d3
read the following
Groups in Russia disappointed with Putin’s choice to succeed him because he’s a Jew.
Shturem.net
Earlier this week we reported that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s announcement that he supports Dmitry Medevdev as his successor will surely lead to his election. The president’s popularity and steely control is so strong that most observers expect that whomever he supports would be a shoo-in.
Today Israel’s daily maariv reported that anti semitic groups in Russia have expressed disappointment with Putin’s candidate soley becuase he is a Jew. Medvedev’s mother Julia is reportedly Jewish. According to Jewish Law it is the mother – not the father – who determines whether the child is Jewish or not.
The groups opposing Medvedev because he is Jewish note that Medvedev received the support of Russia’s Chief Rabbi Berel Lazar who is head of the Federation of Jewish Communities whose President is diamond mogul Mr. Lev Leviev.
Meanwhile, Medvedev said that, if elected, he would ask Mr Putin to take the post of prime minister as a way of ensuring continuity. “I find it extremely important for our country to keep Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin in the most important position in executive power, in the post of chairman of the government of Russia.”
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בתוך כך מדווחת גם סוכנות הידיעות היהודית הגדולה JTA, בכותרת הראשית, על קשריו המצויינים של המועמד לנשיאות עם הקהילה היהודית ועם הרב הראשי לרוסיה הרב בערל לאזאר.
Deepthinker – Putin likes religious people? Whom – the religious (murderous) regime in Iran he is supporting with nuclear aid??
Mazal Tov, Rav Kogan Shlita, may you keep up the great work. May Hashem give you, your family and Kehilla, much continued hatzlacha.
Everyone who lives here or visits knows that your Shul building also houses the best restaurant in the country! (no offense to all the other great eateries here)
In reference to future presidents, first of all, it is not the topic of this article. Secondly, as they say in Israel, what you see from here is not what you see from there. Siyug l’chachma shtika.