Adolf Shayevich

Adolf Solomonovich Shayevich^[a] (Russian: Адольф Соломонович Шаевич; born 28 October 1937)^[1] is a Soviet and Russian Orthodox rabbi who has been the rabbi of the Moscow Choral Synagogue since 1983, which is traditionally regarded as Moscow's main Jewish house of prayer.^[2]

During the waning days of the Soviet Union, Shayevich was sometimes unofficially referred to in the West as the "Soviet Union's Chief Rabbi".^[3][4] Shayevich presently holds the position of the Chief Rabbi of Russia representing the Russian Jewish Congress, one of the two major Jewish organization in Russia (of which he also is a member of the presidium).^[1] His claim to this title is not universally recognized, however, as the country's other major Jewish organization, Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia, which has been supported by Russia's political leadership since 2000, has its own Chief Rabbi of Russia, Berel Lazar, an adherent of Chabad.^[5] While the Russian Federation is a secular state, the federal government has referred to both Lazar^[5] and Shayevich as the "Chief Rabbi of Russia".^[6]

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