Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt said this after gunmen killed 19 people in southern Russia's predominantly Muslim republic of Dagestan in attacks on churches, synagogues and clashes with police.
"In recent years, the Russian authorities have used law enforcement to crack down on any kind of opposition to the Kremlin, opposition to the war, and any movements such as the LGBT community that have been declared extremist. People are sent to prison for criticizing the war,'' Goldschmidt said in a video interview from Berlin.
"So instead of using law enforcement, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the FSS (Federal Security Service) to ensure the safety of Russian citizens, they are being used to root out any opposition to the regime. And here we see the results of that, and they are that such terrorists as "Islamic State" again and again they are able to carry out successful attacks against places of worship, against cultural events," he added.
Investigators have not yet determined who is behind yesterday's attack, but "Islamic State" has a permanent presence in the North Caucasus, which includes Dagestan, notes Reuters.
Simultaneous, coordinated attacks by gunmen who are prepared to die in pre-planned attacks are a hallmark of the Islamist terror group, which claimed responsibility for the mass killing of 145 people attending a concert on the outskirts of Moscow in March.
"The most likely perpetrator is the "Islamic State," said Ricardo Valle, an expert on the group, in connection with yesterday's attacks. "Islamic State" has the means and the capabilities and also has a strong base in the region," he told Reuters.
The Kremlin said President Vladimir Putin expressed his deep condolences over the attacks, but did not comment on who was to blame or why authorities failed to prevent the attack.
Goldschmidt condemned the attack and said he was praying for the dead, among whom was an Orthodox priest, as well as for their families. He stated that two synagogues appeared to have been attacked - in the cities of Makhachkala and Derbent. Both were empty in the bombings.
In Derbent, a security guard was killed in front of the synagogue, and the attackers tried to set it on fire, Goldschmidt said.
The rabbi said the attacks marked a "continuation of the very active anti-Semitism" that the region witnessed in October last year, shortly after the start of the Gaza war, when a crowd of people waving Palestinian flags rioted and stormed Makhachkala International Airport to lynch Jewish passengers on a flight arriving from Tel Aviv.
Only a few thousand Jews live in Dagestan, descendants of the so-called Mountain Jews who have inhabited the area for over 2,000 years, notes Goldschmidt. Most of them left the Russian republic after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, and after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, there was a new wave of emigration, he added. He specified that the attitude towards Jews in Russia has worsened as a result of the wars in Ukraine and Gaza. Among other factors, he cited repeated Russian insults against Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's Jewish background.
Goldschmidt, who is president of the Conference of European Rabbis, says that when he first arrived in Russia in 1989, there were one million Jews in Moscow alone, but now there are no more than 100,000 in the entire country. .
He himself left Russia shortly after the start of the war in Ukraine and is encouraging more Jews to follow his example rather than stay in what he calls a "semi-totalitarian" country, Reuters notes.
"Tens of thousands of Jews left, and I'm glad they did," Goldschmidt said. "We are worried about all those who are still there," he added.