On March 27, 2026, Rabbi Alexander Boroda, the president of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia, publicly supported European Jews who are being targets of hate and stated that "Defense of Jews against antisemitism is greater than in other European countries." This statement did not arise in isolation and without context. In the European Union, political passivity is blatant in the face of demonstrations that incite the death of Israel, or newspaper reports that publish lists of Jewish businessmen, or attempts to poison Israeli Jews at music festivals. In the Russian Federation, the demonstrators who caused riots at the Dagestan airport each received 9-year prison sentences, and the authorities of that Russian republic were all immediately replaced for failing to foresee and prevent that event. Shortly after the riots, three years ago, Boroda reacted to the storming of that airport by stating that anti-Israel sentiment had transformed into "open aggression towards Russian Jews".
Russian political peace in relation to the Jewish community has been achieved over two decades thanks to the permanent coordination of Alexander Boroda, the leaders of other religions, and the political authorities of the Federation. Any behavioral deviation on the part of public officials has been immediately condemned in public by the president of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia.
In 2022, Rabbi Boroda condemned the statement of Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, stating "In connection with the current information situation around Mr Lavrov's passage about Hitler's possible Jewish roots, we consider it necessary to call for an end to appealing to the national origin of opponents". Earlier, Lavrov said that Adolf Hitler also had "Jewish blood", and that "the most ardent antisemites" are usually Jews.
Together with Russia’s Chief Rabbi Berel Lazar, Boroda also called on the Kremlin to denounce a top official’s “vulgar” antisemitism, saying it posed a “huge danger” to the Jewish community in the country. The call to condemn Alexei Pavlov, assistant secretary of Russia’s Security Council, came in response to an article (Russian) he wrote claiming that “neo-pagan cults,” including the Chabad movement, had taken over Ukraine. Pavlov added that Chabad’s guiding principle was to enshrine its superiority “above all nations and peoples,” and therefore it had become “increasingly urgent to carry out the de-satanization of Ukraine.” It was “an insult to millions of Jewish believers, including the vast majority of Jews in Russia”, claimed the chief rabbis of Russia before Pavlov was dismissed.
Months earlier, Alexander Boroda condemned two State Duma deputies, stating "the words of Vladimir Zhirinovsky and Vyacheslav Lysakov are not just xenophobic attacks, but tools with which some politicians broadcast an invented image of a hostile and negative reality in Russian society". Earlier in his speech, Zhirinovsky accused Jews of inciting antisemitism, and Lysakov spoke unflatteringly about the singer Manizha, emphasizing her nationality.
Besides, the president of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia called on Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko “not to lose touch with the people, to be more open to all sectors of society”, and also wished Lukashenko “not to walk around with a machine gun, but to communicate more with the Belarusian people”.
Alexander Boroda's constant vigilance over the Russian authorities is nothing new. In 2017, he condemned antisemitic the words of the State Duma Vice Speaker, Pyotr Tolstoy, who, commenting on the protests against the transfer of Saint Isaac's Cathedral to the Russian Orthodox Church, stated that the protests were being carried out by "the descendants of those who destroyed Orthodox churches" who "jumped out from behind the Pale of Settlement". He called on the leadership of the State Duma and the United Russia party to give them a proper assessment. In addition, commenting on Tolstoy's statements, Boroda noted that his words "are an old and false, like all similar stories, antisemitic myth, and its falsity is obvious to any more or less educated person." Boroda emphasized that the bulk of those who destroyed churches were locals, "the same workers and peasants, and not the mythical "those who jumped out from behind the Pale of Settlement with revolvers".
Boroda became known in Portugal
It was the year 2022. The socialist government, other mainstream political parties, newspapers, television channels, and influencers were all very enthusiastic about kicking the Jewish community. They all raised their voices against the Jews of Porto, whom they called "non-professing," and against a Jewish leader of Chabad Lubavitch, whom they disparagingly called "Putin's Rabbi." They claimed that he had fraudulently certified Leiva da Rocha's Sephardic origins and that for this reason the Sephardic law was a "mess" and "had to end," adding the delightful detail that Alexander Boroda himself "had tried to obtain the valuable passport that would give him easier entry into the United States."
After the fiction, the facts
Alexander Boroda is a US citizen and retains the surname that appears on lists of Jews of Iberian Sephardic origin, usually with the variant Broda. Of ancestors from the former Ottoman Empire, and the son of Ukrainian engineers, Alexander Boroda was born in the area of the Marina Rocha synagogue, to which he has always been dedicated.
The ease, contempt, and total disregard with which Portuguese elites dared to speak of Rabbi Alexander Boroda surprised even the most pessimistic. Apparently, they considered him ignorant of Jewish history and only motivated by money. However, at that time, much material was already available in open sources that critics could consult to stop talking nonsense, if that was their intention, which it never was.
Boroda's alleged "lack of culture" regarding Jewish matters
In the 1990´s, Jews were able to live in Russia again. The Soviets had destroyed a community of millions, but now Chabad Lubavitch had arrived in force in the former homeland of socialism. At the time, Rabbi Alexander Boroda worked for the Lechaim magazine and headed the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia Public Relations Department. Under Alexander Boroda's leadership, the construction of the Moscow Jewish Community Center, the largest in Eastern Europe, began. which was completed in 2000. Later, the Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center was opened in Moscow, with Boroda as its founder and director. In November 2016, he was invited to Paris, where at UNESCO headquarters the Museum received the Madanjeet Singh Prize. Also the Zhukovka Jewish Cultural and Religious Center was opened under his leadership, and in 2018 it was awarded the international architectural prize The International Property Awards.
The culture of the Russian Jewish community – today numbering 600,000 people, according to estimates by its leaders – owes much to Alexander Boroda, who is a specialist in Jewish history. He was the president of the regional Public Foundation for the Development of Jewish Culture, dealing with the problems of developing Jewish life on a Moscow scale. The foundation was one of the first in Russia to launch broad charitable activities: first of all, extensive monthly regional programs for low-income families, cultural and educational work, educational programs and seminars, and monthly charity concerts. Boroda worked as the director of the "Ezra" regional public foundation, he is a member of the Public Council of the Moscow Jewish Film Festival, as well as a member of the expert group on improving legislation in the field of freedom of conscience and religious associations and a member of the expert council of the State Duma Committee on the Development of Civil Society, Issues of Public and Religious Associations.
The alleged fraudulent certification of Leiva da Rocha
“Rabbi of Putin certifies Roman Abramovich,” and “Leader of the Federation of Russian Jewish Communities certifies the oligarch who sponsors it,” were some of the cruel headlines in Portuguese news in 2022. The government had already created the regulation that would practically destroy the legislation and the news came at a convenient time.
As for the certification of the multimillionaire – whom the Jewish Community of Porto prefers to call “Abel Benjamin Rocha da Leiva Leja Rosa Abramovich” – the situation has apparently been reversed. What the Portuguese power system once sold to the Portuguese population – 10 million people – as a “case of corruption within a Jewish community” may turn into a case of corruption of the Portuguese state, considering that Israeli security believes that isolated Jews do not deserve to be subjected to “Palestinian issues” and forever linked to the old antisemitic myths of money and the sale of their homeland, much less if the persecution can be classified as “terrorism,” given the ideology that guided it and its sources of funding. The police operation that became famous for raiding a synagogue and a Jewish museum in Porto apparently stemmed from the “alarm” caused by those who were moved by that “Palestinian issue” and who now hide in fear behind the convenient refrain “To Justice what is Justice’s.” The community promises that this will not go unpunished and it claims that it gave an opinion in good faith, that the Register Office gave an opinion in good faith, and that the government decided in good faith, so the case is closed.
The alleged fraudulent certification of Alexander Boroda himself
When the Chief Rabbi of Russia, Berel Lazar, formally attested to Alexander Boroda's Sephardic origin, he did not act lightly. The great rabbi, of Italian (where he was born), American (headquarters of the Chabad movement), and Russian (where he has lived since the 1990s) nationalities, knew his colleague well and did not need Portuguese ignoramuses to tell him what his opinion should be.
In 2004, the American Jewish Library Association awarded the "Best Reference Book Award" to the "Sephardic Dictionary of Surnames," by Guilherme Faiguenboim, Paulo Valadares, and Anna Rosa Campagnano, making this 528-page bilingual (Portuguese and English) work a reference for the study of Jewish genealogy of Sephardic communities throughout history. Based on primary sources such as synagogue records, cemeteries, and Inquisition archives, the "Dictionary" includes the surname Boroda/Broda in its extensive list of family names that were part of Sephardic communities of Iberian origin.
Families with the surname Boroda of Ottoman origin were part of Sephardic centers in Amsterdam, London, and Italy, as well as in Central and Eastern Europe. Based on genealogical records, families with the surname Boroda lived in Egypt during the late 19th and early 20th centuries as part of the country's diverse, cosmopolitan, and largely Sephardic/Jewish community. They were residing in important urban centers such as Alexandria and Cairo.
Yet, geographical dispersion and intermarriage between Jews from different communities over the centuries has mixed lineages and confused genealogical records. The presence of this surname in lists of Sephardic Jews generally indicates that families with this name have been traced as descendants of crypto-Jews who lived in or passed through the Peninsula and belonged to rabbinical lineages (e.g., Rabbi Abraham ben Saul Broda, in the 17th century) that dispersed from Eastern Europe to Sephardic communities.
Once again, the Jewish Community of Porto claims that it gave an opinion in good faith, so the case is closed, and recalls that Chabad Lubavitch – the strongest Jewish religious organization in the world – was founded by Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, who was the grandson of Rabbi Baruch Portugali Batlan, a sage of Portuguese Sephardic lineage.
Is Alexander a Jewish name?
The name Alexander was integrated into the Jewish community following the encounter between Alexander the Great and the Cohen Gadol, Shimon HaTzaddik or Jaddua, in approximately 332 BCE. According to Jewish tradition, the name was adopted through a specific decree to honour the emperor's benevolence. Alexander originally requested that a golden image of himself be placed in the Holy Temple of Jerusalem to immortalize his visit. However, the High Priest explained to him that Judaism strictly forbids graven images. Instead, he proposed that every male child born that year (particularly within the priestly class) be named Alexander as a living tribute to the king. Because of the Jewish custom of naming children after ancestors, the name was passed down through generations and remains a common Jewish name today. This integration is considered unique, as it is one of the few instances in Jewish history where a purely non-Jewish name was adopted into the community's official nomenclature out of gratitude.
Chabad Lubavitch continues to enrich Russian Jewish life
It seems like a miracle to those who lived through the end of the Soviet Union. Its cruel methods towards Jews emigrated to Western Europe, but were no longer felt in the latitude where they originated. From Israel and the United States, hundreds of thousands of Jews arrived in Moscow. Currently, Chabad-Lubavitch operates as the dominant force in Russian Jewish life, with a widespread network spanning over 170 cities.
Historically, the movement originated in the Russian village of Lubavitch, which has seen a resurgence in interest and visitation, including the restoration of local Jewish sites like the historic yeshiva. It focuses on building synagogues, community centers, and educational programs. It sponsors numerous schools, museums, social-service programs, and publications such as the L'Chaim magazine.
Approximately 95% of rabbis in Russia are affiliated with Chabad, making it the most visible and influential Jewish organization. Chabad houses are located in cities across Russia, providing educational programs and religious services, often representing the only active Jewish institution in town. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Chabad has functioned with the de facto support of the government, maintaining strong ties with Kremlin's administration.
