- May 16, 2026
- 5:41 pm
- World News
The Moscow Choral Synagogue found itself at the center of a scandal after inviting parishioners to the filming of a four-part film “Stalin” directed by Vladimir Bortko. In an announcement published on May 16, 2026, on the synagogue’s social media, it was stated that the filming would take place on May 31, and extras were needed for the roles of “Jews” — with the wording “Jews by nationality or Jewish appearance.” Bortko himself confirmed that it was indeed about the film “Stalin.”
At first glance, this may look like a regular film process: a historical scene, a reconstruction of the past, extras, compensation for time, kosher lunch.
But no.
This story has too many layers to be reduced to a film set. It is about Stalin, Soviet anti-Semitism, Golda Meir, Moscow Jews, modern Russia, which is waging an aggressive war against Ukraine while simultaneously supporting forces hostile to Israel. And all this is happening against the backdrop of a noticeable increase in anti-Semitic manifestations in Russia — from everyday xenophobia to political propaganda, street violence, and institutional blindness.
The synagogue, the extras, and the phrase that could not help but cause a scandal
In the announcement of the Moscow Choral Synagogue, parishioners were invited to the filming of a scene dedicated to the meeting of Israeli ambassador Golda Meir in Moscow. The publication indicated the year 1949, although the well-known mass episode with Golda Meir at the Moscow Choral Synagogue occurred in the fall of 1948, shortly after the creation of the State of Israel.
This inaccuracy is important.
When it comes to Golda Meir, Soviet Jews, and Stalinist Moscow, the date is not a technical detail. The meeting of the Israeli ambassador with thousands of Moscow Jews was not just a diplomatic episode. It was a moment when people living within the closed Soviet system saw before them a representative of the Jewish state — new, vulnerable, but already existing.
That is why the wording “Jews by nationality or Jewish appearance” sounded particularly harsh. For casting, this may be the usual cynicism of the industry. For Jewish memory, it is the language of dangerous sorting of people by origin and appearance.
It is specifically emphasized that the filming should reproduce the meeting of Golda Meir, and the request for extras is formulated precisely through “nationality” and “Jewish appearance.”
Why Golda Meir is not a decorative character here
Golda Meir in Moscow is not just a historical figure in the frame.
She was the ambassador of a state that had just become a reality for the Jewish people after the Holocaust and millennia without their political protection. For Soviet Jews, her appearance meant more than an official visit. It was a sign: Jewish history did not end with fear, assimilation, and dependence on foreign power.
And now this moment is to be incorporated into a film about Stalin.
The problem is not that history cannot be filmed. The problem is who is doing it, in what political context, and why Jewish memory is once again placed next to the image of a dictator who, in the last years of his power, launched one of the most dangerous anti-Semitic campaigns in the USSR.
Bortko, Stalin, and the war against Ukraine
Vladimir Bortko is not only a well-known director. In today’s Russia, he is also perceived as a public political figure associated with supporting the Kremlin line. Bortko called for the use of tactical nuclear weapons against Ukraine, explaining it as “the necessity of Russia’s victory in the war.”
Against this background, his film about Stalin cannot look like a neutral historical project.
Especially if the director himself previously said he wants to “debunk the myth of Comrade Stalin” formed after the 20th Congress of the CPSU. In modern Russia, such formulations often do not work for an honest conversation about terror, deportations, repressions, and anti-Semitism, but for a soft rehabilitation of imperial violence.
Here arises a direct moral conflict.
A person criticized for rhetoric of nuclear aggression against Ukraine is invited to make a film about Stalin. The Jewish community is invited to participate in a scene related to Golda Meir. And all this happens in a country where the state machine has been justifying war for years, suppressing memory of the regime’s crimes, and supporting forces that are enemies of Israel.
This is no longer a question of cinema.
It is a question of how authoritarian culture uses history: it takes victims, takes symbols, takes trauma — and turns them into a backdrop for its own narrative of power.
Stalin’s campaign against Jews: why this topic cannot be an extra
This story looks especially cynical against the backdrop of the last years of Stalin’s power. It was then that a campaign against so-called “rootless cosmopolitans” unfolded in the USSR, often implying Jews — writers, scientists, doctors, theater figures, representatives of culture and public life.
This was not accidental rhetoric.
The system was moving towards a new wave of repressions. The Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee was crushed, Jewish cultural life came under attack, and ties with Israel began to be perceived as a suspicious and dangerous sign. The culmination was the “Doctors’ Plot” — an anti-Semitic campaign of 1951–1953, in which a group of predominantly Jewish doctors was accused of conspiring against the Soviet leadership. After Stalin’s death, the case was closed as fabricated.
Stalin did not manage to bring this late anti-Semitic campaign to a possible finale.
But the important thing is this: the machine was already launched. The enemy was appointed. Fear was entering Jewish homes again.
Therefore, inviting Jews to the filming of a film about Stalin cannot be perceived as a regular casting. People are invited to portray those who in reality lived under the pressure of the regime, saw arrests, harassment, the closure of Jewish institutions, and understood that the state could again make Jews the “internal enemy” at any moment.
What this story says about modern Russia
The scandal around the Moscow Choral Synagogue is important not only as a dispute about Bortko and Stalin. It shows a broader problem: in modern Russia, anti-Semitism is manifesting again at different levels — from language describing people through “Jewish appearance” to street pogrom episodes and political propaganda, where Israel, Ukraine, and the West often find themselves in one hostile construct.
The loudest example in recent years is the events in Dagestan in October 2023, when a crowd stormed the Makhachkala airport after the arrival of a flight from Tel Aviv. Passengers had to hide, there were arrests and subsequent court sentences. In the region, after the start of Israel’s war against Hamas, an increase in anti-Semitic sentiments was recorded, and Russian courts later sentenced 135 participants in the riots.
This is not an isolated glitch.
There were other signals. In June 2024, attacks occurred in Dagestan on a synagogue, Orthodox churches, and police facilities; the attacks were classified by Russian investigative bodies as terrorist.
And against this backdrop, inviting Jews to the extras of a film about Stalin does not look like an accidental awkwardness, but part of a broader disease of memory.
In the middle of this story, NAnews — Israel News | Nikk.Agency sees the main question not only to the Moscow Choral Synagogue but to the entire Russian-speaking Jewish community: is it possible to participate in someone else’s historical spectacle if this spectacle is being filmed in a country that simultaneously wages war against Ukraine, flirts with Israel’s enemies, and increasingly demonstrates anti-Semitic signals in the public space?
Ukraine, Israel, and the common nerve of this story
The connection with Ukraine is direct here.
Russia is waging an aggressive war against Ukraine, destroying cities, killing civilians, and simultaneously trying to rewrite the past so that Soviet and imperial cruelty once again looks like a “historical necessity.” In this logic, Stalin becomes not a criminal, but a symbol of a “strong hand.” Repressions turn into “difficult times.” And the victims — into decoration.
For Israel, the danger is no less.
Moscow has been maintaining contacts with forces hostile to Israel for years, including Iran and its affiliated structures in the Middle East. When such a country simultaneously reassembles the cult of Stalin and allows the growth of anti-Semitic sentiments, the Jewish audience should not pretend that it is only about cinema.
This is a political signal.
First, Jews are invited to “play Jews” based on appearance. Then they are told that the film about Stalin will not be anti-Semitic. Then they are offered not to ask unnecessary questions because it is supposedly just a historical reconstruction.
But Jewish memory is arranged differently. It remembers that language always comes first. Then comes normalization. Then — fear. Then — repressions or violence.
Why participation in such a project is not a neutral choice
Each person decides for themselves whether to participate in the filming. But the community has the right to say out loud: not everything that is paid for is permissible. Not every role is just a role. And not every historical scene can be filmed without moral responsibility.
Golda Meir at the Moscow Choral Synagogue was a symbol of Jewish dignity, not a prop for a series about Stalin.
The Soviet Jews who met her were not “types with Jewish appearance,” but people who lived between hope and fear. A few years after that meeting, the Stalinist system was already spinning a campaign where Jewish identity again became a reason for suspicion.
That is why this scandal cannot be hushed up with explanations about a “non-anti-Semitic film.”
The question is not only what will be shown in the frame. The question is what historical framework is created around Stalin, who creates this framework, and why Jews are invited there.
If modern Russia simultaneously justifies aggression against Ukraine, supports Israel’s enemies, tolerates or produces anti-Semitic signals, and returns Stalin to cultural circulation as an object of “reconsideration,” then the participation of the Jewish community in such a project becomes not a harmless episode, but part of someone else’s political decoration.
And it is better to stay as far away from this decoration as possible.