Moscow's largest remand prison opens memorial to Latvia's former chief [Chabad] rabbi
07/31/2023
On July 26, a memorial plaque dedicated to the memory of Rabbi Mordechai Dubin, imprisoned there 75 years ago, was unveiled in the capital's Detention Facility No. 2, known as Butyrka.
Rabbi Mordechai Dubin, who headed the Jewish community of Latvia until 1940 and was a deputy of the Latvian Seimas and the Riga Duma and a major philanthropist, selflessly saved thousands of Russian Jews during the First World War and the Civil War. He also played a leading role in the release of the 6th Lubavitcher Rebbe Yosef Yitzhak Schneersohn from prison and exile.
Mordechai Dubin himself was arrested in 1948, received a 10-year sentence and served it in Butyrka until 1951. He died in forced isolation in Tula in 1956. His remains were later transferred and reburied at the Jewish cemetery in Malakhovka near Moscow.