Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, former chief rabbi of Moscow and current president of the Conference of European Rabbis, on June 24, 2024. Photo: IMAGO/epd via Reuters Connect

A 15-year-old student at a school in Russia was brutally assaulted by classmates after posting a photo featuring an Israeli flag on social media, Russian media reported, leaving him with a serious eye fracture from an incident that has drawn public outrage and is now under criminal investigation.

Earlier this month, a high school student in St. Petersburg, a major city in northwestern Russia, was physically attacked by two classmates after changing his social media profile photo to one featuring an Israeli flag, according to a report by local News Channel 78 on Sunday.

One of the attackers allegedly harassed the boy over his profile picture, demanding that he remove it and apologize.

After a verbal confrontation in which the attacker threatened the boy and hurled insults, including references to the Holocaust, he allegedly demanded that the victim meet him in the bathroom to continue the discussion.

When the two boys met there, the assailant reportedly demanded that he apologize on his knees. The victim refused but said he was willing to apologize without being humiliated.

The attacker then struck him repeatedly in the face while another boy blocked the bathroom exit.

The victim had to be hospitalized after suffering a fracture to the eye socket and underwent surgery under general anesthesia to remove bone fragments.

After spending more than a week in the hospital, he is now receiving outpatient care, and his family is coordinating with school administrators on a transition to home-based schooling as recommended by his doctors.

The boy’s mother reported the assault to the police, prompting local authorities to open a criminal investigation for assault and battery.

This incident came after Pinchas Goldschmidt, who served as Moscow’s chief rabbi from 1993 to 2022, recently urged Jews to leave Russia and consider immigrating to Israel, citing a growing hostile climate and rising antisemitic attacks targeting the local Jewish community.

“I have long urged Russia’s Jews to consider aliyah, the return to Israel. The post-Soviet renaissance was extraordinary, but illusions of permanence ignore history,” Goldschmidt, president of the Conference of European Rabbis, wrote in an op-ed for The Jerusalem Post earlier this month.

“Now, more than ever, Russia’s Jews should heed the call to leave. Israel offers not just refuge but a homeland where Jewish life is sovereign, not contingent on geopolitical whims,” he continued.

Although the number of Jews leaving Russia has declined, the country still accounted for the largest number of immigrants to Israel in 2025, with roughly 8,300 arrivals, according to data released Monday by Israel’s Immigration and Absorption Ministry. 

This figure marked a nearly 60 percent drop from 19,500 last year and a small fraction of the 74,000 who immigrated in 2022 following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.