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JewishHistoryעברית

Bolshaya Bronnaya synagogue stabbing

Date
11 January 2006Hebrew date: 11th of Tevet, 5766
Location
Bolshaya Bronnaya synagogue, MoscowRussia
Then part of
Russian Federation
Perpetrators
  • Aleksandr Koptsev (Individual)
Killed (estimate)
8 – 9[1]People stabbed. BBC and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported eight wounded on 11 January 2006; four of them seriously. A later BBC report on Koptsev's September 2006 retrial said he had stabbed nine worshippers. No one was reported killed.
Locality

0.0099% – 0.011% of the Jewish population of Bolshaya Bronnaya synagogue, Moscow[5]

Country

0.0052% – 0.0058% of the Jewish population of Russian Federation (c. 2020)[66]

Worldwide

0.000059% – 0.000066% of the worldwide Jewish population (c. 2000)[6]

Category
Terror attack
Confidence
DisputedBBC and RFE/RL agree on the date, the Bolshaya Bronnaya synagogue, Koptsev's identity, and eight people stabbed. RFE/RL's first dispatch said his motives remained unclear. BBC later reported a racial-hatred charge, antisemitic pamphlets at his home, and a 16-year sentence. The January reports give eight wounded; the September BBC retrial report says nine worshippers.

Summary

On 11 January 2006 a 20-year-old Moscow resident, identified by police as Aleksandr Koptsev, entered the synagogue on Bolshaya Bronnaya Street during evening prayers and stabbed worshippers with a knife. BBC and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported that he was wrestled to the ground by Rabbi Yitzhak Kogan and his son, and that eight people were wounded. At trial he was charged with attempted murder motivated by racial hatred; investigators said they found antisemitic pamphlets at his home and that he believed Jews were enemies of the Russian nation, but that he acted alone. After a retrial the Moscow city court sentenced him in September 2006 to 16 years in prison and compulsory psychiatric treatment, and found him guilty of fomenting ethnic hatred.

Sources

  1. Eight stabbed in Moscow synagogue. BBC News (2006)
  2. Russian Man Assaults Worshippers At Moscow Synagogue. Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty (2006)
  3. Moscow synagogue suspect on trial. BBC News (2006)
  4. Moscow synagogue attacker jailed. BBC News (2006)
  5. Mark Tolts, The Post-Soviet Jewish Population in Russia and the World. Jews in Russia and Eastern Europe (2004)

Jewish population (estimates)

  • Worldwide: 13,575,000[6]c. 2000
  • Russian Federation: 155,000[66]c. 2020DellaPergola core estimate 1 Jan 2020: 155,000 Jews in Russia. Nearest opened national core figure for post-Soviet Russian Federation events (2006, 2024). Not the USSR total.
  • Bolshaya Bronnaya synagogue, Moscow: 79,359 – 80,421[5]Jews in Moscow in the census of 9 October 2002, about three years before the stabbing. Mark Tolts reports 79,359 people recorded as Jews and 80,421 when Mountain Jews, Georgian Jews, Bukharan Jews and Krymchaks in the city are included.

Sources for population estimates

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