Azriel Chaikin

Azriel Chaikin (Hebrew עזריאל חייקין; born 1931 in USSR) is a chief Rabbi of Ukraine. In 2003, he was proclaimed by all the Ukrainian Jewish communities as the chief Rabbi of Ukraine.

Life
Rabbi Chaikin was born in the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1931, where his father, Meir Chaim Chaikin, had served as an emissary of the sixth Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn.

In 1955, Chaikin went on shlichus to Morocco and was the head of the Chabad Yeshiva in Agadir. Because the language taught in the schools under his auspices was Hebrew, he was accused of being a Zionist, and therefore left Morocco and moved to France. From France he moved to Denmark where he established a Chabad yeshiva.

In 1968, Rabbi Chaikin was offered a prestigious rabbinic position in Brussels, Belgium which he accepted. Because of this position he became an influential rabbinic figure in Europe. In 2008 he received the position of chief Rabbi of Ukraine, which he maintained until 2008 when he asked Rabbi Jonathan Markovitch to take his position; afterwards, he moved to the Crown Heights area of Brooklyn.