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Rabbi Azriel Chaikin is the Vice Chairman of the Council of European Rabbis and an expert in matters of Jewish family law. He has previously served as the Rebbe’s emissary in Morocco and Denmark, as the Chief Rabbi of Brussels, and later as the Chief Rabbi of Ukraine. He currently resides in Crown Heights.
Rabbi Chaikin was born on the 10th of Sivan, 1930, to Rabbi Meir Chaim Chaikin, who served as a rabbi in the Soviet Union and Sweden. In his youth, he became the rabbi of a synagogue in Pittsburgh and assisted in running the local Tomchei Tmimim yeshiva. He later moved to Montreal to study dayanus (Jewish jurisprudence).
As the Rebbe’s emissary to Morocco, he played a key role in expanding Chabad’s educational institutions. He was instrumental in developing the Chabad yeshiva in Agadir, establishing a mikveh, and founding Beit Rivka for girls. His outreach efforts focused on bringing Jewish children from secular backgrounds into Torah study. However, in 1958, he was expelled from Morocco by the government, accused of involvement in Jewish immigration to Israel.
Following his expulsion, he was sent by the Rebbe to Copenhagen, Denmark, where he established the Oholai Yosef Yitzchak - Beit HaTalmud Yeshiva. He later became the Chief Rabbi of Copenhagen for a decade.
In Brussels, he was appointed Av Beit Din (head of the rabbinical court) in 1968 and became a leading rabbinic figure in Europe. He also served as a consultant on family law for the Council of Rabbis of the Commonwealth of Independent States. In 1990, King Baudouin of Belgium knighted him and awarded him the Order of the Belgian Crown. In 1992, he was appointed the Chief Rabbi of Belgium.
In 2003, Rabbi Chaikin was sent by the Or Avner - Chabad organization to serve as the Chief Rabbi of Ukraine, a position he held until 2008.