Watch Allen Little's report from Moscow

Since the crisis began, enrollment at Hebrew classes has risen steeply as tens of thousands of Russia's Jews prepare to leave for Israel.

Advert for the Promised Land

Jewish agencies across the country have been swamped with enquiries about emigration.

Roman is a 22-year-old advertising executive who has lost his job. He believes the situation in Russia will not improve.

"I think in five years the situation will be the same," said Roman. "I don't want to continue [like this] because I don't see any future for me here."

Even the old are looking for a new life

It's not just the young who are affected. Judith Sheftel is 80 years old. She too is seeking a new life in a land she has never seen.

"I sold my flat and put my money in a bank. The bank has crashed and I am without a flat and without money so I must go to Israel to get some help."

Hundreds of thousands of Jews left the Soviet Union as the borders collapsed in the early 1990s. The few who stayed believed that free market reform promised a prosperous future. Their confidence in that has now vanished.

Neo-Nazi threat

But it's not just economic hardship that is driving Russia's Jews to Israel. It's the knowledge that traditionally hard times bring a wave of popular xenophobia and that Jews are made the scapegoats for Russia's ills.

'Our skin is white, our cause is right!'

Racism is open and respectable here. "Our skin is white, our cause is right", shouts a group of Russian Nazis at a rally attended by a handful of fanatics only - but no less chilling for that.

The Jews know from experience that they must always be ready to move on if public opinion turns against them.

"Throughout our history we were always living with a trunk ready under our beds," said Tankred Golenpolsky, editor of the International Jewish Gazette. "This has been in the subconscious since Moses - we were on the move or ready to move any day."