Putin intends to wipe out anti-Semitism in his country

AP via The Miami Herald ^ | November 15, 2001 | AP

[CommiesOut]

Published Thursday, November 15, 2001

Putin intends to wipe out anti-Semitism in his country, Russia's chief rabbi says

WASHINGTON -- (AP) -- The chief rabbi of Russia flew home Wednesday convinced that Russian President Vladimir Putin intends to fight anti-Semitism and ``eradicate it completely.''

Rabbi Berel Lazar led a delegation of a half-dozen Russian and American Jews that met with Putin on Tuesday night at the Russian Embassy.

``The meeting proved to me the commitment of President Putin for the well-being of Russian Jewry, his commitment to fighting anti-Semitism in any form in Russia and letting Russian Jews travel freely and retain their dual citizenship,'' Lazar said in a telephone interview from his airplane.

Anti-Semitism is deeply rooted in Russian history, as it is in many European countries.

Even after the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, synagogues were burned and marked with graffiti.

Since Putin took office at the end of 1999, arrests and prosecutions in anti-Semitic incidents became more frequent, Lazar said.

But, he said, ``The judicial system doesn't work so well yet.''

Before the Jewish New Year in September, Putin sent a letter to the Jewish community promising to stamp out anti-Semitism.

There are about one million Jews in Russia, the rabbi said, even after massive emigration spurred by Jackson-Vanik legislation that required the Soviet Union to issue exit permits or forfeit trading privileges.

President Bush informed Putin at their White House talks Tuesday that the administration would ask Congress to exempt Russia from the legislation -- a move that Lazar said has his support.

``Jewish identity is our biggest problem,'' the rabbi said. ``Seventy percent of Jews haven't come forward to identify as Jews. They used to be ashamed of being Jewish.''

But now, Lazar said, ``there is a pride in being Jewish,'' although it has not reached Jewish communities in remote areas of Russia. Synagogues are being returned to Jewish control and religious schools are being built.

Asked if he encouraged Russian Jews to emigrate to Israel, the United States or elsewhere, or to remain in Russia with a Jewish identity, the rabbi said he leaves it up to them to make that personal decision.

Meanwhile, David A. Harris, executive director of the American Jewish Committee, called Bush's decision to seek a lifting of Jackson-Vanik's application to Russia ``a momentous event.''

[madrussian]

"Polish" Scientific Nobel Prize Winners

What nazi web site have you found it on? The same one that lists Jewish People's Commissars in Lenin's government?

[Valin]

but I asked myself many times, why it is, that so many people/countrys hate the Jews.

Got a year? better make that 2.

[ambrose]

I'm sure this story will upset many Buchanan supporters.

[Don Joe]

You compare Putin to Stalin?

[Don Joe]

Gee, I was raised Jewish and I had none of those experiences. And, my mother, the daughter of Russian immigrants who fled the communist revolution, was raised mostly by nuns after her mother died when she was a little girl, and had nothing but praise for the nuns and the Catholics.

Where did my family go wrong???

[Don Joe]

I had a good friend who was an American of Polish extraction. A very bright guy (with a nearly unpronouncable last name). Generous, had a good heart and a great sense of humor. I can't understand the stereotype, but I suspect it's based on the same general principle as the stereotypes that are targetted at Jews. As to what that general principle could be, I'm at a loss, other than surmise it's an artifact of the darker side of the human condition.

[dennisw]

My grandparents on my dad's side left Russia because the Czar was too oppressive. I'm not positive but I also think it was to avoid serving in the Czar's army. Screw that!

[dennisw]

What nazi web site have you found it on? The same one that lists Jewish People's Commissars in Lenin's government?


Jews were big in the Russian revolution. Because Jews are idealists. 10 years after the revolution Jews were not running Russia. The responsibility for Russia after ~1930 (even earlier?) was in the hands of Russians and that Georgian.

[dennisw]

I bet a Jew in Poland would feel more comfortable than a Pole in Israel.

Whatever on earth would make you say this? A  Polish visitor would would surely be treated well in Israel. What makes you think he wouldn't?

[dennisw]

Sounds like you need to rip the taxpayers off for another Museum of Tolerance because you haven't gotten the message.

What's the matter. You hate those holocaust museums? You think the Jews should also build a holocaust museum for the Ukrainians and Cambodians and Armenians?

Jews in the USA pay taxes. We vote. So taxpayers helped build a few holocaust museums. Why does this make you so angry?

[Skooz]

It may sound naive, but I asked myself many times, why it is, that so many people/countrys hate the Jews. What the hell did they do wrong, to deserve such a hatred? I myself can not comprehend this, under any circumstances. Is this because they believe in the Old Testament and not Jesus Christ?

I think is has to do with the fact that they were so set apart from society for so long. Jews were forbidden to demand usery (interest) from one another, as were early European Christians. Therefore, Jews often went into banking and prospered by lending money to non-Jews. That caused the old resentment of debtor to lender (Just like I resent Sallie Mae for my astronomical student loan).

Jews were forbidden to go into many professions, so they became very good at the few they could practice and often stayed in the same profession generation after generation. They prospered. Often, this conspicuous properity led to the false assumption that they were corrupt and stealing from the non-Jews. This tended to become a sort of mythology not countered for many generations until it tended to boil over into anti-Jewish violence in many places around Europe.

[Skooz]

was in the hands of Russians and that Georgian.

This is off subject, but this reminds me of the Stalinist propaganda films fo the 1930s. Just about every movie made in the Soviet Union during that time began with a short piece showing how Georgians were just as Russian as anyone else and proclaiming how wonderful Georgia and Georgians were.

[dennisw]

Minorities are always mistreated. This is why Jews have often been mistreated. Jews did not intermarry otherwise there would not be a Jewish people to talk of.

So the Jews become the other, they are apart, and the common man may resent this.
V. interesting about the promotion of Georgians back then.

[Skooz]

I gave a secular/historical response to Otto's question. You gave a spiritual answer to the same question. I believe both to be correct. Jews have prospered in whatever setting they have been placed because they are God's chosen people.

[dennisw]

The Jews are a minority within the MidEast. The Muslim Arabs view the MidEast as their turf to run as they please.

Drives them nuts that Jews have their own nation in the ME and have the means and will to defend it! 43% of Israelis are MidEast Jews who were ruthlessly expelled from the Arab nations. So Israel is a gathering together of the Jews of the MidEast. Not just a Euro-Zionist enterprise.

[Valin]

V. interesting about the promotion of Georgians back then.

I don't suppose it could have anything to do with the fact that kindly old uncle Joe was Goergians? Naaa didn't think so either. :-)

[Inyokern]

Your denigration of non-Jews, especially those in the "servant" trades is very typical of the Jews, who do not know what humility is.

Bull. I didn't start this. I don't remember any Jews on FR posting anything about Poles or eastern Europeans until you guys started all this anti-Jewish crap.

If you want to dish it out, you had better be able to take it.