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well, not quite. The history of the Jews in Russia really starts in the 1700s when Tsarist Russia tore apart the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth and swallowed most of it whole

The PLC was home to 60% of world Jewry and Jews were free to not only practice but expand their religion -- this was where Chassidism originated and also devout "Lithuanian Jews" or Litvaks

Until the Russian grab of PLC lands, they had next to no Jews, but they suddenly got a huge chunk of Jewish people (if you look at a map of Jews in Tsarist russia in 1910, this coincides exactly with the PLC -- this was called the Russian "Pale of Settlement" where Jews were "kept" -- they were not allowed to move out and their conditions were bad (though arguably the life of most non-elite in the Tsarist state was bad)

Incidently this "pale of settlement" was also the location of the "killing lands" in the Second World War when not only 6 million Jews but also 6 million Poles and Lithuanians and at least 6 to 10 million Ukrainians, Belarussians and Russians died, plus Germans and Roma etc.

Anyway, so Jews were treated bad, but then they had pogroms against them, so life became unbearable. At the same time rising national consciousness meant that Russians tried to make everyone Russian (and the English did the same to the Welsh, etc. etc) so there was Jewish resistance to this in the form of Zionism

however some people of Jewish origin went the opposite way, rejecting Judaism not only religiously but also culturally -- they embraced the heady winds of socialism and then communism along with many other groups of people.

Some of the best thinkers were of these -- including Tolstoy

Tolstoy was the guy who saved the USSR in 1919 --> when the Bolsheviks came to power, they liquidated the army officers. But then they discovered that without officers they could not fight the White Russian army in the murderous Russian civil war. And officers who joined were liable to switch sides immediately. Tolstoy came up with dual command - officers and commisars

But he had a big rival in his affections for power -- Stalin

With Tolstoy's fall in the 20s and then Stalin's death in 1954, the latent wicked anti-semitism arose.

Yes, and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion was originally a Russian fraud, before it ever became a Nazi propaganda tool. But Christians in the Soviet Union were not free from persecution either, as was part of my point. Synagogues as well as churches were closed down by the hundreds.

Nevertheless, I've heard the existence of Israel is due in part to the Soviet Union's approval of it in the U.N., because it was originally supposed to be a socialist state. I imagine Jews living in the USSR were conditioned much like someone suffering from Stockholm syndrome. Am I incorrect here?

well, not quite. The history of the Jews in Russia really starts in the 1700s when Tsarist Russia tore apart the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth and swallowed most of it whole
Not to bring up the Khazar theory, but the history of Jews in Russia precedes the Kievan Rus and Muscovy. The PLC was home to 60% of world Jewry and Jews were free to not only practice but expand their religion -- this was where Chassidism originated and also devout "Lithuanian Jews" or Litvaks
Chassidism was created in Haliz/Galicia, which was part of the PLC.

Some of the best thinkers were of these -- including Tolstoy
Count Tolstoy was not Jewish. He was a boyar, Russian nobility by birth.

You are thinking of Lev Bernstien, AKA Trotsky.

Read posts #9, 11, 13.

Jews were integral part of Russian society for a thousand years.
And it is actually absolutely wrong to present antisemitism as an ethnic-Russian feature.
In fact antisemitism as any viable phenomenon has really appeared with including Poland as a subject of Russian Empire and it was actually learnt from backward element of Polish society.
Interesting fact: there are popular Russian-Jewish surnames Kamenev and Zinoviev. Both Kamen and Zinov were a towns on a border between Moscovia and Poland before a Russian Empire appeared. Moscovia was a popular destination for Jews seeking refuge from persecution in Europe. They had to pass through these towns and get documented by Russian officials and have their new names. Millions of people made through it since 16th century.
It also worth mentioning that some 90% of infamous ‘Russian’ pogroms happened in that is known as either Poland or Ukraine now.
It is also true that Tsarist government adopted Polish practice by late 19th century and openly encouraged pogroms using propaganda like ‘elders’ protocols’ etc. They fond it was a nice idea to blame the Jews for everything to distract illiterate population from their own mismanagement and corruption. It was a first wave of Russian state-sponsored antisemitism finished in 1917 with Communist takeover.
And for that very reason it is not surprising that the Jews spearheaded communist uprising against the Tsar and made almost 100% of Soviet government and elites. It hasn’t actually change much under Stalin who pushed to make antisemitism a capital crime under Soviet criminal code.
All of the above made German Nazis believe that Soviet Union was a kind of criminal enterprise of Jewish bosses who fooled Russians into slave labor using Communism to build industrial and military base for ‘Zionist conspiracy’ to start global takeover. This idea was even made public in famous ‘Total crieg’ speech by Goebels following Stalingrad disaster.
Another of only two waves of Russian state-sponsored antisemitism has actually started in late 1940s and finished in 1953. It is actually linked to a Stalin’s broken expectations to see Israel becoming a Socialist state.