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.''

[dennisw]

You aren't happy if Jews are communist. You aren't happy if Jews are capitalist. This is why the Jews decided to make a Jewish homeland in Palestine. This way we get to keep folks like you at an arm's lenth or better.

[Inyokern]

You aren't happy if Jews are communist. You aren't happy if Jews are capitalist.

That's a good analysis. These guys don't like communists, but they don't really like capitalists either. (at least not Jewish ones)

[Valin]

What's wrong with a lame humor now?

The operative word here is humor. #1 it should be funny.

[GROUCHOTWO]

Touchy here, aren't you. Haha...accusing me of 'victimology'!

[malarski]

Putin found an oasis of calm in one of his neighbour's homes - the modest flat of a Jewish couple and their only child, a daughter. The girl was his babysitter and the couple were unusual in that they never argued in front of him. He ate their gefilte fish and he remembers that on Friday nights, the old man would open a well-worn book and study. "I practically grew up with this family," Putin told the rabbi.

I would not trust those Slavic anti-Semites, especially when it comes to close relations with the Jewish families. Remember Stalin? Well, his mother used to be a cleaning lady for a Jewish family and used to tell him that family secrets. So what happens later on? Stalin goes beserk and kills almost all Jewish members of the Communist Central Committee.

[dennisw]

Sure. You're always the noble victim of Jews aren't you? I cn rd u lk a bk!

[GROUCHOTWO]

You may be partially right here.

[Jack Barbara]

Come out, come out, where ever you are. We have candy for you....

[CommiesOut]

Would be hilarious if next year Putin suddenly remembered that his best High School friend was Vova Yasserovich Muslimadinov.
Politics is a fun stuff.

[GROUCHOTWO]

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

[Inyokern]

his mother used to be a cleaning lady for a Jewish family

I didn't know his mother was Polish.

[Buckeroo]

Bush and Putin are in lock step! Pretty cool stuff now that the world is free from fear.

[malarski]

You aren't happy if Jews are communist. You aren't happy if Jews are capitalist. This is why the Jews decided to make a Jewish homeland in Palestine. This way we get to keep folks like you at an arm's lenth or better.

You must have misunderstood me. My happiness has nothing to do with the Jews. As far as the Palestine is concerned every moral human being will not tolerate killing of Palestinians because few chosen ones declared them to be sub-human. Hopefully just Jews, and right now over 50% in Israel, feel that a new state for the Palestinians should be declared, so that atrocities can be finally stopped.

[CommiesOut]

Did you read Zoshchenko's stories about Lenin and the kids?
These new Putin stories have a similar twist.

[malarski]

Especially free from fear of Gore/Lieberman in place of Bush/Powell.

[danmar]

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

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?

[malarski]

Your denigration of non-Jews, especially those in the "servant" trades is very typical of the Jews, who do not know what humility is. Read this interesting insert from Steven Steinlight article to understand the problem.

"I’ll confess it, at least: like thousands of other typical Jewish kids of my generation, I was reared as a Jewish nationalist, even a quasi-separatist. Every summer for two months for 10 formative years during my childhood and adolescence I attended Jewish summer camp. There, each morning, I saluted a foreign flag, dressed in a uniform reflecting its colors, sang a foreign national anthem, learned a foreign language, learned foreign folk songs and dances, and was taught that Israel was the true homeland. Emigration to Israel was considered the highest virtue, and, like many other Jewish teens of my generation, I spent two summers working in Israel on a collective farm while I contemplated that possibility. More tacitly and subconsciously, I was taught the superiority of my people to the gentiles who had oppressed us. We were taught to view non-Jews as untrustworthy outsiders, people from whom sudden gusts of hatred might be anticipated, people less sensitive, intelligent, and moral than ourselves. We were also taught that the lesson of our dark history is that we could rely on no one." To read more click Steven Steinlight

[madrussian]

As long as Putin deals with Jewish thugs like Berezovsky and Gusinsky despite their attempts to hide behind their ethnicity, he's alright.

[madrussian]

Russia still has some Jews living there. Unlike Poland which has *virtually* none.

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