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.''

[independentmind]

No doubt about it.

I knew if I tried hard enough I could find something about which we agree.:o)

[Inyokern]

The web site calls them "Polish-origin", so they define them correctly. Perhaps, they don't realize the amount of resentment some Jews have towards Poland.

It is a well-known fact that Jews in Eastern Europe, including Poland, were never considered citizens of the countries in which they lived. It seems to me that, if the country in which they lived did not give them full citizenship, and in fact, did its best to drive them out, that country has no right to claim credit for their accomplishments.

Or are you counting Jews separately in every country?

The United States is a completely different situation. Jews have full citizenship here.

[CommiesOut]

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

I'm not sure either. I try to find answers in an available literature. This piece is written by an American Jew so I have no choice but assume that he's not an antisemite.

In the early 1990s, University of Iowa journalism professor Stephen Bloom, feeling alienated in Iowa City, went searching for his Jewish heritage. He thought he could find it in Postville, a small town in northeast Iowa, where he discovered there was an enclave of ultra-Orthodox Jews. This book, framed as both personal journey and examination of cultural clashes in the American experiment of multiculturalism, documents what became his profound shock, and disappointment. In looking for romantic myths and legends of the Jewish past, he found instead a jarring ghost from Jewish history and traditional identity that deeply troubled him.

The story centers upon (...) Chabad Lubavitcher Hasids ("the pious") who in 1987 bought a slaughterhouse in Postville (population: about 1,400), imported hundreds of non-Jewish illegal alien laborers to work for $6 an hour in oppressive conditons, and, since then, have been taking over the town. They also bring pollution to the local river, at least two attempted murders, and Iowa state lawsuits against the company. Bloom hears such tales first from angry local non-Jewish townspeople and initally assumes that their perspective is merely an expression of anti-Jewish prejudice. The longer the author spends in the town, however, and the more he time he spends with the ultra-Orthodox Jews who seek to pull him into their community, the more he accepts the fact that it is not "anti-Semitism" that fuels the outrage felt by longtime Postville residents, but verifiable Jewish hostility, discrimination, and exploitation of non-Jews. A range of classical "anti-Semitic" canards against the ultra-Orthodox Bloom finds to be true. "Many of the Hasidim I had encountered in Postville pretended to be holy," writes Bloom, "but their actions displayed bigotry and racism of the worst degree. (...) This book is a must read for anyone who seeks to honestly understand the verifiable origins of what is popularly known as "anti-Semitism".

Postville A Clash of Cultures in Heartland America, by Stephen G. Bloom,

As you can see, von Bismarck, all you need is a 1000 Postvilles plus a 1000 years of history and here you have it: a hatred.
We're lucky the US is a very young country and that there is not too many unwashed peasants.

[a history buff]

They set themselves apart from the society. There is no universal law that various people will target Jews for no reason.

Nonsense. Medieval society was based on a senseless denigration of trade, since aristotle disliked trade and insisted that even if both parties agreed to it and felt they were better off for the trade, one was being ripped off. Since someone needed to do it, medieval society set up a caste to trade & lend money, which would be afforded opportunities denied others, but persecuted for enjoying them. Hypocrisy has its price, which is why it must be fought everywhere.

Today few hate commerce, and thus the root ideological problems that led to it have gone, as, I trust, eventually will go the racial bias resting on the same. natural law would have no less. In this sense Marxism was not a failed futuristic ideology, but a destructive anachronism. In this sense, Russia only joined modernity in the 1990s. Time heals all wounds.

[CommiesOut]

Another interesting review of Bloom's book:
More
and chat with the author:
More

[madrussian]

Your tendency to explain everything by economic relations is mechanistic and is similar to Marxism in that regard.

[madrussian]

It is a well-known fact that Jews in Eastern Europe, including Poland, were never considered citizens of the countries in which they lived.

It's not known to me. And if there were tensions, the blame should probably be assigned equally. And what about Western Europe and Einstein?

The United States is a completely different situation. Jews have full citizenship here.

So I guess they should be primarily loyal to America and not Israel, eh?

[CommiesOut]

Man, now you sound like you personally deported 48 million Germans and robbed poor Czech children.

[a history buff]

I know. Of course, I think St. Thomas Aquinas dabbled in economics, so my definition of economics is a little broader than most. And Adam Smith taught ethics. Economics does not explain everything. But when the economics don't work, little else will either. IMO unless they feel severely maltreated, people want to eat first, and worry about the rest later.

[madrussian]

We didn't disagree a lot, or at least I don't remember.

[madrussian]

Those poor Germans. It's amazing how Pollacks are hated more by Jews than Germans. What have you done that's not in the history books, some virtual unknown holocaust?

[madrussian]

People want to eat and provide for their families. That's like one of the Newton's laws of mechanics. Then the complexity of the world can hardly be deduced from those simple laws.

[CommiesOut]

I wouldn's say Jews. Just one unhappy guy. We cannot generalize.
The other one can't be Jewish. Mother-in-law sounds more like a secret Goebbels admirer: hates Poland, posts ugly nazi propaganda pictures. Very strange type.

[HeartOfDixie]

Would that be like Stalin? No. That was Semitism he tried to wipe out...

Exactly!

[madrussian]

Very strange type.

Must be one of those guys out to discredit Jews and portray them in the least favorable light.

[madrussian]

Would that be like Stalin? No. That was Semitism he tried to wipe out...

Isn't it amazing how a Georgian managed to wrestle the power from the Jewish Bolsheviks, who despised the little awkward quite guy, and finish them off one by one?

By the way, Stalin was one the main proponents of Israel's creation. And I hear the Soviet Union was quite liked by Jews as a country designed by their kind.

[malarski]

It is a well-known fact that Jews in Eastern Europe, including Poland, were never considered citizens of the countries in which they lived.

Inny,
As usual, I have to correct your geographical and historical mistakes made in the above posted sentence.
1) Poland is not located in Eastern Europe.
2) Jews who lived in Europe before WWII were citizens of the countries that they lived in.

[CommiesOut]

What have you done that's not in the history books, some virtual unknown holocaust?

Leave it to our friend. I bet he's working on a very obvious link between M. Curie-Sklodowska and Nagasaki.

[CommiesOut]

Btw, I'm jealous that you are called only "a pestilence" for posting an article about Afghanistan.
There is no justice in this world...