Vladimir Putin has long projected friendly ties to Israel. But his silence since Saturday’s assault illustrates how the war in Ukraine has strained the relationship between the two countries. “… [A]mid the worst attack on Israel in 50 years, the high regard … [] Putin has shown for Israel in the past appears remarkably absent. … [with] no message of […]
» Read more
“At Janovska, the Auschwitz of Ukraine, I saw skulls, hypodermic needles and tons of trash. Looters desecrate mass graves of Jews, searching for gold; the sites’ histories are ‘revised’, overwritten by Christian and nationalist symbolism. This is why we should still care”
» Read more
(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – September 7, 2018) Anti-Semitism is on the decline in Russia, particularly since the Soviet period, according to a report by the independent Levada Center commissioned for the Russian Jewish Congress. Various estimates count the Jewish population in Russia anywhere from 180,000 to 1.5 million. During the Soviet Union, Jews in Russia were targeted by the […]
» Read more
Subject: “Sara’s Century” podcast Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2018 16:43:23 +0000 From: BARBARA T NORTON <btnorton@widener.edu> I wanted bring to your attention a fascinating new podcast serial, “Sara’s Century,” by a colleague at Rutgers U-Camden. The description below is from the website http://sarascentury.blogs.rutgers.edu/: “Sara’s Century” is a 12-episode podcast serial about Sara Mebel, a nearly 100-year-old Jewish woman who left […]
» Read more
(Sean Guillory – Facebook – August 29, 2018 McCain and Oleh Tyahnybok) [embedded live feed of facebook post should appear below; core text also recopied further below in case loading delayed] “This is too funny. WaPo publishes an op-ed about how McCain was a great champion for the ‘human rights community’ and uses a picture with McCain standing next to […]
» Read more
(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, August 20, 2018) Two out of every three Russians (66 percent) say that there exists a group of people abroad and at home who are seeking to rewrite Russian history, replace its traditional values, and undermine its greatness, according to the results of a new VTsIOM survey. Only 26 percent say that […]
» Read more
MOSCOW. Aug 6 (Interfax) – Twenty sites in Russia where Jews were executed and buried during the war will be memorialized as part of the next stage of the Return Dignity program this year. Monuments to Holocaust victims will be built in cities and villages in the Bryansk, Volgograd, Oryol, Ryazan, Smolensk, and Tula regions, the Stavropol Territory and the […]
» Read more
(Kennan Institute – wilsoncenter.org/program/kennan-institute – Izabella Tabarovsky, Senior Associate, Manager for Regional Engagement at The Kennan Institute – May 9, 2018) [Text with links kennan-russiafile.org/2018/05/09/russias-strange-obsession-with-sobibor/] A new Russian movie, Sobibór, is making its way into Russian theaters and European capitals. The big-budget, highly promoted film tells the story of a prisoner escape from the Nazi death camp Sobibór in October […]
» Read more
“… Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein made history in Moscow yesterday. For one of the former USSR’s most famous refuseniks – Prisoners of Zion – to address Russia’s parliament 30 years after his release from the Siberian gulag is nothing less than another Russian Revolution vis-a-vis world Jewry. …”
» Read more
MOSCOW. May 11 (Interfax) – The Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia (FJCR) backed the court ruling in the case against the “Pokemon catcher” Ruslan Sokolovsky, but called some of the charges against him absurd. “That the judge chose a penalty not involving incarceration is, in my view, a positive fact because prison has not yet made anyone better. Whenever […]
» Read more
MOSCOW. March 28 (Interfax) – The Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia (FJCR) has called Stalin a Herod who was exterminating his own people. “Stalin must remain to generations a Herod who built the GULAG, BAM [Baikal-Amur Mainline], who expanded the railway and won the Second World War, the man responsible for mass deaths of his own people. Murderer!” Boruch […]
» Read more
After decades of Jewish emigration from Russia, today a new generation of young Russians is learning about their past with the help of a number of cultural organizations. (Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – ALEXANDER CHERNYSHEV, SPECIAL TO RBTH – November 18, 2016) Starting in the late 1980s, a flood of Russian Jews left the country for new homes […]
» Read more
“Seeking contacts with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, the Russian leadership has turned to its connections in Jewish business circles, Gazeta.ru has learned. Despite accusations of xenophobia, Trump maintains good relations with the Jewish community and intends to involve his son-in-law Jared Kushner in his administration.”
» Read more
(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, July 13, 2016) Lenin said that Marxism was powerful because it was true; his successors in the Kremlin have been as successful with their propaganda as they have been because they carefully tailor their messages and techniques to whatever audiences they hope to influence. One of the most damning indications of this […]
» Read more
(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Ruth Moore – June 13, 2016) Tomorrow is opening night of the Moscow Jewish Film Festival, a cultural event offering Muscovites the chance to become acquainted with the world of Jewish professional cinematography. Over the course of the week, more than 35 films with a focus on Jewish culture will show at leading cultural venues […]
» Read more
Over 100 Ukrainian Jews fled war-torn Ukraine and arrived in Israel on Tuesday, February 23. Many Ukrainian Jews have been leaving their country of birth due to violence and frequent anti-Semitic attacks. They were assisted by the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews (IFCJ), which has been spearheading a project of bringing Jews to Israel from countries engulfed by war. […]
» Read more
(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Roman Super, Claire Bigg – July 3, 2015) Just a year ago, Russian journalist Vladimir Yakovlev was one of Moscow’s most influential media figures. Today, he lives a quiet life in Tel Aviv and has swapped his Russian passport for an Israeli one. Yakovlev, the founder of the respected Kommersant publishing house and the Snob magazine, […]
» Read more
This year marks the 25th anniversary of Baltic independence and more than a decade of full membership in the European Union and NATO. If the assumption was that those developments would cure Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian society from the scourges of fascism, racism, and anti-Semitism, the events of the past month clearly show that these plagues have not been eradicated. […]
» Read more
Jews in the Baltics fear a series of disturbing events in the three-nation region of Eastern Europe may be signaling a revival of the Holocaust-era hatred that once nearly wiped out their numbers. Across the countries of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, Jewish leaders say their communities are feeling increasingly uncomfortable as anti-Semitism once again appears to be on the rise. […]
» Read more
(RIA Novosti – April 28, 2014) Russia remains one of a group of countries with a minimum level of anti-Semitism, said the head of the European Jewish Congress, Vyacheslav Moshe Kantor, commenting on the results of the annual report on the level of anti-Semitism in the world for 2013. Russia remains one of a group of countries with a minimum […]
» Read more
MOSCOW. Feb 11 (Interfax) – A senior Israeli diplomat has complained about an alleged upsurge of anti-Semitism in Ukraine. “In the last few years – I mean before this crisis – there was a decline in anti-Semitic sentiments in Ukraine. Now, of course, with the situation being as heated as it is, everything is bubbling over there,” Anna Azari, Foreign […]
» Read more
(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, September 3, 2013) Driven by their hatred of Vladimir Putin as a personality and their lack of a place in today’s Russia, the liberal intelligentsia has been willing to overlook xenophobic, nationalist and even anti-Semitic remarks by Aleksey Navalny, even though such ugly comments would have ended the careers of Western politicians […]
» Read more
(RIA Novosti – Maria Young – WASHINGTON, June 19, 2013) Nearly a dozen long-lost, rarely seen Soviet films and scores of screenplays that were never produced about the persecution of Jews during World War II have been revived to offer decades-old evidence of a side of the Holocaust few people recognize today. From the dusty archives of Moscow and […]
» Read more
(RIA Novosti, WASHINGTON, June 17, 2013) A New York-based Orthodox Jewish group has said it is not satisfied with Russia’s recent decision to transfer a disputed collection of Jewish religious texts to the newly built Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center in Moscow, a move proposed by Russian President Vladimir Putin to resolve the row. Moving the so-called Schneerson Library […]
» Read more
(Interfax – MOSCOW. April 6, 2013) Authors of a research on the level of anti-Semitism in Russia in 2011-2012 concluded that animosity toward Jewish people in the country is fairly uncommon, although they mentioned worrying manifestations of it among some nationalists, Muslims and government officials. “The level of crimes motivated by anti-Semitism continued to be relatively low in 2011-2012. Five […]
» Read more
(Museum at heart of Russia’s Jewish culture revival – AP – Nataliya Vasilyeva – November 16, 2012 – click here for full article) AP takes a look at Moscow’s new Jewish Museum and Center of Tolerance: The museum, which opened this week, tells the history of Jewry through people’s stories, which come alive in video interviews and interactive displays. The […]
» Read more
(Interfax – Novo-Ogarevo, 7 November) Grassroots anti-Semitism still exists in Russia, Russian President Vladimir Putin has admitted. “You have said that there is less anti-Semitism now, but this means that it still exists,” he said on Wednesday (7 November) at his meeting with chief rabbi of Russia Berl Lazar and president of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia Aleksandr […]
» Read more