Following the trend of previous years, antisemitism in Belarus declined even further in 2000/1. Nonetheless, a Molotov cocktail was thrown into the synagogue in Minsk on 28 December 2000 and Jewish sites were vandalized several times. The Belarus branch of the neo-Nazi Russian National Unity increased its activities markedly.
THE JEWISH COMMUNITY
At the beginning of 2001 there were 27,200 Jews in Belarus, following a year in which 2,600 Jews left for Israel and 2,100 for Western countries; the rest were lost to the negative birth rate.
There are 20 Jewish organizations and religious communities in Belarus, most of them in the capital Minsk. As in Russia and Ukraine, they are engaged in Jewish education, aid for the needy, and preserving Jewish traditions and the memory of the Holocaust.
EXTREMIST GROUPS
The dictatorial regime under President Aleksandr Lukashenko, although supportive of the Jewish community, represses all movements not to its taste. Thus the number of extremist political movements, left or right and never large in any case, has decreased. Banned by law, insignificant as a factor in public life, these organizations include:
- the Belarus National Bolsheviks, under Viktor Gordeev, a local branch of the Russian organization led by Eduard Limonov, now under arrest for possession of military weapons;
- RUS, led by Gennadii Vlasov, a cover organization which attempts to legitimatize the ultra-right party Slavianskii Sobor (The Slavic Academy), which is banned by law;
- the Belarus People’s Patriot Movement (NPDB), headed by Viktor Chikin;
- the Freedom Party, under Serzhuk Visotzki;
- the LDPB, the Belarus branch of the Russian Liberal Democratic Party of Vladimir Zhirinovskii, led by Sergei Gaidukevich;
- the Right Revanche, led by Slavomir Adamovich and Ales Pushkin.
There was an attempt to reactivate the White Legion, a Nazi party which tries to act like a civil defense organization, and Krai, which masquerades as a sports group, using a stylized swastika as its logo.
The Belarus branch of the neo-Nazi Russian National Unity (RNE), led by Andrei Sakovich since his predecessor Andrei Valliulin was killed in Minsk on 5 August 2000 by a party member, increased its activities markedly. They now have branches in 11 cities, the most active in Minsk and Vitebsk. They frequently demonstrate in the major cities, distributing nationalist and antisemitic material, unhindered by the authorities. Their ideology is promoted in their newspaper Russkii poriadod (The Russian Order), and in books and posters produced in Russia. Government apathy to the RNE may be explained by the fact that, in addition to its racism, the movement supports the unity of Slavic peoples in one country, a position common to both the Russian and Belarus regimes.
ANTISEMITIC ACTIVITY
Following the trend of previous years, antisemitism in Belarus declined even further in 2000/1. Nonetheless, a Molotov cocktail was thrown into the synagogue in Minsk on 28 December 2000 and Jewish sites were vandalized several times; a Holocaust memorial site was desecrated in Brest on 15 October 2000 and again on 26 June 2001; and Jewish cemeteries in Borispol, Gomel and Vitebsk were desecrated in August 2000. The legal authorities announced that the perpetrators had been arrested in the first half of 2001 and would be tried on criminal charges.
Officials of the Belarus government, including President Lukashenko, have repeatedly expressed their support for the Jewish population of the country. In a speech in Minsk on 10 July 2000, he promised to fight racism and antisemitism. On 24 May 2000, the government press commission issued a warning to publishers of the mass media who regularly print antisemitic articles. The newspapers included Nasha niva (Our Wheatfield), Narodnaia volia (People’s Freedom) and the Belarus Commercial Newspaper.
On the other hand, local Jewish organizations lost their case against the distribution of an antisemitic book, War According to the Law of Abomination (Minsk, February 2000), published by the religious organization Orthodox Initiative in an edition of 30,000 copies. In the course of the trial, 16 March 2000 to 11 May 2000, the court declared it would not decide on a book involved in a historical dispute over The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which constitutes a chapter of the book. The book thus continued to be distributed in Belarus, particularly through the bookshop chain of the Russian Orthodox Church.
