Overview

The Jewish population of the former Soviet Union (FSU) at the beginning of 2001 was about 580,000. Of this number, some 485,000 (83.5 percent) live in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, about 50,000 in the six Muslim states of the former Soviet Union, 22,700 in the three Baltic states and the rest in Moldova and Georgia.

The population is diminishing rapidly, both because of emigration to Israel (about 51,000 in 2000) and to Western countries (about 30,000 in 2000), and because of the negative birth rate, which accounted for about 12,000 people in 2000. The total figure of over 90,000 represents a decrease of 16 percent of the population from the previous year.

Although there are significant differences between these countries, in all of them Jews engage in organized activities and enjoy the right to emigrate. There are about 600 Jewish organizations and religious foundations, which undertake a variety of activities, most groups receiving support from Israel and from Jewish organizations in the West. These include Jewish education (about 20,000 children and young people study in 230 educational institutions), aid to the needy, preserving Jewish culture and tradition, and commemorating the memory of the Holocaust. They publish about 50 newspapers and periodicals.

In contrast to the past, the year 2000 saw increasing interference by local governments in organized Jewish communal life, with the unmistakable aim of subjecting it to the regime, diminishing the influence of Israel and Western Jewish organizations and removing Zionist content from their activities.

No country of the former Soviet Union includes antisemitism in its official policy or state ideology. Jews continue to be prominent in the economic and cultural life of their countries, some serving in leadership positions in Jewish organizations as well. There was, however, some distancing of Jews from the political life of these countries, especially in Russia, where they had been prominent in the recent past; at the same time in Ukraine, Belarus, the Baltic states and particularly in Russia, widespread antisemitic activity, differing according to the political configuration of each country, continued in 2000.