CIS & Baltic States 2003-4
Some 525,000
Jews remain in the post-Soviet (CIS and Baltic) states, most in the European
part (Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova) – 450,000;
25,000 dwell in Transcaucasia (Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan);30,000 in Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan); and about
20,000 in the Baltic States (Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia).
Russian Federation
The Jewish Community
About half of
the Russian Jews live in Moscow and St. Petersburg. There are
several Jewish organizations: The Russian Jewish Congress (REK),
the Congress of Jewish Religious Communities of Russia (KEROOR – headed by one of the Chief Rabbis
of Russia, Adolf Shaievich), the Federation of Jewish
Communities of the CIS, the World Congress of Russian Jewry, the
Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia (FEOR), Vaad
(Association of Jewish Organizations and Communities of Russia), Moscow
Jewish Community, and Jewish Association of St. Petersburg (JASP). The Chabad Lubavitch movement operates in cooperation with FEOR,
whose head Berel Lazar, is one of the chief rabbis of Russia. FEOR
is affiliated with the Federation of Jewish Communities of the CIS and has 84
branches throughout Russia. It sponsors many programs and establishments, such
as orphanages, humanitarian assistance, schools, summer and holiday camps and
community centers; it also distributes religious symbols, such as menorahs
and matzos.
The Jewish University in Moscow, founded in
1991, established a Center of Jewish Studies and Jewish
Civilization at Moscow State University. St. Petersburg has the Petersburg Institute for Jewish Studies and the
Center of Biblical & Hebrew Studies.
International Jewish organizations operating in Russia include the American
Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (Joint); the Jewish Agency for Israel, the
World Union for Progressive Judaism, the ORT educational network and the Hillel Foundation for Jewish Campus Life.
Political Situation
The election to the
Russian Parliament (Duma – 450 deputies) on 7 December was the most important
political event in Russia in 2003. In contrast to the 1999 elections when
antisemitic propaganda of both right- and left-wing political organizations
was a dominant feature, this tendency was absent in 2003. However, the 2003
election campaign was not devoid of antisemitism. In fact, it was marked by a
significant rise of nationalistic rhetoric, and most of the parties that ran
for election exploited nationalist themes to some extent.
Gennadii Zyuganov,
for example, head of the Communist Party (KPRF), warned, in a
September 2003 interview, that Russia was threatened by ‘zionization’, which
he blamed for the “mass impoverishment and annihilation” in Russia after the
fall of the Soviet regime. Second on the party list Nikolai Kondratenko,
former governor of Krasnodar region, tried to draw a distinction, during a
visit to Orenburg in October 2003, between ‘good’ Jews and ‘bad’ Zionists,
and linked Zionism to Nazism. In Volgograd, where he traveled in early November
and met Communist Party activists, regional officials, representatives of the
media, and students of the Volgograd Agricultural Academy, he blamed
‘Zionism’ and Jews in general for Russia’s problems. On 12–13 November 2003
he visited Astrakhan, where he denounced Jews once again. A KPRF political ad
from November quoted him as accusing “Zionist capital” of “sucking all the
living juice out of Russia and Russians” and of planning to “kill through
hunger, cold and moral torture no fewer than 70 million more people” in
Russia. They were joined by General Albert Makashov, who in 1998 publicly
called for the mass murder of Russian Jews and claims at every opportunity
that he is fighting the 'Yids'. After having being stricken from the voting
rolls before the 1999 elections, he won his old seat back in the 2003
elections. The KPRF won 13 percent of the vote, which gave it almost 11
percent of the seats in the Duma (48 deputies).
The Liberal Democratic
Party of Russia (LDPR), headed by Vladimir Zhirinovskii (former deputy
speaker of the Duma), who has frequently made antisemitic and racist comments
over the years, almost doubled the number of its seats. In late October, Zhirinovskii
stated his support for former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Muhammad, who
claimed that Jews ruled the world (see Arab Countries):
“He told the truth,” Zhirinovskii commented. The LDPR received 11 percent of
the vote, which gave it 8 percent of the seats (38 deputies).
The Motherland
(Rodina) bloc, established in early 2003, unites hard right to
moderate nationalists with left-wing populists under the leadership of Dmitrii
Rogozin and Sergei Glaz’ev. Sergei Baburin headed the openly antisemitic People’s
Will party, which later merged with Motherland. Andrei Saveliev, another
member of the bloc who is known for his antisemitic views, got into a
fistfight with Vladimir Zhirinovskii during an election debate on national
television. Saveliev accused Zhirinovskii of being a Jewish activist during
the perestroika period and asked him whether he considered Russia or Israel
to be his true homeland. General Igor Rodionov, a former defense minister
under Yeltsin, spent much of his post-government career publicly warning of
the ‘threat’ to Russia posed by ‘Zionists’. In his view, persons of Jewish
origin hold the key posts in the Russian government and control 70 percent of
industry and the majority of the news media. In the August 2003 issue of the
monthly newspaper Patriot Mari-El, Rodionov wrote that in order to
save Russia, a struggle must be launched against ‘international Zionism’. He
also called on Russians to “throw off the occupation of the Zionist regime.”
Oleg Mashchenko, in an interview published on 8 February 2003 by the newspaper Kuban’ Segodnya, branded Zionism “the main enemy of the peoples
of Russia.” Natalya Narochnitskaya, in an article entitled “The
Washington-Tel Aviv-Istanbul Axis and Others,” on the party’s website, argued
that the Israeli Mossad and the American CIA were behind Palestinian
terrorist attacks against Israel and repeated the canard that the Israelis
were behind the September 11 terrorist attacks in the US. The Motherland bloc
won 9 percent of the vote, which gave it almost 9 percent of the total seats
(39 deputies).
Together,
these parties won 33 percent of the vote (almost 28 percent of the Duma seats
– 123 deputies). In other words, one out of three Russian voters supported
explicitly antisemitic parties in the December 2003 elections to the Russian
parliament.
In addition to
the Duma elections, several local elections took place in 2003. In Novgorod,
elections for regional governor were held on 7 September 2003. One of the candidates, co-chairman of the NDPR (National
Sovereign Party of Russia), Aleksandr Sevastyanov, used antisemitic slogans
in his campaign. He accused the local authorities of being under the
influence of the Jews and spoke out in favor of the local antisemitic
publisher Pavel Ivanov. Human rights organizations demanded, unsuccessfully,
that the authorities take action. Sevastyanov won almost 4 percent of the
vote in the elections. In Novosibirsk, elections for regional governor took
place on the same day as the Duma elections. As part of his election campaign
Boris Mironov, one of the candidates, published a newspaper entitled The
First Siberian Front. Under the slogan “The Jews should not give orders
in Russia,” the newspaper included pronouncements such as: “When the Russian
people are poor, hungry and dying, and the Jewish people are becoming
wealthier and fatter – this is Jewish fascism.” The prosecutor’s office
succeeded in stopping distribution of a large number of copies and turned the
case over to the courts. However, it was closed since the law says a
candidate’s registration cannot be cancelled less than 5 days before the
elections ( 7 Dec.) and the trial was scheduled for 4 December. Mironov
received only 0.54 percent of the vote.
Antisemitic Manifestations
While
President Vladimir Putin publicly denounced nationalist ideology and
supported legal action against antisemitic publishers and skinheads, lower
level officials turned a blind eye to antisemitic incidents. Shortly after
the 2003 elections, President Putin condemned nationalist politicians as
“either indecent people, simply idiots or provocateurs” during a live annual question-and-answer broadcast on TV and
radio. He also threatened to prosecute politicians who used nationalist
slogans, but no such actions have been initiated.
Violence and Vandalism
In Russia, vandalism of Jewish property and
desecration of Jewish cemeteries are the most common forms of antisemitic
expression, along with antisemitic graffiti. Usually, the perpetrators remain
unknown. In the rare cases when they are found, the accusation is invariably
hooliganism or vandalism (which are punishable offenses) and not
dissemination of national hatred or antisemitism.
Since the first
booby-trapped sign exploded on a Moscow highway in May 2002, there have been
several similar incidents in various Russian locations. Approximately half
were fake bombs while the other half were real explosives. At the beginning
of 2003 firecrackers were thrown at the balcony of the apartment of the Rostov
region rabbi, Elyashiv Kaplun. As a result, the balcony was set on fire. A
few days earlier, unknown persons had smeared swastikas at the entrance of
the building. On 1 August, a booby-trapped antisemitic sign was discovered in
the suburbs of Moscow. On 21 September, another such sign was placed in a
playground in Kaliningrad. It exploded while being dismantled and a
14-year-old boy was injured. On 9 October, an antisemitic sign with a dummy
charge attached to it was found in southern Moscow.
On 2 February,
unidentified persons attempted to set alight a synagogue in Chelyabinsk. In
July, the same synagogue was covered with antisemitic graffiti. Synagogues
were also damaged in Kaliningrad, Krasnoyarsk, Voronezh, Yaroslavl, Kostroma
and Saratov, in some places repeatedly during the year.
On 15 and 22 August, the
grave of the Jewish actor Veniamin Zuskin (a member of a Jewish
intelligentsia group connected to the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, who was
murdered on 12 August 1952) in Penza was vandalized. Cemeteries were also
desecrated in Kaliningrad, Samara, Makhachkala (42 gravestones on 3 April; 10
on 4 June; and several more on 4 August), Volgodonsk (40 gravestones on 11
April), Moscow (12 gravestones in May), Tambov, Yaroslavl, Pyatigorsk (19
gravestones on 28 June), and Kostroma.
Propaganda
Antisemitic articles and books, including Mein
Kampf, circulate freely in Russia. Although much of the content violates
Russian law, production of this material continues, and the publishers are
rarely prosecuted. About one hundred newspapers that publish anti-Jewish and
xenophobic texts are sold openly. Russkoe Veche, a Nizhnii Novgorod
newspaper, regularly publishes antisemitic articles. After charges were
brought against the paper’s editor Pavel Ivanov, on 8 September the Novgorod
court acquitted him on the grounds of a ‘lack of evidence’. On 9 May 2003, the anti-Jewish newspaper Russkaya Sibir (Novosobirsk) received a final
warning from the Press Ministry. The court convicted Igor Kolodizenko,
editor-in-chief, but he received a pardon, traditionally granted during the
World War II victory celebrations. During the court sessions, he stated that
the Jews should be deprived of all rights and exiled from Russia. Kolodezenko
continued to publish antisemitic material and in December the prosecutor’s
office opened a new case. Another antisemitic publisher, Victor Korchagin
from Moscow, was also granted a pardon. An article in a local nationalist Stavropol
newspaper in September accused the Jews of distributing “extremist
literature,” naming specifically the Kitzur Shulhan Aruch. These types
of antisemitic articles, published by writers from nationalist-extremist
circles, use various motifs from classical antisemitism, such as the
worldwide Jewish conspiracy; the image of the Jews as dishonest and greedy
capitalists, swindlers, bankers and exploiters, or as corrupt journalists and
politicians; and negative portrayals of Judaism as a religion.
Responses to Extremism and Antisemitism
In post-Soviet Russia, as
well as in other post-Soviet states, the rights of minorities and of
religious groups are protected by law, and racist propaganda or incitement of
national hatred is a criminal offense. However, usually the laws are not
enforced.
As of 2002, the number of
arrests of skinheads in Moscow increased and in 2003, there was a serious
crackdown on neo-Nazis in St. Petersburg. In other cities official
indifference to hate crimes continues. Part of the problem seems to be that
Russian legislation has no definition of a hate crime. In most cases, such
crimes are classified as ordinary hooliganism or murder.
An example of an unusual
response to antisemitism and racism in 2003 – which is ongoing – is the case
of the St. Petersburg skinhead group Schulz 88 (Schulz is the leader’s
nickname; 88 stands for Heil Hitler). The group’s leader, Dmitrii Bobrov, and
other members were arrested in October and November 2003. The ‘Schulz 88’
case became the first in St. Petersburg opened under clause 282 of the 1996–97 Russian Criminal Code (incitement of
national, racist or religious hatred, establishment of an extremist group).
The group engaged in beating foreigners and in preparing and distributing
propaganda materials with antisemitic content. The group’s leader is accused
of hooliganism, incitement of national, racist or religious hatred, and
involving minors in a criminal group.
Ukraine
The Jewish Communnity
Kiev's Jewish community is the largest in the country.
The Association of Jewish Communities and Organizations of Ukraine (VAAD), founded
in 1991, conducts communal, charitable, educational and cultural and
political work. The Jewish Foundation for Ukraine also carries out
communal and educational projects, while the Jewish Council of Ukraine deals
with Yiddish culture and Holocaust commemoration. In 1998, the Jewish
Confederation of Ukraine (JCU) was
established, uniting the VAAD, the Jewish Council of Ukraine, the Union of
Jewish Religious Organizations of Ukraine, and the Kiev Municipal Jewish
Community. The Joint and the Claims Conference operate a network of welfare
centers across the country.
There are about 15 day
schools, 11 kindergartens, 70-80 Sunday schools, 8 yeshivas, and 70 Hebrew ulpans
throughout Ukraine. The International Solomon University (Kiev and Kharkiv)
offers Judaic studies. In addition, there is a Ukrainian Center for Holocaust
Studies in Kiev and an Institute for Jewish Studies, while the Academy of Sciences
has an archive of Jewish manuscripts and books.
Ten Jewish newspapers are
published in Kiev and about 20 smaller ones in other cities. About 40
synagogues were returned to the Jewish communities; in other cases the
communities received new buildings instead of the original property.
Antisemitic Manifestations
Violence and Vandalism
Cemetery desecration
and antisemitic graffiti on the facades of synagogues and other Jewish
buildings are categorized in Ukraine mostly as vandalism. On 20 January, ink
was sprayed on the door of the Jewish charity organization Irgun Khesed in Lviv,
and a partly burnt Ukrainian flag with a Star of David left there. In Belaya Tserkov,
the entrance to the tomb of Tsadik Rabbi Mordekhai of Chernobil was
desecrated in April. In the same month, unknown persons entered the dormitory
of a Jewish school in Kharkiv and painted swastikas on the staircase. On 12
June, a Jew was attacked in Dnepropetrovsk by a group of unidentified
persons, who beat him and shouted antisemitic remarks. Antisemitic graffiti
was painted on the Jewish Agency’s building in Kanatov on 19 June. On 23 June
the word ‘Yids’ was scrawled on a poster of the exhibition “Ann Frank – A
Lesson in History,” held in Kiev. On 4 July, antisemitic slogans were painted
on buildings in the center of Sevastopol. On 25 July, a Jewish organization
in Drogobych received an anonymous fax threatening a pogrom in August by an
organization of skinheads. On 30 July 2003, a young man was attacked on the
street apparently because of Hebrew text on his T-shirt. A swastika was
painted on a memorial for Holocaust victims in Sevastopol on 7 August. On 13
August, and again on 26 August, swastikas, an antisemitic caricature and
antisemitic slogans were painted at the entrance to a synagogue in Mukhachevo.
On 28 August, Rabbi Uri Fainshtein was severely beaten near the Brodsky
central synagogue by three unidentified persons. On 5 December, stones and a
plaque at the Babi Yar memorial, dedicated by Israeli President Moshe Katzav
in 2001, were damaged.
Demonstrations and Publications
On 10 November, a
nationalist, anti-Jewish demonstration was held in the central square of Lviv.
The participants held posters branding Jews as parasites. Other posters read:
“Living close to the Jews means a betrayal of God and of Ukraine.” In the
same month an antisemitic article was published in the newspaper Idealist,
warning against the ‘Yids’ who want to destroy the Ukrainian people. Earlier
issues of this newspaper contained articles calling for the deportation of
all Jews.
Holocaust Commemoration
On 12 July a memorial
was unveiled in Sevastopol on the 61st anniversary of the murder of 4,200
Jews by the Nazis and their collaborators there. In October, the Tkuma Holocaust
Research Center announced plans to build a Holocaust museum and a Jewish
education and memorial center in Dnepropetrovsk.
Belarus
The Jewish Community
The primary Jewish organization is the
Belarus Union of Jewish Organizations and Communities (ABJOC). Several
religious organizations also operate in Belarus. There are no state-sponsored
Jewish schools or kindergartens in Belarus, despite the 1992 law “On National
Minorities,” regulating relations between the state and the people. In fact,
Jewish communal, cultural and educational institutions exist in Belarus only
thanks to foreign (Israeli Ministry of Education and others) sponsors. Jewish
newspapers are published by secular and religious organizations. There are no
radio or television broadcasts for the Jewish community in Yiddish, Russian
or Belarusian. The only Jewish theater or musical ensembles are amateur ones,
sponsored by private donations; similarly, the only Jewish culture or charity
centers, are those established by sponsors from abroad. About 96 synagogues
throughout the country have not yet been returned to the Jewish communities
On 11 September 2003, the Belarus minister of education ordered the closure of the International
Humanities Institute (Mezhdunarodnii Gumanitarnii Institut – MGI) in Minsk.
The institute was opened in 1999 as a subdivision of Belarus State University.
It was the only higher education institute in Belarus where a department of
Judaism existed and where students could study Jewish history and Hebrew
language, among other subjects.
During 2003, a conflict
between the Grodno authorities and the Jewish community emerged over the
reconstruction of an urban stadium, which was built more than 45 years ago on
an ancient Jewish cemetery. During the reconstruction work, soil from the
stadium’s territory that had been piled in a ravine was washed away by
rainwater, revealing human remains. The conflict might have been avoided if
the construction had been coordinated with the Jewish community, which would
have reburied the remains according to Jewish tradition. After international
involvement in the conflict, the authorities agreed to stop work at the site
and consult with representatives of the Jewish community about continuing
construction. However, work at the site continued.
Antisemitic Groups
Political antisemitism has not been a
factor in Belarus due to restrictions on the opposition and hence the absence
of an active political struggle. However, Jewish issues appear in the
political press such as the Belarus Communist Party’s newspaper My i Vremya,
as well as in speeches of Communist Party members. As in the party’s past,
such materials deny the very existence of a ‘Jewish question’.
Despite the authorities’
denial, neo-Nazi youth organizations exist in the republic, demonstrated by
the numerous swastikas that have appeared on fences, buildings, pedestrian
subways and bus stops, sometimes signed with the initials RNE (Russian
National Unity – a Russian supremacist group). Video films, literature, Nazi
symbols, flags and tape recordings of marches in Nazi Germany are brought
from Russia. The import of such goods into Belarus is not prohibited. In
November, for example, a store located near the Yama memorial site in Minsk
was selling Nazi and antisemitic propaganda material.
At the beginning of May
2003, the Grazhdanskaya Oborona band held concerts in four Belarus cities.
Some of the group’s songs contain National Bolshevist content as well as
anti-Christian and anti-Jewish motifs, such as a call to re-open Buchenwald
and Auschwitz. This band was prohibited from performing in the Baltic states
as well as several cities in Russia. The Jewish community and the Youth
Democratic Movement of Belarus tried, unsuccessfully, to prevent the band’s
performances.
Antisemitic Manifestations
Several acts of cemetery desecration were
perpetrated in May 2003, including in Gomel (15 May), Bobruysk (26 May) and Timkovich
(23 May). In Borisov the same graves were vandalized two years in a row.
Memorials to Holocaust victims were desecrated repeatedly. In the last three
years, the Holocaust memorial at the center of Borisov was damaged four
times. On 27 May, swastikas and antisemitic slogans were painted on the
monument at the Yama memorial site to Holocaust victims in Minsk. On 12
October, just two months after it was inaugurated (13 August 2003), the monument in memory of Holocaust victims in Lida was desecrated with blue paint.
The perpetrators were not caught.
Although religious
antisemitism, i.e., the use of Christian antisemitic myths to inflame
anti-Jewish feelings, has not been observed in recent years, such materials
are imported from Russia and can be bought freely in stores of Pravoslav
churches and at kiosks that sell religious articles. One such kiosk is
located at the entrance to the National Science Academy (Natsionalnaya Akademiya
Nauk) in Minsk.
In early 2003 the
Russian-based newspaper Russkii Vestnik was banned in Belarus
following numerous requests from Jewish organizations; however in February
2004 it reappeared at kiosks. The newspaper regularly publishes antisemitic
articles; some, for example, blamed the Jews for the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 while others discussed the subject of Jews killing Christians as part of
their religious customs. One article accused Belarusian Jewish activists of
incitement of national hatred because they opposed antisemitic propaganda.
The Orthodox Church also
has some antisemitic tendencies. For example, the Minsk Cathedral of St.
Peter and Paul issued an ‘Orthodox Calendar’ marking the date 3 May 2003 as the anniversary of the killing of ‘Martyr Baby Gavriil’, allegedly by
Jews in 1690. The calendar included the prayer to be cited on this day, which
contains the words: “Martyr Gavriil, beasts, Jews, have stolen you… pierced
your ribs… for you bleed, and are racked with severe wounds.”
Attitudes toward the Holocaust and the Nazi Era
As during the Soviet regime, the tendency
to conceal the positive role Jews played in the USSR in general and in the
struggle against Nazism in particular has re-emerged. For example, the Belarussian
Encyclopedia describes ‘holocaust’ not as an event of mass murders, but
as “a term of scientific literature, applied as a synonym for genocide.”
Nothing is said about the Holocaust as a historical and social phenomenon, or
about the persecution and murder of Jews on the territory of Soviet Belarus
or elsewhere. Most Belarus publications minimize or completely deny the
Jewish resistance to Nazi occupation, and sometimes Jews are even blamed for
the genocide of the non-Jewish population during the war.
Although there is no law
on restitution in Belarus, for the last 10 years Christian confessions have
reclaimed significant portions of real estate that belonged to them before
the Soviets came to power, when their institutions were moved or liquidated.
However, in regard to compensation for buildings of synagogues or other
Jewish property confiscated during the Soviet era, the authorities refuse to
allocate even small tracts of land to the community (in Minsk, Bobruysk and Mogilev,
for example). Since no premise which belonged to Jews or which was
constructed at Jewish expense has been returned, Jewish public organizations
in Belarus are compelled to rent offices or buildings.
Responses to Extremism and Antisemitism
In an interview to the German Der
Spiegel in December, Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko denied
praising Hitler and the Nazi regime in an interview to Handelsblatt in
1995, which had caused a negative response from the opposition, and which was
silenced at the time. Nowadays, he is the only official figure who mentions
in his speeches the role of Jewish partisan groups on Belorussian territory
during World War II, and emphasizes that “Jews will no longer be social
outcasts in this land.” In parallel, the Belarus authorities frequently
express their pro-Arab views and even offered sanctuary to Saddam Husayn. In
the capital, Minsk, many demonstrations are held in support of the Palestinians
fighting the ‘Israeli aggressors’. However, in October a Palestinian student
was ordered to leave Belarus after security forces found he was disseminating
material about militant Islam.
In the last 15 years, not
a single trial has been held concerning cemetery desecration, neo-Nazi
graffiti, or vandalism of synagogues. According to Belarus law, in order to
prove a case of incitement to national hatred one must have evidence of
intention. However, since this is possible only if the accused admits his
guilt, a case against antisemites is practically unwinnable in Belarus.
Moldova
The Jewish Community and Commemoration of the Past
The primary Jewish
organizations are the Moldovan Association of Jewish Organizations and
Communities, and the Union of Jewish Organizations of Chisinau (SEVROK). The
Joint operates a children’s library and Hillel has a branch in Chisinau. Chabad
Lubavitch has synagogues in Chisinau and Tiraspol and is active throughout Moldova.
There are two Jewish day schools and two pre-schools and at least eight
Jewish Sunday schools. Chabad operates welfare and education programs and
publishes a monthly newspaper.
Jewish
schools are partly funded by the Moldovan government. Judaica departments
were established in both Chisinau State University and the Academy of Sciences.
Moldova has no restitution law. The Jewish community received only two of the
many properties confiscated during the Soviet period.
Moldova
is a multiethnic country, comprising more than one
hundred nationalities (ethnic minorities constitute about 35 percent of the
total population). Despite some positive features, such as a large number of
ethno-cultural organizations, there exist in Moldovan society many negative
stereotypes of and prejudices toward ethnic minorities (especially Jews and
Roma).
The fundamental law, which
grants legal status to national minorities, was signed on 19 July 2001. This
law prohibits any form of national discrimination. In 2001 the state
guaranteed Jews pre-school education, and primary, secondary (general and
vocational), higher, and post-university Hebrew and Yiddish language
education. On 23 January 2002, the government of Moldova issued a resolution
regulating the activities of the Department of Interethnic Relations and
specifying that Moldova prohibit any ethnic or linguistic discrimination and
provide equal rights to all ethnic groups residing in the republic.
April 2003 marked the 100th anniversary of the Kishinev
pogrom (1903). An official ceremonies commemorating this event was held in
the capital Chisinau. Jewish
organizations allocated funds for the erection of a monument to Jewish
victims of the pogrom. The monument was inaugurated on 8 April 2003, in a
park at the old Jewish cemetery. Vladimir Voronin, president of the Moldovan Republic,
and other officials, took part in the commemoration activities and
commemoration medals were issued.
On 5
October a Holocaust memorial, built by the Nemurire organization (founded in
2001 to locate and mark all places where Jews and Roma were murdered during
the Nazi occupation of Moldova), was inaugurated near Edintsi, where more
then 100 Jews were murdered and buried in October 1941.
The
Jewish Congress of the Republic of Moldova, in cooperation with the
Association of Jewish Organizations and Communities of the Republic of Moldova,
published 2,000 copies of a Holocaust history schoolbook in the Russian and
Moldovan (Romanian) languages. The Ministry of
Education of Moldova supported this initiative.
Antisemitic Manifestations and Holocaust Denial
At a spontaneous
meeting called in Dubasary in summer 2003, a citizen, G. Drotjev, claimed
that non-Jewish pensioners had not received their pensions because “Jews and
the Jewish authority have pocketed everything and stolen from the old
people.” This was said at a time when pensioners had not gotten welfare
payments for several months while Jewish pensioners regularly received aid
packages and other social help from Jewish organizations. Following a
complaint from the Jewish community of Dubosary, the regional prosecutor
opened a criminal case against Drotjev for incitement of interethnic hatred. Drotjev
apologized to the head of the Jewish community.
About the same time, the antisemitic book of Paul Goma (a
descendant of Bessarabia who lives in Paris), Red Week: 28 June–3 July 1940, or Jews and Bessarabia, was
published in Chisinau and distributed widely among bookshops and libraries,
and among colleges and universities in Moldova. Goma tries to prove that the Jews themselves were to
blame for their own extermination on the territory of the Romanian
protectorates of Bessarabia (now part of Moldova), Bukovina, Transnistria, and the south of Ukraine, because they
supported the Soviet regime and formed partisan groups. The author supports
the thesis of Hitler that all Jews are communists, and distorts the
Holocaust. Stefan Sacareanu, a member of parliament from the Christian
Democratic People’s Party, promoted the book in the country. After he was
accused of spreading xenophobia and antisemitism, he stated that Moldova must be open
to freedom of speech.
Holocaust revisionism is quite common in Moldova, where some
historians and ultra-nationalistic groups justify the actions of wartime
Romanian leader and collaborator Marshal Ion Antonescu. The Christian Democratic
People’s Party, led by Iurie Rosca, is one of the leading propagators of
anti-Jewish and anti-Islamic, as well as Holocaust denial, ideas, despite Rosca’s
claim that the party fights communism and totalitarianism. The party renders
active support to historians who write textbooks for schools and universities
without a single word about the Holocaust, although it is known that more
than 400,000 Jews and many thousands of Roma were massacred by Antonescu’s
collaborators in Bessarabia and Transnistria.
One scholar known for his antisemitic views is Anatol Petrencu,
chairperson of the National Association of Historians. His writings
demonstrate his political engagement with and open support for the Christian
Democratic Party. For example, in a book he wrote in 1999, he used Bessarabia as a model
in an attempt to explain Antonescu’s arguments in support of the policy of
genocide carried out on the Jews of Bessarabia and Bucovina. The Jews – a
“fifth column” – were in fact a mean mercenary tribe – robbers, thieves,
criminals, and Soviet agents who turned in Romanian patriots and desecrated
churches. It should be noted that other ethnic minorities in Bessarabia are also
described negatively in the book.
Racism in the media is another serious problem in Moldova. After the
collapse of the Soviet Union, many cases of hate speech appeared in the Moldovan
media, especially toward Jews and Roma. Some extreme right newspapers blamed
Jews and Roma for the previous communist regime and for the country’s
economic difficulties. In June 2003 the radio night talk show “Hyde Park”
(Radio Antenna C), with the well-know nationalistic activist Oleg Brega, was
closed because of praise for Hitler and Antonescu, and, inter alia,
incitement to violence and xenophobia heard on the program. Brega himself
said the closure was a result of pressure on the media from the communist
authorities. The broadcast was resumed in 2004.
On 3 November 2003, a letter signed by a Chechen-Arab group and addressed to the chief rabbi
of Moldova, was received at the Chisinau Chabad Lubavitch synagogue. The
writers of the letter demanded that unless the Jewish community paid them
200,000 euros they would send “two suicide-bombers to the synagogue to take
revenge.” The incident was being investigated. In the same month, the graves
of five Jewish partisans killed near the village of Ratush were desecrated.
Georgia
The Jewish Community
Most of the communal
organizations are located in the capital Tbilisi. The Jewish Agency,
the Joint and the Israel Foreign Ministry’s Center for International
Cooperation all conduct communal and charity projects. The Jewish Community
of Ashkenazi Jews (Rahamim) caries for Jewish cemeteries and synagogues,
while the Association of Georgian Jews (Derekh Yehudi) deals with property
restitution, as well as community events and programs. There are also a
Jewish day school, a library, several Sunday schools for children and adults,
and a yeshiva college for men. Chabad Lubavitch is active also. An Open
University supported by the JDC offers courses in Judaism.
In
1994, President Shevardnadze issued a decree to protect Jewish religious,
cultural and historic monuments. In January 2001, representatives of the
Georgian Orthodox Church and the Jewish community signed a cooperation agreement.
However, there are still difficulties in getting back a 19th-century
Ashkenazi synagogue, which was converted into a club during the Soviet period
and later became a theater.
The Political Situation and Antisemitic Activity
Georgia underwent many changes in 2003
including parliamentary elections in November. According to official data,
the governmental party received most of the votes, while Mikhail Saakashvili’s
National Movement and other opposition parties trailed behind. In protest, Saakashvili
succeeded in bringing out the masses to the streets. The first session of the
newly elected parliament, held on 23 November, was broken up during Eduard
Shevardnadze’s speech and he resigned the next day. Before the revolt, Guram Sharadze,
from the governmental party, claimed that the opposition parties and the
youth movement Kmara (Enough) were financed by the “Jewish financier George Soros,”
who “was interfering” in Georgia’s internal affairs.
In December 2003, Tengiz Kitovani,
former leader of the National Guards military union, which played a key role
in overthrowing the first president of independent Georgia (Shevardnadze),
participated in a live news broadcast on the first national TV channel. He
compared his political opponents to the Russians who blamed Stalin for their
country’s problems, adding that all Russians were Jews; therefore, they are
“people without an origin.” After one guest accused him of offending the
Jewish people, he said that he had not intended to offend anyone, that his
words had been misinterpreted, and that he had many Jewish friends.
In June, antisemitic
letters were posted on the door of
the Jewish Agency building in Tbilisi, capital of Georgia. On 15 June,
swastikas and antisemitic slogans were painted on the building for the third
time that year. On 23 July, the newspaper Mdzleveli published an
article claiming that Jews were killing Christians as part of a religious
ritual.
Kyrgyzstan
The Jewish Community
The Kyrgyz Jewish community is
concentrated mostly in Bishkek and is divided into Bukharan and Ashkenazi
Jews. The Joint funds the Menorah Center in Bishkek, which runs a Sunday school and
provides charity services. There is also a small library at the center, which
also publishes a newspaper. There is an Aish HaTorah education center and a
Jewish theater and dance group in the capital. One Ashkenazi synagogue is
located Bishkek and there are several Bukharan synagogues in towns in the Fergana Valley.
The Political Situation and Antisemitic Activity
The constitution of Kyrgyzstan guarantees
equal rights and freedoms to all citizens regardless of sex, race, national
origin, language, political or religious belief. Incitement of national and
religious hatred is prohibited by other legal acts, and the country’s
Criminal Code determines punishment for actions of this sort.
However, radical Islamic
organizations supported from abroad are very active in the region. Militants
from the illegal Islamic organization Hizb ut-Tahrir and other
antisemitic groups have been operating in the republic, where they have found
supporters among the authorities and, especially among opposition parties
such as Ar-Namys (Dignity), which accuse the authorities of using Hizb
ut-Tahrir for political cleansing purposes.
There has been an increase
in anti-Jewish feeling since the beginning of the second intifada in 2000.
From May to October 2003 an antisemitic note accompanied legal proceedings
concerning a book for schoolteachers, A Healthy Way of Life, written
by a group of authors headed by Boris Shapiro, chairman of Menorah (the
Society for Jewish Culture of Kyrgyzstan) and director of the country’s
anti-AIDS center. Akin Toktaliev and Aziz Abdrasulov, acting on behalf of the
Committee for the Protection of the Honor and Dignity of the Kyrgyz People,
accused the book’s authors of inciting moral degeneration among the nation’s
youth and sued Shapiro for one million US dollars. Criticism of the book
published in oppositional newspapers revealed the antisemitic views of some
of the figures involved. They presented Shapiro first as a Jew and head of
the Jewish community and only afterwards as a doctor and claimed that he had
maliciously circulated his book in thousands of schools. Together, the
above-mentioned expressions created an image of ‘Jews are the enemy’.
However, all the attempts to ban the book and get compensation for damages
failed. The Pervomayskii regional court supported the book, noting in its
decision, that the actions of the plaintiffs incited interethnic hatred. The
matter was also discussed in the Democratic Security Council. Deputy Prime
Minister Kurmanbek Osmomov noted that actions of individual members of the
opposition were damaging the image of Kyrgyzstan as a democratic country.
Islamic Extremism in the CIS
The last few years have witnessed a
strengthening of Islamic power in the CIS and of antisemitic tendencies among
the Muslim population of Russia. The growth in Islamic power became more
noticeable after the 9/11 attacks in the US. Russian Muslims are convinced
that the West has declared war on Islam, and that behind the West stands an
even more aggressive world Zionism. Local Islamist organizations,
particularly in Central Asia, have incorporated the anti-Zionist and
antisemitic motifs of their Middle Eastern mentors into propaganda spread by
local leaders and their press, and even express willingness to fight
alongside the Hamas and the Islamic Jihad in Palestine. At the end of March
2002, Aslan Maskhadov (who defected to the rebels after his appointment by Putin
as president of Chechnya) published a proclamation accusing the Israeli Mossad
of cooperating with the Russians in the hostilities in northern Caucasus (see
ASW 2002/3).
Geidar Gamal, leader of the Russian Muslim party Vozrozhdeniye
(Revival), prominent figure in the anti-globalization movement in the Russian
Federation and ideologist of intellectual Islam in Russia, disseminates on
his website articles depicting Israel as ugly and Zionism as racist, and claims
that Israel does not have the right to exist. Hizb at-Tahrir al-Islami
(Islamic Party for Liberation) is a Sunni religious party, founded in 1953 in
Jerusalem. The party’s aim is to return all Muslims to the Islamic way of
life and to spread Islam throughout the world through jihad. The party has
representatives in Arab countries and in Western Europe. It appeared in Uzbekistan
in 1995 and in the past few years has spread throughout the post-Soviet
countries of Central Asia. In the course of July 2003, Hizb at-Tahrir
disseminated antisemitic pamphlets in Almaty (Kazakhstan) and put posters up
throughout the city. The pamphlets accused the Arab states of betraying the
Palestinian people and of turning them over to the “bloodthirsty hands of the
Jews.”
Baltic States
Lithuania
The Jewish Community of Lithuania (JCL),
located in Vilnius, unites the county’s Jewish organizations. It publishes a
newspaper in Lithuanian, Russian, English and Yiddish. The JCL is supported
by the Joint, the Claims Conference, the Baltic Jewish Forum, B’nai B’rith
International, American Fund for Latvian and Lithuanian Jews, and many other
organizations as well as individual sponsors. The Association of Jewish
Religious Communities operates in Vilnius, Kaunas, Klaipeda, and Plunge. Chabad
Lubavitch operates a Jewish day school, a nursery and kindergarten, a social
center, and a kosher kitchen in Vilnius. The government supports a kindergarten,
a school named after Sholom Aleichem, a library, and the Jewish Gaon State
Museum of Lithuania. In 2001 the Vilnius Yiddish Institute was established at
Vilnius State University. The Martinas Mazhvidas National
Library has a large Judaica section. Lithuania was the first
country of the former Soviet states to legislate for the protection and
marking of Holocaust sites. The International Commission for the Evaluation
of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupation Regimes in Lithuania was
established in 1998 by the President.
In recent years the number
of antisemitic incidents in the Baltic states has been very low, although
antisemitic articles have appeared from time to time. For example, in June
2003, the Lithuanian low-circulation newspaper Zemaitijos Parlamentas
carried The Protocols of the Elders of Zion in serial form. The
newspaper was closed as a result.
In February, the newspaper
Laikinoji Sostine reported that many young people were joining the
skinheads and were praising Hitler for ridding Lithuania of the Jews. On 23
June, the ancient Jewish cemetery of Kaunas was desecrated. On 16 July, for
the third time since May, several headstones in a Jewish cemetery in Vilnius
were broken. On 24 November, the police found 14 damaged gravestones in the
Jewish cemetery of Plunge.
Latvia
The Council of Jewish Organizations unites
all Latvia's Jewish communities. The Jewish community of Riga publishes a monthly
newspaper. The Joint supported the establishment of the Riga Jewish Community
Center (JCC/Alef) in 2000. The JCC deals with educational and cultural
issues, such as a cinema, musical clubs and a sports program. In 2002 ORT established
a technology center for adults in cooperation with the Joint and other
foundations. There are two Jewish day schools in Riga: a secular one and Chabad’s
Jewish Private School. The Latvian government helps the Jewish communities in
many ways, including providing buildings for the secular Jewish day school and
the JCC, as well as teacher salaries. In 1990, 4 July was estab;osjed t as the
official Holocaust Memorial Day. On this day in 1941 about 400 men, women and
children were forced into the Choral Synagogue in Riga, which was set on fire
by the Nazis and local collaborators.
There was no significant
increase of antisemitism in 2003. The Jewish cemetery in Riga was desecrated
on the night of 13 September: 15 gravestones were broken and 30 others were
painted with swastikas and antisemitic slogans. On 19 September, five young
people were arrested, but Yanis Zashchirinskis, chief of state police said
that the desecration was a simple act of hooliganism. Though ‘traditional’
stereotypes of Jews are not common in the press, there are occasional motifs
of Jews using (drinking, adding to ritual dishes, rubbing themselves with)
blood of Christian babies as well as notions of a Jewish global conspiracy
and blaming the Jews for all misfortunes.
The increase in Holocaust
studies and research has caused hostility on the part of many residents of
Latvia, who fear revelations that would harm the image of the Latvian SS
legionnaires as heroes, who fought against the Soviet ‘occupation’. In
parallel, the Commission of Historians established in 1998 on the initiative
of former Latvian President Guntis Ulmanis, has been researching the Nazi and
Soviet occupation of Latvia (1940–1956), including the Holocaust.
Estonia
Most of Estonia's Jews live in Tallinn,
where Jewish life is centered on the newly renovated Jewish Community Center
(JCC) and synagogue. The Joint provides welfare services to the elderly. A state-sponsored
Jewish day school is located in the JCC. A kindergarten opened in Tallinn in
2002. The Jewish community has a newspaper and a monthly radio show. In 2000, a large Jewish library was established with the help of the Joint. The community also receives
support from the Ronald S. Lauder Foundation,
the Conference on Jewish Material Claims against Germany,
the Baltic Jewish Forum, and other foundations. In July 2002, 27 January was
established as the official Holocaust Memorial Day (the anniversary of the
Soviet liberation of Auschwitz).
Estonia, too, is
characterized by a low level of antisemitism. In March, two persons were
arrested in Sillamae for painting antisemitic slogans and swastikas on the
walls of a building. They were charged with incitement. On 16 April, the
rabbi of a synagogue in Tallin found a swastika on the building.
Contradictory tendencies
were observed concerning commemoration of the Holocaust. On the one hand, for
the first time, a Holocaust memorial day was held in Tallin, capital of
Estonia on 27 January 2003. Members of the parliament and ambassadors
attended the ceremony. On the other hand, in July, the city authorities of Piarno
decided to build a monument in memory of soldiers from the Estonian 20th SS
division. International pressure (from both Jewish and non-Jewish
organizations) succeeded in aborting the idea to include in the memorial
figures of soldiers in SS uniform. The memorial was unveiled in November. In
October, a translation of Hitler’s Mein Kampf in Estonian was on sale
in book stores.
