Russia 2009

 

According to the 2002 census, there were 250,000 Jews in Russia (out of a population of about 142 million), but local Jewish organizations claim that the number is much higher.

Extreme rightists − Pravoslav fundamentalists, neo-pagans, neo-Nazis, skinheads, and radical Russian nationalists − as well as radical Islamists, are the main antisemitic activists in Russia, but there is also a small group of left-wing antisemites, mainly Communists and other Soviet traditionalists, who conceal their antisemitism behind anti-Zionist and anti-Israel slogans.

Several assaults on Jews were recorded in 2009 – mostly in Moscow. For example, in January, a Jewish youth was shot and injured in Moscow by a traumatic gun. In March, the son of a Jewish Agency employee in St. Petersburg was beaten by two skinheads. Two days later, a Jewish woman was beaten with a stick by a tenant who burst into her room shouting "You damn kike" and demanding that she fix his TV. He was detained but released the next day. Several victims of attacks were Israelis, including a journalist who was preparing to cover the opening ceremony of the Eurovision in May, and two Israeli citizens near the Esh Hatorah religious Jewish youth center in Moscow in December.

There were also many attacks on Jewish facilities and desecration of Jewish graves and Holocaust memorials. For example, on September 13 a petrol bomb was thrown at the synagogue in Khabarovsk. Four skinheads (15-23-years-old) were arrested, also in connection with a petrol bomb attack on the house of a policeman investigating extremism. The case was due to be heard in 2010.

The Jewish section of the Marina Roshcha cemetery in Nizhnii Novgorod was vandalized twice. Some 60 gravestones were broken at the Jewish section of the Dmitrovo-Cherkassk cemetery in Tver, and a few days later, crosses, with the words "evil" and "Jew" were painted on the grave of a non-Jew located near the Jewish part. Charges were brought against Evgenii Maksimov, member of a local extreme right group in November and his case was being heard in 2010. In November a Holocaust memorial erected over a mass grave of 600 locals, both Jews and citizens of other nationalities murdered by the Nazis in 1942, was desecrated in Volgograd, .

Russian social networks have become major carriers of antisemitic propaganda in Russia. In early 2009 at least 40 antisemitic groups and pages were discovered in the V Kontakte social network. When approached by human rights activists and Jewish community representatives, the operators of such networks have mostly blocked the offending pages and groups, with the exception of the Live Journal server, which refuses to censor Nazi pages. In November, the Russian Pravoslav nationlist Moscow III Rome organization published on its website (http://3rm.info) a call to kill Jewish leaders. Addressed to army and naval officers, Russian youth, Pravoslav clergy and others, it said: "Exterminate the Jewish terrorist underground − Betar warriors, their Israeli instructors and patrons in the law enforcement agencies... the Zionists of the Russian Jewish Congress, the Federation of Jewish Communities... the international Bureau for Human Rights... the Hasidim of Berl Lazar [Russia's chief rabbi] who conduct ritual murder of our children." Officers of the Russian army must behave in such a way that "Jewish Nazis” will fear “to walk on our soil." The call also appeared on other extremist websites.

Many antisemitic books, published by Algorithm and Russkaia Pravda, were displayed at the Books of Russia fair held in Moscow in March. Among them were Duel with an Unclean Power (blaming Jewish organizations for all Russia’s and the world’s problems), Dangerous Secret (on alleged Zionist cooperation with the Nazis), books about Jewish ritual murder, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and others. Antisemitic books were also reported at the annual International Book Fair in Moscow in September. Both fairs were condemned by the Moscow Bureau for Human Rights, the Moscow Anti-Fascist Center and others.

In early October researcher of Russian history Anatolii Dolzhenko from Stavropol filed a complaint with the local prosecutor's office demanding that the Old Testament be banned on the grounds of extremism, since it explicitly incites to violence and discrimination against other nationalities. Similar complaints were filed by the so-called Russian Anti-fascist Committee, inspired by Dolzhenko, in other cities (St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, Arkhangelsk, Rostov and Tula). The text of the complaints contained antisemitic phrases referring to Jewish ritual murder of children, Jewish world domination, and other such calumny. All the prosecutor's offices approached refused to open an investigation, citing various reasons (such as, the Bible is a historic document which does not include such claims, no one uses the Bible).

The education sector, too, is tainted by antisemitism. An electronic textbook on world religion for students at the Ulyanovsk State University blamed Jews for the Russian Revolution, characterized Judaism as an almost Satanic religion, and accused Jews of wanting to dominate the world. In March students at the Ministry of Internal Affairs University in St. Petersburg received a textbook on the Perestroika era (1985-1991), claiming that "Zionists physically annihilated Stalin," and "Trotsky tried to lead the dictatorship of the proletariat… to make it as easy as possible to implement the order of world Zionist circles." Following a complaint filed by the Federation of Jewish Communities, the university decided to destroy all copies of the textbook and one of the authors was fired. In January the Ministry of Internal Affairs Institute for Raising Qualifications published a brochure titled "Extremism: Understanding, Socio-Economic, Political and Historic Roots, and Trends,” which linked Judaism to Satanism: "Satanism, much like Chasidism, arose from Judaism, specifically its secretive cruel and kabalistic sects. Until the 18th century, it developed as a secret Jewish sect, but then broke off from Judaism and became one of Masonry's most influential streams. The core rituals of Satanic sects, like the preceding secretive cruel and kabalistic Jewish sects, were blood rituals." The ministry's chief press spokesman, Oleg Elnikov, said that the author, Evgeny Gerasimenko, had "made stylistic mistakes" and did not intend to offend the Jews.

Two antisemitic books were published by the head of a department at the Military Academy of Russia, Colonel Tatiana Gracheva. The volumes, titled Invisible Khazaria and Holy Rus against Khazaria claim that the "Khazars-Zionists from behind the international scenes want to destroy Russia and the Russians" and "threads of world conspiracy against Russia are in the hands of the Khazar-Zionists who created the State of Israel.” The presidents of the US, Georgia, France and other states, they state, are marionettes of the "global Khazaria" which "combines elements from Judaism and Zionism.” No action has been taken against Gracheva.

Several public acts commemorating and extolling the Nazis and their collaborators took place during 2009. A large excerpt from Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf was published in the April issue of the National Business journal (published in the Tiumen region; Hitler's birthday is on April 20.) The regional prosecutor's office opened an investigation in May, on the grounds that it violated the law against the distribution of extremist materials; it issued a warning and recommended fining the journal and whoever was involved in the publication. The editors claimed that the excerpt interested them only as a historical document. During a soccer match between Spartak Moscow and Rubin (Kazan) on April 26, a group of fans held banners reading "Happy anniversary, grandpa," with swastikas and the number 120, representing the anniversary of Hitler's birthday. On May 13, the Russia newspaper published an article by D. Danilov titled "Ordinary Extradition,” on the extradition of suspected Nazi war criminal John (Ivan) Demjanjuk from the US to Germany. According to Danilov, the Holocaust "is turning into a powerful weapon of moral-political pressure on world society and leadership" and in Germany people are being imprisoned for expressing doubts about the "scale and numbers of Holocaust victims.”

The response of law enforcement agencies to antisemitic offenses continues to be problematic. For example, the extensive use of suspended sentences, small fines and community services as punishment for incitement of ethnic hatred does not deter perpetrators from carrying out similar crimes. Moreover, in most cases they are reluctant to classify incidents under paragraph 282 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (incitement of ethnic hatred) even when it is evident that the incident was motivated by antisemitism or racism. In March, Liberal Democratic Party of Russia leader Vladimir Zhirinovskii even suggested abrogating this paragraph completely, claiming that a crime should be classified according to its consequences and not by the perpetrators' motive. Moscow mayor Yurii Luzhkov, however, criticized the police and prosecutor's office in July for covering up hate crimes. He said that "everyone knows that [law enforcement agencies] often don't register crimes motivated by fascism, racism or ethnic animosity, preferring instead to hide them amidst a mass of other, ordinary crimes… This is unacceptable.”

As in previous years, the country's authorities continued to condemn xenophobia, antisemitism and Holocaust denial. For example, on August 18 president Dmitrii Medvedev said during a meeting with Israel's president Shimon Peres that, "our task today is to ensure that the real story is not perverted in favor of one or another political scenario. We cannot stand aside while certain states are questioning the enormous contribution of the Soviet Union to the defeat of Nazism as well as the horror of the Holocaust... glorification of Nazism is absolutely unacceptable.”

Several newspapers that had been publishing antisemitic articles were closed and/or their editors tried or warned. For example, in May the Moscow city court ratified the ruling of a regional court from November 2008 to close the newspaper Duel and the following month the editor, Yurii Mukhin, was given a two year suspended sentence for "publicly calling for extremist activity through the media" (see also ASW 2008). In November the Russian Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Communication issued a warning to K Barieru (To the barrier) for publishing, on October 6, 2009, an article, “Did Medvedev address the Liberals?" containing antisemitic statements and citations from Mein Kampf. A regional court in Moscow ruled in June 2010 that the newspaper be closed for violating the anti-extremism law.

In September 2009 the Russian Research and Educational Holocaust Center and Foundation published the Encyclopedia of the Holocaust on the Territory of the USSR, which includes articles by about 100 authors from 12 countries, some of whom are former inmates of ghettos and concentration camps.