Though large numbers of Jews continue to emigrate to Israel and other countries, Russian authorities are still denying many refuseniks the permission to emigrate.
On August 15, 1996, President Boris Yeltsin signed a new Russian law on Exit and Entry that has several positions that are worse than in the previous law. The maximum term that must expire before persons exposed to state secrets are allowed to leave the country may be increased to 10 years. The new law on secrecy has become dangerously broad, so that even information about agricultural raw materials, about subways, and about the security budget are considered state secrets. It is quite possible that again many people will be deprived of their right to emigrate and travel and will become state secrecy refuseniks. Foreign citizens can be forbidden to enter Russia if they violate certain regulations, which were not published in the open press. In addition, custom officers can seize the passport of Russian citizens.
The application for emigration from boys aged 16-27 will not be accepted by OVIR local offices anymore without written consent from local military offices, which as a rule refuse to give such papers until the boys finish their military service. Russia still has no alternative to military service, so young boys cannot avoid receiving security clearance and are subject to secrecy restrictions for up to ten years. In addition, people need to receive exit visas from Russia any time they go abroad. -Dr. Leonid Stonov, International Director of UCSJ Bureaus on Human Rights, January 13, 1997
It is UCSJ's impression that the Interdepartmental Commission headed by Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Igor Ivanov, organized at the peak of the democratic upheaval, only considers applications from people who are likely to be granted permission to leave the country. Many times, the Commission simply refuses to accept the applications. The Commission is under the influence of the military-industrial complex and the Federal Security Service [current form of the KGB].
There are a great number of "potential refuseniks" who received their travel passports during the short democratic period of 1993-1994; these people would like to emigrate, but they are afraid that if they apply to OVIR and then to the Commission, their foreign passports might be taken away. A five year secrecy term is now applied to soldiers who served in the Navy or in airborne or missile troops, even though there hasn't been any new piece of equipment introduced into the military for many years, and all models are known worldwide.-Russian-American Bureau on Human Rights (UCSJ), January 1997
In June 1996, the Russian government cancelled the registration of the Jewish Agency for Israel, closing a number of regional offices that have organized the emigration of hundreds of thousands of Soviet and Russian Jews to Israel since 1989. After the elections, the agency was forced to register as a domestic organization. In October 1996, the Justice Ministry issued a license to the Jewish Agency of Russia.
At the time the Agency had its registration canceled, a Russian government official was quoted on the Interfax news service as accusing the Jewish Agency of being a front for the Mossad, Israel's intelligence service. Most observers were unclear as to the intentions of the Russian government, which asserted its actions were due to technical reasons such as registration requirements. Some sources close to the Agency have speculated that hard line groups within the government may be trying to expel foreign organizations from the country or squelch the flow of emigration from Russia. Jewish Agency Chairman Avraham Burg asserted that the organization has complied with all local and national registration rules.-Washington Post, June 12, 1996; OMRI, October 18, 1996
A number of Jewish communities in Russia have been pursuing the return of synagogues and other Jewish property that had been appropriated for other uses by Soviet authorities. On March 14, 1996, Yeltsin signed the Decree on the Rehabilitation of Clergymen and the Restitution of Cult Buildings including synagogues. This decree should theoretically enable Jewish communities to regain Jewish communal property, although it has not resulted in serious changes for Jewish communities so far. UCSJ has supported many local communities in their efforts to regain Jewish property.
The Jewish communities which continue to seek the return of such property include Novgorod, Novosibirsk, Orel, and Ulyanovsk. The communities which have, after a struggle, successfully gained the return of synagogues or other property, include Kazan, Moscow (a school on Myasnitskaya Street), Penza, Samara, Kostroma and Yaroslavl.
The Lubavitch movement is planning to ask the Russian government to return properties that used to belong to the Lubavitch community. The properties include buildings that once housed Lubavitch facilities and buildings associated with the succession of Lubavitcher rabbis. One of those buildings, a house in Rostov-on-Don that belonged to the fifth Lubavitcher Rabbi Sholom Ber Schneerson, is now used as an apartment building. However, Russian law only allows religious groups to reclaim houses of worship that had been confiscated during the Communist era, with no mention of other kinds of property. Lubavitch officials are also seeking the return of archival documents in the Schneerson library, consisting of 12,000 volumes of books and manuscripts now stored in the Russian State Library. The collection had been confiscated in the early 1920's by Soviet authorities. The battle to get the books returned to the Lubavitch community has been waging since 1990. Shalom Levine, head librarian at the Lubavitch worldwide headquarters in Brooklyn, NY, one in a delegation of Lubavitchers who was allowed to see the books and meet with the library officials, said, "They are not ready to talk seriously. The library is playing cat and mouse with us."-Jewish Telegraphic Agency, February 28, 1997
Russian leaders have indicated willingness to return German property but not Jewish property confiscated during World War II. A measure declaring art treasures seized from Germany after World War II to be Russian property is likely to be vetoed by President Boris Yeltsin. The authors of the bill, which was passed by the Duma, say they will call for a national referendum if Yeltsin does veto the bill. According to Nikolai Gubenko, deputy chairman of the Duma's culture committee (which is dominated by the Communist Party), Yeltsin's decision to veto the law is based on his desire to preserve good Russian-German relations. Six years ago, Gubenko as then Sovietminister of culture, categorically refused to return the Schneerson Library to the Lubavitch movement.-Jewish Telegraphic Agency, March 7, 1997
Orel, Russia
The Orel authorities will not return to Orel's Jewish community the building of the local synagogue, seized by the Bolsheviks in the 1920s. On July 19, 1996, the community received a response from Orel Mayor Aleksandr Kislyakov stating that since a polytechnical school is currently based in the building, its return "could provoke outrage in the town." Several months before, the Mayor had made an informal decision to return the synagogue building. Correspondence between the Mayor and the Jewish community on this issue had been going on for more than three years.
Velikiye Luki, Russia
In the city of Velikiye Luki, about 300 miles west of Moscow, there is no working synagogue for a population of about 1,000 Jews. The building, which was once the synagogue, is now occupied by the telephone company. A two-year long fight for the building between the Jewish community and city administrators has not proved successful so far, despite the law on the return of religious property to ethnic communities.
The Jewish Velikiye Luki City Cultural and Humanitarian Center, officially registered in 1994, has no building for its gatherings. "We gather either in the Jewish cemetery or in our members' apartments," said Alexander Shneidman.
Other Participants in Antisemitism
Some younger activists within the Russian Orthodox Church are playing a positive role in helping fill the vacuum of spiritual values and have taken over important functions of caring for the poor after the collapse of the state safety net. However, despite a young new generation of churchgoers, the top leadership of the church remains peopled by the older generation, most of whom were KGB agents or collaborators.
Many other churches in the twentieth century have made major strides in making public statements to end ancient hatred against the Jews. After the Holocaust, Catholics and Presbyterians worldwide have taken powerful cooperative steps to find dialogue with the Jews. However, the Russian Orthodox Church remains unreformed and has made few efforts to revoke age-old accusations against the Jews. Russian extremist groups continue to use Russian Orthodox tenets in their ideologies, and there is abundant evidence that some clergymen have played individual roles in extremist and other political parties.
The following are selected examples:
Fliers with antisemitic contents are distributed everywhere in Sergiev Possad in Troyitse-Sergievskaya Lavra, the most important religious and cultural center of Moscow suburbs. Sergei Possad is the place of pilgrimage of Orthodox Christians and is visited by a lot of tourists-Valery Senderov, journalist covering religious issues in Russia
Kiril, a Metropolitan in Smolensk and Kaliningrad and chairman of the Publishing Department of the Moscow Patriarchy, is a well-known antisemite. The late St. Petersburg Metropolitan Ioann, also notorious for being antisemitic, recommended Kiril for the chairman position-December 1996 Trip Report of Leonid Stonov, International Director of UCSJ Bureaus on Human Rights
A conference on religion was held in St. Petersburg on January 26-29, 1997 called "Theology after Auschwitz and the Gulags" in St. Petersburg. Though this conference finally initiated a dialogue between Jews and Christians in Russia, a dialogue that has only just now begun to sound out in Russia, it was not widely publicized due to the wishes of the organizers.
Father Georgi Mitrofanov, a teacher at the St. Petersburg Theological Academy, spoke about how the first Soviet government bears the responsibility for the destruction of the Russian Orthodox Church. He listed, by name, members of the Bolshevik government-including Trotsky, Kamenev, Zinoviev [editor's note: Jews]-and revealed their pseudonyms, affirming that they were directed by genetics-based hatred toward Christianity and Russian Orthodoxy. This speech resulted in a very stormy discussion.
Father Sergy Gakkel responded by stating that these commissars openly denied their own nationalities and they persecuted a synagogue no less than other religions. And if one can put all of the responsibility on the Jews for the actions of Bronshtein-Trotsky, then why shouldn't the Russian Orthodoxy answer for the entire Gulag system, when taking into consideration that Stalin was a Russian Orthodox himself. Taking on of collective responsibility by one nationality for the actions of their government isn't reasonable, just as much as an entire nationality cannot take upon itself the blame for the actions of some.
All Western academics were astounded at how large and difficult the path is which lies ahead of us. Their sense of shock was reinforced by an incident on the first day of the conference, in which Barabash, who is notorious for his antisemitic articles, starting shouting threats and abusive references against Jews. Father Sergei threw himself on Barabash to suppress him. Then again their sense of shock was enhanced by the last speech at the conference, not foreseen by the conference sponsors, which concluded that Jews must stand on their knees before the Russian people as if they were kneeling before their liberator and their god.
These incidents demonstrated that the problem of communication between Christians and Jews is one of the most painful and serious and it demands constantly stressful work in the mind and the heart. Father Gakkel said, "Many of the Western academics are probably leaving the [conference] with the feeling that they are the first ones to imagine the heavy, dark mass that is carried in the consciousness not only of individual members of the Russian theological intelligentsia but also by the other circles which stand behind them. This makes the necessity for such a conference...feel more compelling. Without them, the public would lose sight of the needed stimulus for development and the establishment of healthier and more fruitful relations in regards to oneself and one's history." - From Leonid Lvov, Harold Light Jewish Center on Human Rights (UCSJ), St. Petersburg
"What scandalizes me as an Orthodox Christian is that there is such a phenomenon as antisemitism in the Russian Orthodox Church at all, even if it is not so widespread as it may seem.
"Moreover, one can find some very dangerous signs of antisemitism not so much among the so to speak simpler Christians than among the Russian Orthodox intelligentsia, both clergy and laity.
"It is well-known that....it is common [in the Russia Orthodox Church] to call the Jews 'the killers of God.' Can we after Auschwitz still keep this awful word? The [Catholics and Protestants] clearly answer, 'no.' But that means rejecting the authority of the Church Fathers, for whom this term was quite usual. However....a lot of Orthodox Christians still believe in Jewish responsibility for the crucifixion of Christ. But there are two different questions in fact. One is : who killed Christ? The other is: who is guilty? The fact that Jews killed Christ and failed to believe in Him was the source of Christian hatred towards Judaism. The Theology after Auschwitz (the Protestant one) often tries to solve this problem on the basis that not Jews but Romans...are guilty of killing Christ....
"Orthodox theology cannot agree in this point...and this is an issue of great importance. If we say that the Romans killed Christ, there is still a possibility for someone who attentively reads the Gospels to say that the Jews did it.- The Jewish Question in the Russian Orthodox Church, by Gregory Benevitch, provided to UCSJ by the Center for Jewish Renewal, May 26, 1995
"Although the Russian Orthodox Church does not have an official antisemitic policy, attacks against Jews from within the church are seldom denounced and antisemitism thrives amongst the clergy. There is much discussion on whether present day church antisemitism is originating at the top or at the bottom of the church hierarchy......With the recent religious freedom...the Orthodox Church is increasing its influence on society. Recent polls have shown that society considers the Russian Orthodox Church to be the most trustworthy organ operating in the country. It is worrisome that a considerable part of the Orthodox clergy sympathizes with nationalistic and antisemitic ideas."
"In the [Soviet] system that was propagating atheism, ideas and myths that claimed higher truths became appealing to many people inside the clergy. There were no church authorities that could point out which ideas were compatible with Christianity and which were not. In the political area these myths were spread widely and they also found their way into the Russian Orthodox Church. Entire generations grew up with these ideas so that they became an integral part of church mythology. In this way, a large part of the new generation of priests became sensitive to antisemitic rhetoric. The present political situtation allows them to openly express these sentiments, something that was not possible under communism....A good example of this is the adoption of the idea of the Jewish world conspiracy by many people from the Orthodox Church......antisemitic literature, like the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, is freely being spread in the church bookshops and kiosks, and nothing seems to be done against it. Some say this is only possible if it is a direct order from somewhere [in the main organs of the church]."- Report on Antisemitism by Alain Noghiu, 1995, for Dorcas Aid International
Though no generalization can be made about Muslim groups, there have been some instances of antisemitism on the part of Muslim groups, and the Jewish community fears the most extreme Muslims.
For example, in Dagestan, one of the poorest regions in Russia, antisemitism has not been a problem historically, but Jews there are worried about the recent rise of Islamic fundamentalism. Dagestan, in the Caucasus Region of Southern Russia near the war in Chechnya, suffers under the same problems occurring in the rest of the former Soviet Union-unemployment, government corruption, a great rise in organized crime and easy access to guns. The Dagestan chapter of the Muslim Union of Russia last year proclaimed a Jihad, which they explained was to spiritually awaken all Dagestani Muslims. One Jewish official in Makhachkala said, "Today Muslims are talking about the first step of Jihad, which they say would not harm us. Tomorrow they can turn it into a holy war against non-Muslims."-Jewish Telegraphic Agency, March 3, 1997
Leaders of human rights groups disputed a study by the American Jewish Committee that asserts that hostility towards Jews in Russia appears to be "relatively low." The study did note , however, that the large percentage of "don't know" answers to its survey points to a possible backlash of antisemitism in Russia. Human rights advocates say it is just this potential coupled with the current economic problems that they fear. Alexander Liberman, director of the Russian-American Bureau on Human Rights (UCSJ), told the Moscow Times that "the number of fascist and nationalist publications has steadily increased," and that "there are at least 150 such publications in Russia." Others noted that the popularity of the Communist Party candidate Gennady Zyuganov, who has made some antisemitic comments, has made them more watchful for an increase in antisemitism--The Forward, April 19, 1996
A survey of Jews in St. Petersburg (612 out of 10,000 in the city) was undertaken by the Bay Area Council for Jewish Rescue and Renewal, the Harold Light Jewish Center for Human Rights (UCSJ) and the Nathan Perlmutter Institute for Jewish Advocacy, Brandeis University.
The survey found that 40 percent of respondents describe themselves as having been victims of antisemitism in 1995; 54 percent said they had been victims of antisemitic name-calling. Fifteen percent had been physically threatened because of their being Jewish and 14 percent reported they had been victims of antisemitic vandalism or had been discriminated against at their jobs. However, only 32 respondents, or 10 percent, had reported the incidents to the police. Of those who did report the incident, 31 percent said the authorities refused to officially submit a report on the incident; only five people were permitted to file an official report. When asked about the level of antisemitism in St. Petersburg, 21 percent said that it had increased, 62 percent said it had remained the same, and 12 percent said it had decreased.
"These results reveal that antisemitism in Russia is so pervasive that Jews living there do not think of these harsh incidents as anything other than the norm," said former Bay Area Director Simon Klarfeld. "That is what is so depressing." One respondent said he has "gone underground" and that he "tries not to stand out in a crowd." Another said "[Jews] should unite, keep together and be ready for the worst." -Bay Area Council for Jewish Rescue and Renewal, June 1996
Actions by Jews are not required to inspire antisemitism. Indeed, as Paul Hockenos noted in his 1993 book Free to Hate, "Antisemitism is alive and flourishing throughout Eastern Europe, even in the virtual absence of Jews." Nevertheless, the recent rise to prominent positions of individuals with some tie as Jews could, depending on the economic climate, give rise to scapegoating.
This handful of individuals with some degree of Jewish lineage presents a complicated picture. Many are Jewish only by a fraction of the "blood-line" and not connected to organized Jewish communal life or religious practice. The high-visibility of a few individuals is also misleading; the average Jew lacks such financial or political connections.
Some individuals with a certain degree of Jewish ancestry or identity include Boris Nemtsov (First Deputy Prime Minister), whose mother was Jewish but he was baptized; Alexander Livshitz (Deputy Chief of Staff for economic issues); Evgeny Yasnin (Economics Minister); as well as many of the heads of banks.
Russia Text Continues
More on Russia
[HOME] [ACT] [CONNECT] [JOIN] [ABOUT] [SEARCH]