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Anti-Semitism, Anybody?

by Anthony Williamson Mon Jun 16th, 2008 at 12:43:29 PM EST

A popular Moscow radio talk show host has given the uninitiated a startling look at anti-Semitism in Russia in a wild and wooly broadcast of an interview with a retired colonel who was charged with the much publicized attempted murder of Anatoly Chubais, the politician who was responsible in the 1990s for privatizing the Russian economy after the collapse of communism. Chubais escaped a roadside bombing and machine-gun fire from assailants who targeted his car in 2005. Colonel Vladimir Kvachkov was one of three men who were later arrested on charges of trying to kill him. Kvachkov spent a little over three years in jail, first while the incident was being investigated and then when two courts trying the case collapsed. After the two mistrials, a third jury handed down a verdict of not guilty on June 5. The very next day he appeared in Moscow on an hour-long radio talk show hosted by a Jewish journalist during which Russian anti-Semitism showed its ugly face in usually clear and nasty manner.

Sergei Parkhomenko started off the interview by asking Kvachkov pointblank whether he had tried to kill Chubais. Kvachkov said he had not but he said killing Chubais would not be a crime. He said he would repeat what he had told Chubais to his face: "...Chubais...is a betrayer of the nation and a traitor."  Kvachkov said Chubais' privatization scheme had pushed millions of Russians into abject poverty. In his words, there's a war going on in Russia, albeit undercover for the present, and the Russian people have the right to take up arms to defend their rights at a time when the country is under occupation by the "Jewish mafia." As a result of privatization, a number of business tycoons rose to prominence. The richest man in Russia is considered to be Roman Abramovich, who like a number of other "oligarchs," as they are known, is Jewish.

"Don't you think that what you are saying qualifies as instigation of discord and enmity among ethnic groups?" asked Parkhomenko, citing article 282, a Russian law banning such activity. Kvachkov retorted that you can say "Russian mafia," "Italian mafia," "Azerbaijani mafia" and "Chechen mafia" and no one says anything about it, but the moment you say "Jewish mafia" they threaten you with the law. He alleged that it was mainly Russians who had gone to jail for breaking what he termed that "infamous" law.

Parkhomenko questioned Kvachkov about his statements regarding the right of Russians to take up arms against their alleged domestic oppressors, expressing doubts about Kvachkov's references to the Preamble of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Kvachkov quoted the part of the Preamble he said recognized that a nation could be forced to resort to an armed conflict: "...it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law..."

The questions and answers became bitter when the talk show host asked Kvachkov about his close ties to a well-known anti-Semite by the name of Boris Mironov, whose books include Jewish Fascism, The Need for a National Uprising and Enemy of the People (about Chubais). Mironov once wrote a letter to Vladimir Putin, who was president of Russia at the time, accusing Putin of promoting "Jewish fascism." Mironov's disgusting views are obvious from his Internet pages, one of which has a tirade beginning with the following words:  "The kikes have gotten Russia into their clawing sticky hands and have stolen power, courts, money, oil, gas, energy, plants, factories, television, radio, newspapers..."
Mironov in Russian

Towards the end of his weekly show from the only independent radio station in Moscow, Echo of Moscow, Parkhomenko in his program "The Essence of Events" always opens the telephone lines to callers and comments on their questions and remarks. The calls are not prescreened, and many a caller in the past has managed to spew insults at Parkhomenko before being cut off. After one caller recently managed to call him the Russian equivalent of a kike before the call was terminated, Parkhomenko commented that had been a noticeable increase in such calls and he felt the legions of anti-Semites seemed to be growing. After a caller during the Kvachkov interview said he supported Kvachkov and that "those like Chubais and their henchmen ought to be executed," Parkhomenko commented that the program had attracted "that entire lot." Kvachkov asked whether Parkhomenko was calling the Russian nation "that entire lot" and why he was referring to Kvachkov's people in that manner. "Those are my people, those are my Russian people!" Kvachkov protested. Parkhomenko said the people should not be divided into yours and mine and that he was a citizen of the Russian Federation, one of the same people as Kvachkov. Krachkov denied that, saying Parkhomenko belonged to another people. Parkhomenko asked him to spit out what was on the tip of his tongue, what people he was talking about. Kvachkov said: "You have seized state power in the Russian State. You have seized the finances, the economy. You have destroyed..." Parkhomenko accused him of cowardice for not saying plainly who he was talking about. At that point some person or persons in Kvachkov's entourage accompanying him to the studio somehow tried to interfere in the program. Parkhomenko asked them to sit down, without giving listeners any details about what was happening in the studio.

Two callers said they did not support Kvachkov. One caller said he did not believe Kvachkov had been guilty of the charges against him, but he did not share the colonel's views. Another caller kept stressing that he was a Russian, his parents and ancestors were Russians, and that he was incensed that Kvachkov had not been found quilty as charged.

Some of the program brought back memories of Imperial Russia when thugs out to murder Jews roamed parts of the country shouting: "Kill the Jews, Save Russia." Many Jews emigrated in those years, and others emigrated later from the Soviet Union despite Soviet promises to build a new world in which all men are created equal.

None of this comes as a surprise to those who follow events in Russia, where a number of bloggers have set up openly anti-Semitic sites with translations into Russian of books and articles by Holocaust deniers in other countries. They seem especially to appreciate a small band of well-known German Holocaust deniers, whom they describe as "scholars" and "internationally recognized experts." The Holocaust to them is an international Jewish conspiracy to extort money from the German government and also to gain a number of political advantages for Israel. A poster who writes a refutation of a certain erroneous view of theirs is addressed in reply messages as "rabbi."

Echo of Moscow is another one of their special targets because some of the journalists on the air have surnames that are identified in Russia as being Jewish, but it's a station worth listening to for those who understand Russian. Klick here to reach their website. The radio station has a whole crop of journalists who, in my opinion, come across on the air as being enormously likeable and knowledgeable people. Sergei Parkhomenko is especially targeted because he pronounces the Russian letter "r" like the "r" in standard French and standard German. To some Russians, that pronunciation typifies a Yiddish accent in Russian. He himself has mentioned this appeal of his to anti-Semites on a number of occasions. Therefore, Germans and Frenchmen, be forewarned if you're learning Russian: Make sure you get the Russian "r" right!

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Anti-Semitism, Anybody? | 31 comments (31 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)
Re: Anti-Semitism, Anybody? (4.00 / 2)
None of this comes as a surprise to those who know any history of Russia at all.  Pogroms anyone?  And it is certainly not helpful that many of the highest profile Oligarchs are of Jewish heritage...  Jews were the scapegoat of national unrest because of economic oppression back in the day when they played little or no part in the cause of it.  Hardly shocking they're the scapegoats when a handful of them were indeed the bad guys...  I'm more shocked to find anyone defending Chubais than someone invoking "Jewish fascism."

Ironically, anti-extremism laws were passed last year ostensibly to address religious extremism and the growing problem of hate crimes.  Theoretically they could be used to curb anti-Semitism.  Theoretically the very existence of these laws is curbing freedom of speech.  It's honestly unclear if the problems lie in the laws themselves or the slapdash way in which they are enforced and even just the specter of old-school censorship.

Anti-Semitism persists in Western democracies which embrace religious and cultural tolerance.  I don't expect it will disappear from Russia any time soon.  I can only hope that as time goes by and Russia continues to interact routinely with the rest of the world, its citizens will shed fears borne of ignorance.  Unfortunately, 200 years of the US interacting routinely with the rest of the world hasn't prevented us from being fiercely ignorant and cruel.  Fortunately, Russia has a much higher literacy rate...

"Pretending that you already know the answer when you don't is not actually very helpful." ~Migeru.

by poemless on Mon Jun 16th, 2008 at 01:12:41 PM EST
I have also seen the theory (none / 1)
that the oligarchs are puppets of former communist/KGB leaders who took Soviet assets into personal ownership - and Jews were selected as frontmen to create a convenient sgapegoat and/or distraction.

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
by Jerome a Paris (etg@eurotrib.com) on Mon Jun 16th, 2008 at 04:26:07 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: I have also seen the theory (none / 1)
So you're saying that's not really Roman's boat?  He's just the scapegoat frontman?  

I wanna be a scapegoat frontman.

BTW, that's his older model smallish boat, not his big new one.

"Pretending that you already know the answer when you don't is not actually very helpful." ~Migeru.

by poemless on Mon Jun 16th, 2008 at 04:35:16 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Yacht? Ya calls that a "yacht"? Heh. nt (none / 1)
by PIGL (stevec@boreal.gmail@com) on Mon Jun 16th, 2008 at 07:08:30 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: I have also seen the theory (none / 1)
Some donks know that wealth is just an illusion. Just as a presidential post, or national/racial interests. And some of those donks know how to play with those illusions. Some impulses and events repeatedly have powerful consequences - and those consequences start running wild not by accidents. In absence of alternative established evolutions, worst history repeats again. But wonder, how the world was keeping up nicely most of the time, actually?

Roman might be happy all the way with his boat and footbal club. But then, tomorrow might be very different. Like for most folks in America, the most dangerous illusion is that you have (or could have, or should have) everything under control. By this time, nothing is easier to manipulate than your freedom desire.

by das monde on Mon Jun 16th, 2008 at 08:12:05 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: I have also seen the theory (none / 1)
Shades of Single and Single? (an underrated novel, I thought)
by PIGL (stevec@boreal.gmail@com) on Mon Jun 16th, 2008 at 07:10:01 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Freedom of Speech (none / 1)
Ironically, anti-extremism laws were passed last year ostensibly to address religious extremism and the growing problem of hate crimes.  Theoretically they could be used to curb anti-Semitism.  Theoretically the very existence of these laws is curbing freedom of speech.  It's honestly unclear if the problems lie in the laws themselves or the slapdash way in which they are enforced and even just the specter of old-school censorship.

Anti-Semitism has a very long history in Russia, and none of the attempts to get a handle on it since the beginning of the twentieth century has been successful. Soviet authorities once tried jailing people for anti-Semitic slurs, but not even that worked. It was not for nothing that many thousand Jews born and raised in the USSR opted to emigrate because of the discrimination they were subjected to, and even their determination to leave resulted in a new spiral of anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union.

Freedom of speech is one of the issues over which Americans and some Europeans differ significantly. While some Americans proclaim "Give me liberty or give me death," some Europeans say you can't kill six million Jews and afterwards go about business as usual. That's the reason given for curbing the freedom of speech of those who propagate their view that a Holocaust never occurred. Out of respect for those innocent men, women and children who lost their lives.

by Anthony Williamson on Tue Jun 17th, 2008 at 06:42:57 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Freedom of Speech (none / 1)
Soviet authorities once tried jailing people for anti-Semitic slurs

Could you say more about this?

My knowledge of the history of the Soviet Union, Jews and anti-semitism is: Under oppression and persecution, many Jewish intellectuals saw the solution only in radical egalitarian revolution, with communism among the choices. Thus many initial Bolsheviks, in particular in the dreaded secret service of changing names, were Jewish. But soon Stalin began to cleanse, and not many remained, but perhaps due to the return of some lower-ranked Tsarist goons, and certainly due to the 'folk antisemitism' the dying Tsarist regime used to whip up (think Elders of Zion, pogroms) and many new goons brought with them, the state security apparatus became decidedly anti-semitic, and being Jewish became a reason for being under suspicion as potential counter-revolutionary. Which only got worse after Israel was born and got Western support. (I told the story before how in the early eighties, the KGB chided their Hungarian counterparts for not watching over 'the Jews'.)

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.

by DoDo on Tue Jun 17th, 2008 at 09:51:40 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Freedom of Speech (none / 1)
Poland jailed people for antisemitic activity in the Stalinist period. It jailed people for campaigning against anti-semitism (most notably the current deputy foreign minister, former foreign minster, and wartime leader of the largest organized group working to save Jews, Wladyslaw Bartoszewski. Pretty much any non-party activism was cause for a bit of enhanced interrogation.

Ironically, considering the USSR's tendency to block Jews from emigration, the Poles did the reverse, expelling the remaining Jews in 1968 in the midst of a vicious state organized racist campaign.

by MarekNYC on Tue Jun 17th, 2008 at 10:28:09 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Freedom of Speech (none / 0)
I also have to add to my previous a bit of earlier Polish history, another black irony: the Soviet apparatus long began to turn anti-semitic at the time the Nazis as well as the anti-semites among the Poles occupied under the Molotov-Ribbentop-Pact equated communism/KGB with Jews, which some locals used for anti-semitic pogroms when Nazi Germany began its invasion of the Soviet Union through occupied Eastern Poland.

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.
by DoDo on Tue Jun 17th, 2008 at 12:14:44 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Freedom of Speech (none / 1)
Yup, there were, though the ones perpetrated by Poles were pretty much all in the northern areas - on either side of the current Polish Belarussian border. Right wing Polish historians like to point out that Jews were significantly more likely to support the Soviet occupation than Poles, which is true. They also like to omit the context of rising prewar antisemitism which contributed to it, except when denying its existence, and the fact that Jews were also slightly more likely to be victims of the Soviet occupation authorities. Though as it turned out, getting sent to the Gulag provided a large boost to the chances of a Jew surviving the war - fifty-fifty odds beat the roughly 97-98% death rate of those who remained under German occupation.
by MarekNYC on Tue Jun 17th, 2008 at 12:28:55 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Punishment for saying "kike" (none / 1)
Soviet authorities once tried jailing people for anti-Semitic slurs
Could you say more about this?

Right off the bat, the new Soviet state started combating the anti-Semitism that had led to a series of infamous pogroms in Imperial Russia. In 1918, some 400 Red Army men who were found to have been involved in pogroms were shot by the new masters. New laws that were promulgated called for people involved in any new anti-Semitic incidents to be executed by a firing squad. The law was applicable to all citizens, from the age of 12.

In 1920, the law of 1918 was extended to outlaw use of the offensive Russian word for a Jew, "zhid" (kike), and all its derivatives. A Russian nationalist site says that by the end of the 1920s, in Moscow alone, there was a court case about every ten days against someone who had uttered the word. I see no reason to doubt that research and cite it here. That state of affairs continued into the 1930s.

In the West, few people seem to be aware of how Jews were treated in Imperial Russia right up to the fall of the regime in 1918. There were strict laws defining the rural areas of the empire where Jews were allowed to live. Only highly professional Jews were allowed to live in the capital and big centers of the empire.
The Communists came in promising a Brave New World in which all men were created equal. Little did people in multicultural Russia realize in those days that the strong medicine of the new regime was apt to kill the patient.

by Anthony Williamson on Tue Jun 17th, 2008 at 07:18:27 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Punishment for saying "kike" (4.00 / 2)
In the West, few people seem to be aware of how Jews were treated in Imperial Russia right up to the fall of the regime in 1918

As century old stuff goes, quite a few people are aware of this IME. Then again, between the northeastern US with its very large Jewish population and Poland, perhaps I'm not dealing with a representative sample.

There were strict laws defining the rural areas of the empire where Jews were allowed to live. Only highly professional Jews were allowed to live in the capital and big centers of the empire.

The Pale of Settlement as it was called was basically the areas that had been part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth before the First Partition in 1772, plus New Russia, i.e. Odessa and its hinterland. In modern terms that's the eastern half of present day Poland, present day Lithuania, present day Belarus, a little bit of Latvia, and the western half of Ukraine - pretty much everything west of the Dnieper. Within that area Jews could live in cities, and there was massive migration from the shtetls to the big cities of the region (Warsaw, Lodz, and Odessa) Before the 1772 there were no Jews in Russia.

There were also other legal restrictions, as tsarist Russia never got around to granting Jews equal rights, something which other European countries did over the course of the nineteenth century. Russia also had massive pogroms over the last few decades of Tsarist rule, often instigated by the government. The Jewish response was mass emigration and political discontent of various ideological brands - Bolshevism, Menshevism, Polish Marxist nationalism, Jewish Marxist nationalism (Bund), Zionism (which was also sometimes Marxist), plus an attempt by many to stay within the traditional religiously governed world and pretent outside society and the modern world didn't exist.

The Communists came in promising a Brave New World in which all men were created equal. Little did people in multicultural Russia realize in those days that the strong medicine of the new regime was apt to kill the patient.

The twenties were the high point of promoting cultural national autonomy. With the advent of full fledged Stalinism there was a bloody crackdown. Things got better in the post-Stalinist era, but never reached the level of the twenties.

by MarekNYC on Wed Jun 18th, 2008 at 12:46:34 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Punishment for saying "kike" (none / 1)
NB The system of de jure discrimination and residential segregation resulted in the almost complete absence of an assimilated group of Russian Jews during Tsarist times. There were some who become fully acculturated, but they did not really have a Russian national identity.

In contrast, assimilation was the norm in Britain, France, Germany, and to a slightly lesser extent in Hungary and Austria. It was far less common in the Polish lands, but even there the educated Jewish bourgeoisie living in the Austrian Partition and the Congress Kingdom (the ethnic core of Russian Poland) tended to adopt a Polish identity, even though the masses did not. Instead you got a growth of either full rejection of the very concept of national identity, or the adoption of a Jewish one.

by MarekNYC on Wed Jun 18th, 2008 at 01:00:01 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Stalin and Anti-Semitism (4.00 / 2)
The twenties were the high point of promoting cultural national autonomy. With the advent of full fledged Stalinism there was a bloody crackdown. Things got better in the post-Stalinist era, but never reached the level of the twenties.

In 1931, Stalin answered a question that he had received from the United States about anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union. The party newspaper Pravda published his answer in its 329th edition in 1936:

"National and racial chauvinism are a relic of misanthropic morals inherent in the period of cannibalism. Anti-Semitism, as an extreme form of racial chauvinism, is the most dangerous relic of cannibalism.

"Anti-Semitism is useful to exploiters as a lightening rod drawing capitalism away from the blows of the working class. Anti-Semitism is dangerous for the working class, like a false path leading them off the right way and taking them into a jungle. Therefore, Communists, as consequential internationalists, cannot help but be irreconcilable and implacable enemies of anti-Semitism.

"In the USSR, anti-Semitism, as a phenomenon profoundly inimical to the Soviet system, is strictly prosecuted under the law. Active anti-Semites are punished with the death penalty according to the laws of the USSR."

Unfortunately, Stalin did not practice what he preached. Some of his colleagues later claimed that many of the Old Bolsheviks had considered him an anti-Semite right from the early days of their activities.

by Anthony Williamson on Wed Jun 18th, 2008 at 06:45:41 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Anti-Semitism, Anybody? (4.00 / 3)
It's pretty bad in Poland too. Conspiracy theories, obsessive talk about Jewish ancestry of prominent figures (mostly imaginary, occasionally not), etc. Holocaust denial, however, is rather rare, perhaps because Poles witnessed it up close and personal, and it's sort of hard to ignore the sudden disappearance of so many of your neighbours. More common among the hardcore types is that either it was a Jewish conspiracy to create Israel and discredit antisemitism (shades of Celine), or that it was a good thing, or both. It's definitely much worse than in the West, and pace poemless, my impression is that the same is true of Russia.

A couple years ago on a train from Warsaw to Krakow a friendly man struck up a conversation with me. Finding out that I was from NYC he said it would probably be nice if it weren't for all the Jews. Then he went on about how 'the Jews' control America, that Bill Clinton was a Jew, that 9/11 was Mossad's punishment for not electing Lieberman, and segued into the Holocaust and what a wonderful thing it was. The conversation ended when I  broke out into a screaming cursing tirade.

by MarekNYC on Mon Jun 16th, 2008 at 01:36:28 PM EST
East-West Anti-Semitism (none / 1)
It's pretty bad in Poland too. Conspiracy theories, obsessive talk about Jewish ancestry of prominent figures (mostly imaginary, occasionally not), etc. Holocaust denial, however, is rather rare, perhaps because Poles witnessed it up close and personal, and it's sort of hard to ignore the sudden disappearance of so many of your neighbours. More common among the hardcore types is that either it was a Jewish conspiracy to create Israel and discredit antisemitism (shades of Celine), or that it was a good thing, or both. It's definitely much worse than in the West, and pace poemless, my impression is that the same is true of Russia.

This sounds like old home week. Take a look at Russian blogs with Russians fabricating a biography for Dmitry Medvedev, claiming he cannot be president of Russia because he's a Jew, the son of a Jewish mother, and a Jew can't rule over Russians.

Comparing the anti-Semitism I have seen in the United States and Western Europe with the anti-Semitism I witnessed in Russia, I have the feeling you are right, purely on the basis of my personal experience. Russia, at least, seems to have overtaken and outstripped the West when it comes to excelling in anti-Semitic viciousness.

Since the Second World War, Germany has done a great deal with all kinds of measures, including a host of school programs, to fight against anti-Semitism, but according to German statistics, there are still many anti-Semites in Germany.

Allow me an anecdotal account. Yesterday, a German acquaintance of mine, a highly educated man, told me the Jews themselves are partially to blame for the Third Reich program to exterminate them. He never tires of quoting Professor Julius Schoeps, director of the Moses Mendelsohn Center for European-Jewish Studies in Potsdam. Among other things, Schoeps once said in an interview in a Berlin newspaper that anti-Semitism is a part of German culture.

Some would argue that the same thing can be said about Russian culture.

by Anthony Williamson on Tue Jun 17th, 2008 at 06:48:38 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Anti-Semitism, Anybody? (none / 0)
Jewish ancestry of prominent figures (mostly imaginary, occasionally not)

Would be laughable, wouldn't it be so sad. In recent times, a frequent one in Hungary is the anti-semites' belief that PM Gyurcsány is Jewish. Not clue where that originates. But the AFAIK most prevalent is the belief that Charlie Chaplin was Jewish.

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.

by DoDo on Tue Jun 17th, 2008 at 09:02:56 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Anti-Semitism, Anybody? (none / 1)
He played one in a film, so he must have been Jewish. That's how it often goes (e.g., similar rumors about Saint-Saens, Ravel, etc.). The fact he also played a Nazi dictator somehow never proves that he must have been a Nazi.
by gk (gk (gk quattro due due sette @gmail.com)) on Tue Jun 17th, 2008 at 12:57:35 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Anti-Semitism, Anybody? (none / 0)
He played one in a film, so he must have been Jewish.

It has more ingredients than that. Hollywood, cosmopolitanism, Chaplin's rumoured socialism, womanizing are all part of anti-semitic negative stereotyping. So Chaplin as a Jew fits in so many ways, is a compelling myth in the anti-semitic mind, and compelling myths are enduring even after exposure to facts.

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.

by DoDo on Tue Jun 17th, 2008 at 02:01:00 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Anti-Semitism, Anybody? (none / 1)
But a lot of that fits many Hollywood actors, without their being described as Jewish - most antisemitic attacks on Hollywood tended to focus on the directors, some of whom were indeed Jewish.

I suspect that The Great Dictator plays a more significant role here, enabling them to dismiss the movie on these grounds ("What do you expect from a Jew").

by gk (gk (gk quattro due due sette @gmail.com)) on Tue Jun 17th, 2008 at 03:59:00 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Anti-Semitism, Anybody? (4.00 / 2)
I did a bit of research, and it turns out to be stranger than either of us guessed. An Israli film site claims that it was actually the Jews themselves who claimed Chaplin as one of them, based on his on-screen persona. The first antisemitic attacks that they mention come well after the idea that he was Jewish had established itself. They do mention that some people attacked The Great Dictator as Jewish propaganda, as I guessed, but the idea that Chaplin was Jewish was well-established long before this.
by gk (gk (gk quattro due due sette @gmail.com)) on Tue Jun 17th, 2008 at 05:29:38 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Anti-Semitism, Anybody? (none / 0)
Oh! Thanks for the link. I thought it began with Der ewige Jude ( = The Eternal Jew of which even the 'documentary' version preceded The Great Dictator - I find - by a month), but your link implies origins in 1915, and codification of false ancestral info by Zionist lexigraphers in 1927, which Nazi propaganda used as source.

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.
by DoDo on Wed Jun 18th, 2008 at 05:30:23 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Anti-Semitism, Anybody? (none / 0)
None of this comes as a surprise to those who follow events in Russia, where a number of bloggers have set up openly anti-Semitic sites with translations into Russian of books and articles by Holocaust deniers in other countries.

Well, we can say that about just about every country. Where there could be differences is (1) how much the state does to track down and shut down such outlets, (2) how much traction anti-semitic views of various severity get. In the case of Russia, I am especially curious about the latter: one reads a lot about post-Lenin institutionalised anti-semitism in the Soviet Union, and about the anti-semitism of the common people, but, statistically, how widespread are such views today?

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.

by DoDo on Tue Jun 17th, 2008 at 08:52:38 AM EST
How many are there? (none / 1)
It's hard to say with any certainty how widespread such views are because many Russians seem to be apprehensive about going on record about their beliefs if, say, pollsters ask about them. After all, there are laws in Russia against stirring up hatred between ethnic groups, and anti-Semitism falls under that legislation. In this context, it seems odd that Russian authorities have not clamped down on blogs in Russia sponsoring forums with crassly anti-Semitic topics like smears of President Medvedev for allegedly being Jewish. Many other blog topics about Jews attract thousands of messages from Russian contributors with anti-Semitic tirades about why they hate Jews. There are no signs that Russian authorities have been interested in such anti-Semitic outpourings.

The Russian government newspaper Rossiiskaya gazeta regularly issues lists of songs, dvds, films, books, articles and other material that have been banned by courts all over the country and thus are banned throughout Russia because of their anti-Semitic content. There are movie titles like The Eternal Jew and Russia with a Knife in Her Back. The newspaper says anyone found to be spreading the banned material faces court proceedings. At first, the newspaper wanted to publish the list bimonthly, but then the paper announced that the list would be updated on its pages every time there was a new addition. At present, there are 151 entries. Here it is in Russian.

by Anthony Williamson on Tue Jun 17th, 2008 at 10:25:43 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Anti-Semitism, Anybody? (none / 1)
I think these people weaken their case. I think the way that some people became immensely wealthy whilst the rest of the country were left penniless is a criminal conspiracy to defraud the people. Something similar happened in other countries across the ex-Soviet bloc.

But the jewiosh aspect is a distraction. Blaming a radio commentator who happens to be jewish for being n league with people like Abramovich etc is ridiculous. By all means go after the thieves, but to blame anybody who is supposed to have been in the vicinity is childish.

Oh, and this bloke is supposed to be a Colonel ? Someone tasked with military planning. And he can't carry out a simple assassination ?? I think somebody was over-promoted.

keep to the Fen Causeway

by Helen (lareinagal at yahoo dot co dot uk) on Tue Jun 17th, 2008 at 08:55:32 AM EST
Re: Anti-Semitism, Anybody? (4.00 / 2)
Blaming a radio commentator who happens to be jewish for being n league with people like Abramovich etc is ridiculous.

Most people are capable of believing the most ridiculous things. When millions of people believe in the same ridiculous things, things can get very bloody. See 99% of the genocides and pogroms in 20th century Europe.

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.

by DoDo on Tue Jun 17th, 2008 at 09:06:13 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Anti-Semitism, Anybody? (none / 0)
...which is to say:

I think these people weaken their case.

No, they don't.

((1) they don't have a real case, (2) they don't relay in reason for their case.)

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.

by DoDo on Tue Jun 17th, 2008 at 09:07:36 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Anti-Semitism, Anybody? (none / 1)
they don't have a real case

Oh, I think they have a real case for feeling aggrieved over this;-

the way that some people became immensely wealthy whilst the rest of the country were left penniless is a criminal conspiracy to defraud the people. Something similar happened in other countries across the ex-Soviet bloc.

But blaming it on jewish conspiracies misses the point, distracts from the point. It was a conspiracy all right, amongst a powerful and corrupt group of people some of whom might have been jewish. But membership of that conspiracy wasn't about being jewish, it was by being powerful & corrupt and in a position to make their opportunities and get away with it.

keep to the Fen Causeway

by Helen (lareinagal at yahoo dot co dot uk) on Tue Jun 17th, 2008 at 09:42:39 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Anti-Semitism, Anybody? (none / 0)
  1. It doesn't merely miss the point, it jumps over into la-la land. And it isn't innocently based in just real aggrievement and stupidity, but a long history of anti-semitic prejudices, too. So they don't have a real case.

  2. I don't think there was a conspiracy among the future oligarchs. The future oligarchs were smart people thinking for themselves at the right time and in the right place, independently from each other. They became powerful only after. If there were conspiracies, then they were among the politicians in Yeltsin's camp, and among the Western "advisers" who pushed for this headless privatisation.


*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.
by DoDo on Tue Jun 17th, 2008 at 09:59:26 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Punish the Guilty (4.00 / 2)
I agree that those who cheated the Russian people should be punished. It doesn't matter if the guilty are Jews, Russians or Martians; they deserve to have the book thrown at them. The fact that some Russians zero in on anything they perceive as Jewish is a disturbing characteristic of Russian society, and that in itself is worthy of study.

I don't know if Colonel Kvachkov had anything to do with trying to kill Chubais. I accept that a trial by jury found him not guilty, and I applaud President Medvedev's remarks that he intends to strengthen the judicial system. But the anti-Semitic remarks that I heard from Colonel Kvachkov on the radio made my hair stand on end.

by Anthony Williamson on Tue Jun 17th, 2008 at 10:36:22 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Anti-Semitism, Anybody? | 31 comments (31 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)


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