RJC Monitor - 01.31.2003

 

The Russian Jewish Congress




Information Bulletin # 3

RJC CONGRATULATES SHARON ON ELECTION WIN

Yevgeny Satanovsky, President of the Russian Jewish Congress, has congratulated Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on the Likud's resounding victory in the January 28 parliamentary polls. 

As Mr. Satanovsky points out in his message of congratulations, the Sharon-led party's election win indicates strong public support for the incumbent Premier. The awareness of that support will help the Israeli leader and his new cabinet to get the nation through the times of violence and uncertainty. 


RJC HOLDS BOARD SESSION

The Russian Jewish Congress has held its first board session since moving home. The new head office is located on Spasoglinishchevsky Pereulok, near the site of Moscow's first Jewish settlement. 

Donors from the Russian business elite joined the RJC Board in its January 29 session. And so, too, did two senior officials of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee—Executive Vice President Michael Schneider and Honorary Vice President Ralph Goldman. 

The RJC Board reviewed programs it had implemented last year. It then outlined plans for the year ahead, discussing with its guests their possible contributions.


BUILDING TRANSATLANTIC BRIDGES BETWEEN JEWS OF RUSSIA, U.S.

A delegation of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) arrived in Moscow January 28 for a four-day routine visit. The idea behind that visit was to strengthen the organization's strategic partnership with the Russian Jewish Congress while also fostering ties between the Jewry of Russia and the United States. 

On January 29, Michael Schneider, JDC Executive Vice President and a leader of the Claims Conference (short for the Conference on Jewish Material Claims against Germany), met for talks with senior RJC officials. 

The sides discussed collaborative charity efforts and RJC activities in the United States, including through American Friends of the RJC and American Friends of Russian Jewish Educational and Charitable Institutions.

High on the agenda was also the RJC's interaction with Jewish immigrants from the former Soviet Union and how it could help their consolidation within the American Jewish community. 

Russian strategic partnerships with Israel were discussed, as well.

Later in the day, Schneider and JDC Honorary Vice President Ralph Goldman took part in the RJC board session.


RJC PROJECTS: BRINGING PEOPLE TOGETHER

The Russian Jewish Congress would like its three new outreach projects to bring people together—around a civic cause, business, or art. It is working to stage a rock concert against terror and to create a businessperson's club and a meet & mingle arts venue. 

"Rock Against Terror," a five-hour nonstop gig, will take place at Moscow's Luzhniki Stadium March 20. The idea behind the planned event is to rally young people against terrorism and extremism. Some of Russia's best-known rock groups and individual musicians will be playing the gig to express solidarity with all nations affected by terrorism, primarily with Russia and Israel. The concert will be held under the auspices of City Hall. The Jewish Agency in Russia and the Moscow Office of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee have promised to make financial contributions. 

The CongressMan club will be a place for members of the Jewish business elite to socialize between themselves, building new business connections, as well as to get involved in RJC charity projects. 

The MingleZone club will regularly host various arts events (such as theatrical shows, music concerts, and art exhibitions), providing a relaxed environment for members of the Moscow art community to meet and mingle with its audience. 


PANEL PONDERS RUSSIAN MIDEAST POLICIES AHEAD OF IRAQ WAR

A forty-member panel of political scientists and news analysts got together at Moscow's Alexander House January 30 to discuss the looming possibility of a second Gulf war.

The discussion centered around Russia's strategies in the Middle East, with the United States preparing to go to war with Iraq. Few participants heeded the moderator's call to focus on specific issues rather than abstract ideas. Among those few who spoke to the point were Yefim Zhigun, Director of the Institute for Israeli and Near Eastern Studies, and Yevgeny Satanovsky, President of the Russian Jewish Congress. 

Gleb Pavlovsky, the nation's best-known spin doctor, came up with a couple of fresh ideas. One is about Russia protecting its former citizens living in Israel and the other, about the Nation awakening to the awareness that its true allies in the Middle East are the Israelis, not the Arabs.


WHAT'S IN STORE FOR ISRAEL, DIASPORA?

The Jan. 30 FSU Hillel conference at the Lesnoi Gorodok retreat, outside Moscow, brought together several hundred members of what is the world's largest Jewish campus organization. The delegates discussed challenges that the 21st century may hold in store for the world's Jewry and tried to come up with possible ways of handling those challenges. 

Addressing the gathering, RJC President Yevgeny Satanovsky raised some rarely-discussed issues, such as implications of the Iraq war for the Jewish State, the possibility of Israel's return to its pre-1967 borders and the likelihood of its losing statehood.


HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS: REMEMBERING PAST FOR SAKE OF FUTURE

Leaders and activists of the former Nazi prisoner associations, operating in Russia, Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus, and Israel under the umbrella of an International Holocaust Survivor Union, gathered in St. Petersburg January 25, for a three-day conference. They received greetings from the Russian Jewish Congress, the Jewish Council of Ukraine, the Council of National Associations of Ukraine, the Association of Jewish Organizations and Communities of Belarus, the World Federation of Jewish Child Holocaust Survivors, and Finland's Karmel group.

Yefim Gologorsky, the umbrella organization's president, delivered a performance report summing up the work of the past three years. Heinrich Gaber, of Moldova, Ukraine's Vasily Mikhailovsky, Israel's Gita Koifman, Russia's Pavel Rubinchik, and Belarus' Mikhail Treister reviewed and evaluated the performance of their respective national branches. The delegates then went on to discuss topical issues of mutual concern. 

David Taubkin, Vice Chairman of Israel's National Holocaust Survivor Association, took the floor to speak of Israel's fight against Arab terrorism. 

Speeches were also delivered by Shmuel Polistchuk, a senior Israeli Embassy official; Natalia Malysheva, Board Chairwoman of the Russian Foundation for Mutual Understanding and Reconciliation; and Sergei Gitman, Executive Vice President of the RJC. 

The conferees adopted four resolutions: on Germany's reparation payments to Holocaust survivors, on measures to combat anti-Semitism, on counter-terrorism measures, and on support for the construction of a memorial complex in Odessa.

They also adopted two messages: to Romanian President Ion Iliescu (on the Antonescu government's genocidal policies against the Jews during WWII) and to the Russian Foundation for Mutual Understanding and Reconciliation (concerning the payment of compensations to "ethnic prisoners").

The conference elected a new board for the umbrella Union: Yefim Gologorsky, President; Schaps Ruef, Vice President for Moldova; Igor Kogan, Vice President for Ukraine; Gita Koifman, Vice President for Israel; Pavel Rubinchik, Vice President for Russia; Mikhail Treister, Vice President for Belarus.