Reuters - 03.19.2002

 

Reuters

Russia's Putin Meets Jewish Leaders

MOSCOW - President Vladimir Putin met Russian rabbis on Tuesday ahead of next week's Passover feast, and promised to stamp out anti-Semitism.

"If we do not stop nationalism, xenophobia and religious extremism, we will be unable to go forward as a country," Putin was shown on television telling the rabbis at the Kremlin.

A number of violent incidents against Jews and synagogues in the past few years have raised the spectre of a return of Soviet-era anti-Semitism, and many Jewish leaders have praised Putin for meeting publicly with Jewish groups.

"The anti-Semitism which was once a state policy no longer exists in Russia, although individual manifestations of anti-Semitism can be seen in everyday life," Interfax news agency quoted Head Rabbi Berl Lazar as saying after the meeting.

The Russian empire was once a centre of European Jewish culture, immortalised in the stories of Sholom Aleichem and the paintings of Marc Chagall.

But Jewish religious practice was all but wiped out under Communist atheism and official anti-Semitism. Since the fall of Communism, most Jews have left the former Soviet Union for Israel, North America and Western Europe.

Putin also congratulated Russia's Jewish community on the centenary anniversary of the birth of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, leader of the orthodox Lubavitch movement.

The movement has sent rabbis from abroad, including Italian-born Head Rabbi Lazar, to revitalise Judaism in Russia and encourage Jews to learn more about their faith.

Rabbi Lazar told NTV television he believed about a million Jews were left in Russia. Around one million ex-Soviet Jews emigrated to Israel since the collapse of Communism.