Jerusalem Post - 04.06.2005

Jerusalem Post

Russian Jewish students: Russia is home

By Hilary Leila Krieger

Recent anti-Semitic incidents here led several Israeli MKs born in the FSU to warn that Israel might face a second massive wave of Jews immigrating from Russia. 

But a group of Russian Hillel students who sat down with The Jerusalem Post said that they have no burning desire to leave. Despite being troubled by anti-Semitism – which they had all personally experienced – they said the current climate in Russia isn't such a divergence from past years of hostility to Jews. 

"It's not at the level that it will make people leave," said Mila Vigdorova, 28, program director for Hillel. She said that only if there were "state-level" anti-Semitism would it be enough to trigger such an exodus. 

But Peter Graben, 28 – the only one of the dozen or so Hillel members present to emphatically express his concern – said that the recent publishing of a letter by 20 lawmakers, calling for the prosecutor-general to open an investigation aimed at outlawing all Jewish organizations, does suggest government involvement. 

He called the letter a trial balloon put out by Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying, "I think it's a state policy now, and I think it's getting worse." 

The State Duma condemned the letter while Putin, speaking during events marking the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp, regretfully acknowledged that anti-Semitism and xenophobia had surfaced in Russia. 

In addition to anti-Semitic declarations, the number of anti-Semitic attacks in Russia soared from four to 55 in 2004, according to a report put out by the Global Forum Against Anti-Semitism.

"Now they need the Jews. They need good relations between Russians, Jews, Muslims, everybody," Graben said of Putin's regime. "But who knows what will be tomorrow." 

Others, however, said the situation was more difficult five years ago when xenophobic parties had more political influence. 

Roman Margolis, 19, said that, "Anti-Semitism in Russia is frozen. It isn't growing. It isn't getting smaller. It stays the same." He added that many Russians harbor anti-Semitic feelings but don't express them. "It is in many people on the inside and it could be outside," he said. 

Masha Pashkevich suggested that to the extent anti-Semitism is rising, it could paradoxically be an outgrowth of the new-found prominence of Jews who feel comfortable acknowledging their identity.

"Maybe there's anti-Semitism because in politics, on TV, on the radio, you can see Jews," she said. 

The visibility of the Jewish community is an important distinguishing feature of the current anti-Semitism climate, according to Sam Amiel, deputy director of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee's Moscow office. The JDC helped establish the Moscow Hillel and continues to provide it with professional and financial support. 

"Anti-Semitism is something that has existed in Russian society, and we all know the policies of the [former] Soviet Union. What we find now since the end of the Soviet Union are either remnants of that or sparks of nationalism that bring anti-Semitism with it, but I feel that the local Jewish community does not sit idly by, and say 'I'm glad to see it,'" Amiel said. "From the chief rabbis down to the local Jewish participants, it's something which they are not comfortable with and they are voicing their opinion about. I think that's the sign of a healthy Jewish community." 

Pashkevich, for instance, noted that when a woman in St. Petersburg accosted her with an anti-Semitic tirade and said, 'Hey Jew, go to Israel,' Pashkevich fired back and left the woman speechless. 

In short, she and others aren't taking the St. Petersburg woman's advice. 

"I'm proud that I'm Jewish," Pashkevich said. "I told her who the Jews are, where we come from, what we gave to the world." 

Some students said that what Russian Jews expect to find in Israel wasn't much of an enticement. "Now in Israel there's such a wave of anti-Russian feeling against the wave of those who made aliya from Russia," said Sasha Zhabinskaya. "Israel doing this prevents new aliya." 

Some one million citizens of the former Soviet Union have immigrated to Israel over the past decade and hundreds of thousands more to other countries. There are still an estimated 1 million - 1.5 million Jews remaining. 

Amiel said he hadn't heard public discussion in the Jewish community about people selling their houses. He noted, "You're always going to have the people who are going to [say], 'Sound the alarm. Pack your bags.' And then there are people who will say, 'This is a society that had a policy of open anti-Semitism for three generations. You're not going to shake it off in 15 years.'" 

"Some years ago it was sort of a fashion to be Jewish," Vigdorova said. "Now it's not in fashion anymore. It's like it always was."