For years, Vladimir Putin worked hard to demonstrate his philosemitic credentials. He cultivated Jewish communities at home and boosted diplomatic and economic ties between Russia and Israel, including implementing visa-free travel for citizens of both. In 2003, then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon referred to Putin as a “true friend of Israel”, and Putin has described Israel (home to at least 1 million Russian-speaking emigrants from the former Soviet Union) as part of “the Russian world”. In April 2017, Russia even recognized West Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
Now, all that has changed. The transition began with Putin’s mentioning this past June, for the first time, the Jewishness of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.… Seguir leyendo »
International leaders have already started marking the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp. Soviet troops captured the camp and freed its prisoners on Jan. 27, 1945. The Nazis had founded Auschwitz on the soil of occupied Poland in May 1940, not long after invading the country. It’s estimated that around 1 million Jews (many of them Polish citizens) were murdered there. Soviet prisoners of war as well as Polish priests and intellectuals died in the camp, too.
You would think that remembering the horrors of the Holocaust would offer an opportunity to bring the world together in a sense of shared mourning and hope.… Seguir leyendo »
On the night of July 16, 1918, Russia’s last czar, Nicholas II, was murdered with his wife and five children in a basement in Yekaterinburg, where they had been detained by the Bolsheviks for four months. On orders from Moscow, they were shot and bayoneted, and their mutilated bodies were set afire.
That much has been generally agreed on, based on overwhelming evidence gathered by numerous experts. Yet the Russian Orthodox Church continues to pose more questions, hinting at the darkest of conspiracies: Were the remains that were later exhumed really those of the imperial family? If not, how many were murdered, and where were they buried?… Seguir leyendo »
The headline shouted, “All citizens of Jewish nationality!” The document ordered all Jews over the age of 16 to register or face deportation, calling them “hostile to the Orthodox Donetsk Republic.”
The words stunned Jewish residents of the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk on the first night of Passover, when masked men carrying a Russian flag started handing out sheets with the chilling announcement to community members as they left the synagogue. “Evasion of registration,” it warned, “will result in revocation of citizenship and . . . confiscation of property.”
Was the threat real? Was it a hoax? Was it an effort to intimidate Jews, to smear pro-Russian activists?… Seguir leyendo »
«Et comment évaluer la situation en Ukraine dans une perspective juive?» demandai-je à Josef Zissels. Ce dissident ukrainien de longue date, militant juif et avocat passionné du mouvement de Maïdan ukrainien, venait de brosser le tableau de la spectaculaire victoire du mouvement et de la destitution du président Viktor Ianoukovitch devant un auditoire à Varsovie. «Il n’y a pas de perspective juive», me répondit-il. «Il y des juifs des deux côtés des barricades.»
Assurément. Aleksander Feldman, par exemple, le président du Comité juif ukrainien, est un éminent député du Parti des régions de Ianoukovitch – bien qu’il ait condamné les actions du président déchu après sa fuite.… Seguir leyendo »
In his op-ed on Sunday, former secretary of state Henry Kissinger apologized for "undoubtedly offensive" comments he made 37 years ago about the fate of Soviet Jews, remarks that recently came to light with the release of tapes by the Nixon presidential library. But in trying to explain the historical context of his words, Kissinger presented a dismissive view of the Soviet Jewry movement as an ineffective irritant. This distorts the important role it played in the Cold War. The movement was a 25-year struggle to force the Soviet Union to allow the free emigration of Jews who were being discriminated against and robbed of their cultural and religious rights.… Seguir leyendo »
For someone who lost in the Holocaust many members of my immediate family and a large proportion of those with whom I grew up, it is hurtful to see an out-of-context remark being taken so contrary to its intentions and to my convictions, which were profoundly shaped by these events. References to gas chambers have no place in political discourse, and I am sorry I made that remark 37 years ago.
In his Dec. 21 column, ['Beyond Kissinger's realism'], Michael Gerson used comments I made during a one-minute conversation with Richard Nixon to draw a contrast between the moral insensitivity of the so-called foreign policy realists and the broader humanistic view of their critics.… Seguir leyendo »
Late one summer night 40 years ago this month, Yosef Mendelevich, a young Soviet Jew, camped with a group of friends outside the Smolny airport near Leningrad. The next morning, they planned to commandeer a 12-seat airplane, fly it to Sweden and, once there, declare their purpose: to move to Israel, a dream they had long been denied.
Most in the group were pessimistic about their chances — but none more than Mr. Mendelevich. He felt sure they would get caught, but to his mind, a group suicide was preferable to a life of waiting for an exit visa that would never arrive.… Seguir leyendo »
Por Marek Halter, pintor y novelista francés de origen polaco (EL PAÍS, 24/10/06):
¿Quién conoce Babi Yar? Fue allí, a las afueras de Kiev, cerca del antiguo cementerio judío, donde el 29 de septiembre de 1941, el día del Kipur, día del Gran Perdón, el Einsatzkommando 4, dirigido por el coronel de las SS Paul Blobel, con ayuda de la policía ucrania, liquidó a golpe de metralleta a los habitantes judíos de la ciudad más antigua de Rusia. La matanza duró hasta el 3 de octubre. Más de 100.000 cuerpos se amontonaban en el cañón. Algunas víctimas aún respiraban. Fueron rematadas a base de granadas.… Seguir leyendo »
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