On the eve of the 2016 US elections, I got to talking with a Jew at one of the futurist meetups who was hyperventilating about the prospect of Trump winning. He unironically thought there was a risk of actual deportations of immigrants to concentration camps and pogroms against Jews. Typical Trump Derangement Syndrome sufferer, who cares, they were and remain a dime a dozen. Curious thing is, though, he was also looking to pursue Polish citizenship, from where his family had originally emigrated, and which he now considered a safe harbor against the rising tide of anti-Semitism in America promoted by the Putlerreich.
Well, did I have news for him, even if he did insist it was “fake.”
In 2014-15, the ADL carried out a large survey of “anti-Semitic attitudes” around the world, in which 26% of the global population were found to be anti-Semites (translation: Believed in 6+/11 of popular stereotypes about Jews).
This figure was 30% in Russia, falling to 23% in the follow-up survey in 2015 – which was slightly higher than the 24% average for Western Europe, but lower than the 34% for Eastern Europe (45% in Poland) and far lower than the 74% average for the Middle East.
This gap between Russia and the rest of Eastern Europe is even more marked with respect to 18-34 year olds.
Moreover, even if Russians are slightly more likely than Western Europeans to think statements such as “Jews have too much power in the business world” are true – all things considered, it is amazing the figure is not much higher, given the ethnic composition of the oligarchs – they are certainly not the sort to engage in sanctimonious lectures. Heck, possibly the biggest Russia-based critic of Israel on account of them being mean to Palestinians is a guy called… Israel.
Approval of Israel in Russia and most of Eastern Europe is substantially higher than in Western Europe, especially its more “progressive” countries.
Of course these sentiments are very much a one-way street. One could view it as an admittedly much less extreme version of American evangelicals’ unreciprocated love for Jews and especially Israel.
Whats the deal with South Korea?
They believe in Jewish stereotypes – and consider them great.
They hated Soros in 1998. Maybe they still do. They probably think Jews should be emulated. But it’s possible they still hate them.
Kind of supports the view that criticism of Israel is based not least on postnational sentiment and that there’s no necessary link between traditional antisemitism and being anti-Israel.
Fuck me, according to this survey I’d be an antisemite 😀 Who would have thought, not me …
Russia has a large country mentality – so there’s a lot of racism, but also the underlying contrary feeling that an educated person should not judge by nationality.
As for specifically Jews – they somehow part of the house like an awkward piece of furniture that is disliked by most of the family, and placed in the attic – and then afterwards people start to miss having it in the living room and miss disliking it, and console themselves that at least it is in the attic and wasn’t burnt in the fireplace (although hopefully it will just stay in the attic and not try to take over the living room again).
Something like ‘this is disliked furniture, but it is our disliked furniture.’
There’s a funny scene which reminds me of this, when talking about Kolomoisky, Putin refers to Abramovich as: ‘our oligarch Abramovich’ . Around 9-10 second mark:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tu4MDV_-nmQ
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Even in quite antisemitic authors like Gogol, you get the impression that Jews are a kind of necessary and eternal part of the landscape.
I would not put it quite like that. Vladimir Shainsky died last week. I think it was about a year ago that Maya Plisetskaya died. Fortunately, Iosif Kobzon is still around.
There’s plenty of examples Jewish people that had put all their talents into the national culture.
And then on the other side, of incompletely loyal Jews like Evgeny Kissin and Maxim Vengerov who leave the country – and instead put their efforts into world culture. They still do just through their work, a lot more to promote the prestige of Russian culture in the West, than certain self-destructive attempts like Russia Insider and RT.
Typo?
AK: 30% average for Russia and 24% for Western Europe was the data for 2014, so best to compare those two. (Russia fell to 23% in 2015).
My impression was that, due to having lived in a multiethnic empire, Russians are just aware that Jews are a separate ethnic group with their own interests. Call it the Habsburg effect. Whereas in the West we must pretend this isn’t the case.
Well yes, realistic people in general would be either anti-Semites or close to it by the ADL’s definitions.
Including the more honest Jews: https://www.salon24.pl/u/fzp/588993,jestem-miliardowym-antysemita
It’s funny to look at the results of the ADL survey in different places. For example, in Europe and the Americas, people are more likely to complain of Jews talking too much about the Holocaust than elsewhere – including the Middle-East, which is by far the place with the most negative view of the Jews.
Too bad the ADL survey was not done in Israel. The results could be interesting.
When I look at Saudi Arabia on that map I wonder if MBS is about to get the Shah of Iran treatment (probably much worse). Becoming an ally with Israel, and that in land that hosts Mecca and Medina, surely is generating a lot of anger in the population. Saudi Arabia could one day become the Islamic Republic of Arabia.
OT
Trump accuses Russia of helping North Korea, while according to Reuters, he’s willing to ponder a “pre-emptive” (read: preventive) strike against North Korea “to show he means business”.
Together with the two false alarm incidents these point to a possible US military strike. I wouldn’t bet on Kim not retaliating, so we might get a very interesting year.
I’d say that’s a possible prospect anyway, MBS’ “modernization” (and the loss of welfare provisions that go with it) and the rifts within the royal family might well lead to an interesting situation sometime in the 2020s.
Only upside is that Saudi-Arabians are probably too stupid to do much with the military hardware they’ve acquired.
Stupid or not, I don’t wish their mass deaths. But that’s what is likely to happen, once oil runs out, or oil prices drop too low, or the population grows too large, or a combination of these. I’m not looking forward to this.
I’m not looking forward to it either, though if I’m honest more out of concern for what such a development would mean for Europe than out of any special sympathy for Saudi-Arabians (no reason to like them imo given their role in the world; if they suffered, it would be karmic, given the evil purposes they’ve used their wealth for). Nightmare scenario would be an end to the Iran nuclear deal, a nuclear arms race in the region, Saudi-Arabia getting nukes from Pakistan, and then an Islamist takeover.
With Putin in power, the Jewish community in Russia is probably the safest on a physical basis in Europe.
There are many harsh comments on the internet, but there’s not many bad things happening.
There’s a interview on this – with question put to directly to Rabbi Aleksandr Boroda near the bottom of the interview.
https://ria.ru/religion/20141107/1032029411.html
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The Jewish community thinks there’s about 1.5 million people with Jewish roots (even if the numbers are inflated or the definition imprecise, it’s still easily the largest Jewish community in Europe).
http://www.mskagency.ru/materials/2716461
Actually there was a debate about this survey in Poland.
A Polish rabbi said recently that, contrary to its results,
a yarmulke (kippah)-wearing Jew can walk around in
any Polish city in perfect safety whereas in many places
in Germany, France or Britain he would be in danger of
being attacked verbally or even physically. This was a few
months ago so I no longer have a link. The attacks would
most likely come from the resident Muslims but to the
person being attacked that makes little difference.
AK: I have been meaning to request this for a while now. Could you please stop with this strange text formatting? It looks ugly and out of place relative to other comments. Just write continuously, without pressing “Enter” at the end of each line.
In the Jewish ironic point of view you sometimes hear, is that they ‘destroyed’ the Jewish community by marrying them. And the intermarriage rate for Jews in Russia today is like 80-90%. So the situation is a separate nationality, which is all the time being absorbed into the majority population.
A Hungarian Orthodox (Chabad-Lubavitch) rabbi said something similar a decade ago, that people were always friendly to him and smiling on him, even though he looked very much like a, well, a rabbi. So in his experience hatred of Jews cannot be too widespread, or at least not very open. (Unfortunately the same rabbi is still lobbying for more hate speech laws…)
Maybe he copies it from some stupid text editor which does that. I always imagined him to be an old guy, so probably not very savvy with all this stuff.
OT: US to keep troops in Syria:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/17/world/middleeast/tillerson-troops-syria-islamic-state.html?_r=0
They try to approach the issue in their surveys obliquely (rather than asking ‘are you antisemitic?’ – which almost everyone will deny).
In the ADL’s case, this is done very incompetently (as you would expect from this partisan organization, which has essentially become a branch of the Democrat Party in the United States).
There are some researchers that try to approach the subject in a more systematic way.
If you watch this talk from Israel’s chief scientist in immigration, (At 30:00 – there is an interesting part where he is a fan of Surkov.)
https://vimeo.com/159267577
Saying that they will stay there until Syria becomes a functioning democracy is the equivalent of saying that they will stay there until the Sun keeps rising in the east. Basically, it’s forever.
So many nightmare scenarios. Let’s first survive this North Korea shit without a nuclear war.
Well yes, realistic people in general would be either anti-Semites or close to it by the ADL’s definitions.
For your readers who want to test themselves (as already mentioned one needs 6 out of 11 to make the grade):
Got a 100% for that test, they call those stereotypes but I challenge the philosemites to show which of these are actually false.
Russians are a submissive race by nature. They were ruled first by Nordic Varangians who founded the Kiev Rus, then by the Mongols, then the Germans who comprised the aristocracy, and they’ve been ruled by jews since 1917. Russians love whoever rules them, and they especially love whoever rules them most cruelly and mercilessly, and right now that happens to be jews.
They believe in Jewish stereotypes – and consider them great.
How the Talmud Became a Best-Seller in South Korea.
Hey neutral,
It’s all in the way they word it. For instance they say something like:
Jews have too much control over the United States government
So they are judging you on an opinion. If they were more honest with the question, like:
Jews exercise control over the United States government disproportionately beyond their numbers
…then no way they could deny it. They whole survey is meant to trip you up.
Peace.
Funnily enough I have a pending post just on this (with justifications, stats, etc.).
1 Jews are more loyal to Israel than to [this country/the countries they live in] YES
2 Jews have too much power in international financial markets NO
3 Jews have too much control over global affairs NO
4 Jews think they are better than other people YES
5 Jews have too much control over the global media YES
6 Jews are responsible for most of the world’s wars NO
7 Jews have too much power in the business world YES
8 Jews don’t care what happens to anyone but their own kind NO
9 People hate Jews because of the way Jews behave YES
10 Jews have too much control over the United States government YES
11 Jews still talk too much about what happened to them in the Holocaust YES
7/11 I am an anti-Semite confirmed.
Lol! The Russians en mass aren’t keen on Arabs. Liberal and powerful Muscovites are all for Europe, for the West; the East for them is a shithole, while the Jews are relatively Western folk, in their eyes. More sophisticated Russians are aware of Palestinian cause; but Russian media is in pro-Israel hands, so they do not have access to information – beyond my own writing in the networks and occasionally in the newspapers. Even story of Ahed Tamimi didn’t get into Russian media.
Israel what do you think happens if a girl starts slapping on camera a soldier/police in a European country, regardless whether Russia or Norway – that they will not at best get a custodial sentence in a Young Offender Institution?
Even if you want to tie it into ‘politically motivated action’ – then let’s say a Sami ‘freedom fighting’ teenager starts hitting on camera a Finnish police officer? Even in such a modern, tolerant, progressive and idyllic country as Finland , you will certainly get a custodial sentence.
Looks like a convergence in Poland, Russia and Ukraine in the younger group.
30% Ukrainians age 50+ vs. 23% of older Russians are antisemitic. But among those age 18-34 the percentages for Ukrainians and Russians are 33% and 27%, respectively.
Poland follows a different pattern: 32% Poles 18-34 antisemitic, 42% Poles 50+.
So young people from all three countries converge – Poles get a lot less antisemitic (-10%), Ukrainians a little more so (+3%) and Russians more so (+4%) in younger generations.
I personally do not like Israel or Jews that much, but also do not hate them. After all in their fatherland Israel they have constructed a quite sophisticated economy and had worked hard for it. Sure, jews might have negative qualities. However one has to be realistic as to what is the main alternative to Israel. The real alternative to Israel is going to be a Salafist Islamist Palestinian state run by the likes of Muslim Brotherhood, Al Qaeda or ISIS. Who in their right mind would want a head chopper sharia law regime? That is what much of the Sunni Muslim Middle East is sliding into after the Arab Spring/Arab Winter. Who is the better people- Israeli Jews or Palestinian Arabs? Israeli Jews seem to be the more sophisticated, technologically savvy and intelligent people. Prior to Israel, this region was a undeveloped backwater of the Ottoman Empire.
It is better for Jews to live in Israel than for them to live elsewhere. And another thing: what is the main alternative to Israel? A Salafist Islamist Palestine run by the Muslim Brotherhood, Al Qaeda or ISIS. The real political trends in the Middle East are Islamist and not good. Israel should be there in a balancing act in the region. It is certain that Saudi Arabia or Qatar will change Palestinian society and would bring the most backward forms of Sharia Law. Israel is just better than the probable alternatives.
Fortunately, we have an answer. There is another female who slapped an Israeli soldier. Not once, but quite a few times. Not one soldier, but many soldiers. A frequent offender, you can say. But she was Jewish. And nothing happened. Nothing at all. She is considered a hero in her settler community. Her name is Yifat Alkobi https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-what-happened-when-a-jewish-settler-slapped-an-israeli-soldier-1.5630408 – so this is the answer. A Jewish girl goes scot-free, a shiksa goes to jail.
Besides, she didn’t slap a soldier out of pure girlish fun: her cousin had been shot one day earlier, and you can see his disfigured face by using search engine. In such a situation, a patriotic Russian or French girl would kill a soldier of the occupying army, and so they did in 1940-45. A Spanish girl would poison him. The Palestinian girl just kicked him out of her courtyard.
It is obviously very unpleasant for a soldier to be slapped by a girl. This is a payoff for serving in the occupation army and fulfilling illegal orders.
To the best of my knowledge, neither Finland nor Norway is currently occupying territory that a large majority of the other members of the UN recognize as belonging to others. While Russia has, of course, annexed Crimea, and that has not been recognized by the UN, residents of Crimea do, on the whole, prefer the annexation to the alternative, while Palestinians decidedly do not.
I myself haven’t followed the Ahed Tamimi story, but if Wikipedia is accurate on the matter, then the girl, her mother, and cousin can hardly be blamed for engaging in a protest in their own village, where the family has lived for four hundred years, and attacking soldiers with their bare hands in front of their own house.
The girl is facing several months in detention, if what I cursorily read is accurate. That’s quite harsh for what she did. I guess if someone does that to a police officer in Hungary, she might get arrested and then after a day be let free with a slap on the wrist, perhaps a warning from a judge.
The bigger point is that she didn’t slap some hapless soldier in Israel, but rather an invader in her own country. This is more like a Hungarian girl getting several months in jail for slapping a Red Army grunt in 1956. Surely that happened too but nobody around here is trying to justify it.
Replace Russia/Russians with Poland/Poles and Chinese with Russian and that would be narrative in the comments here if results in Poland and Russia were switched.
but rather an invader in her own country.
Palestinians don’t have a country.
As Talha wrote, the questions are totally loaded. “Jews have too much control…” conflates two questions: whether they have disproportionate influence in the area, and whether the oversized influence is desirable or not for me (or for the world at large: these two might be two different questions). It also makes it impossible to give nuance. It would be easy to evaluate the claims on a scale 1-5 or 1-7 or 0-10, instead you can only give a yes or a no.
By the way, Anatoly, can you explain your “no” answers?
My take:
#2 they do, like Goldman Sachs etc., and finance is a very corrupt industry.
#3 well, they cannot push a lot of things on their own, but their influence is huge, and it’s usually for the worse; the Iraq war probably wouldn’t have happened without them, for example
#6 I agree, but that’s a stupid and loaded question, why not ask “they are at least partly responsible for a lot of wars”, then it’d be true: Iraq, Syria, and possibly Libya. Even if the latter wasn’t pushed by Jews, the stupid neocon ideology was what enabled the phenomenally stupid Hillary-Sarkozy-Cameron group to push their idiotic brainchild through. Neoconism pretends to be a universalistic ideology (so that it would appeal and could be sold to gentiles), so it basically enables stupid or evil people to start stupid and/or evil wars.
#8 again, it’s not literally true that way. What is true is Jews usually care more, often way more about what happens to Jews than to others, and occasionally many of them are callously indifferent to the suffering of others as long as it’s “good for the Jews”.
That’s kind of the point.
Well, it was pushed by one prominent Jew, the horrible BHL. But of course all of those questions are highly loaded, like caricatures, and I suppose that’s deliberate, to pretend there’s a stark choice between completely irrational hatred of Jews, blaming them as a monolithic collective for all the world’s ills, and basically philosemitism. But there are plenty of other views one can take of course.
They were offered one by the UN and they turned it down.
The girl is facing several months in detention, if what I cursorily read is accurate.
Not exactly . . .
It’s probably true that most of the Palestinian leadership over the past 70 years has been quite stupid, and nasty in their choice of tactics (which were hugely counterproductive for the Palestinians’ international image, and at least in part morally indefensible as well). Still, the whole “It’s only the Arabs’ fault there’s no peace” line is pretty lame at a time when Israel is dominated by what are basically hardcore nationalists with annexationist aims (they’re not even like the “far right” in Europe or the US which is mostly defensive nowadays and about rejecting mass immigration…they’re more like pre-1945 nationalists, or like Serbs in the 1990s, with an aggressive expansionist programme justified by highly dubious historical claims).
They were offered one by the UN and they turned it down.
As I recall, the plan they were “offered” allocated 56% of the land to the Jews, who at that time represented only one-third of the population and occupied something like 10% of the land.
And then of course there is the separate issue of whether the Palestinians who left the lands they had been allocated did so voluntarily or were forcibly expelled, or impelled to leave by fear of violence, such as that which befell the village of Deir Yassin more than a month before the Israeli Declaration of Independence.
Even if they left voluntarily (not exactly true), it’s still ethnic cleansing, since they were not allowed back afterwards. I might leave my home if there was a clear and present danger of fighting in my town, but then I’d be pretty upset if later they confiscated my home and wouldn’t let me come back.
It’s probably true that most of the Palestinian leadership over the past 70 years has been quite stupid, and nasty in their choice of tactics (which were hugely counterproductive for the Palestinians’ international image, and at least in part morally indefensible as well).
Not to mention usually in the pay of some narrow Palestinian interest or clan, of Israel or some other outside power or interests.
Still, the whole “It’s only the Arabs’ fault there’s no peace” line is pretty lame
Agree, and nowhere have I indicated support for this view. By the same token it is not wholly Israel’s fault either.
at a time when Israel is dominated by what are basically hardcore nationalists with annexationist aims
Yes, this is another layer upon an already nearly impossible situation.
It seems there is little disagreement. Cannot debate so much… :(((
It seems there is little disagreement. Cannot debate so much… :(((
Isn’t this literally true?
The finer points are where the action is, the “big picture” takes care of itself.
I just find that difficult to believe, considering that one of the criminal charges against Elia Kadosh is for a much more minor slapping (of only a taxi-driver) incident than Tamimi’s.
http://reshet.tv/item/news/domestic/crime-and-justice/crime/attack-model-453295/
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As for the Yifat Alkobi example – watching the video of the incident, it seems that she at no point touches or strikes the soldier. It is more like a case of ‘disturbing the peace’.
Sure, I agree with this, the tragedy of the situation is that both sides have legitimate interests and understandable fears one can easily sympathize with. I’m certainly not taking the side of Palestinians who dream of eliminating even pre-1967 Israel or make insane demands like a “right of return” for descendants of those expelled in 1948. The conflict definitely isn’t black and white.
Any data on how this breaks down by nationality whithin Russia?
Are Muslims more anti-Semitic than Christians?
It’s interesting that France appears to be both
– the most “anti-Semitic” of Western Europe (by a long shot, 31-40%), and
– the most pro Israel (60-70%, along with Italy).
That seems inconsistent, but perhaps it largely reflects sentiment of two distinct populations in France.
If that’s true, the measured prejudices against Jews would mostly come from the Muslim and other banlieue populations. Those people would also be against Israel, but there is still a majority of regular old-school French people who are reasonably favorable to Israel or don’t care.
Just another way in which France is paradoxical: it’s both the most Jewish and the most Muslim country in Europe.
You beat me! I only got 10 out of 11. So you’re a bigger anti-semite than I am!
I don’t put a lot of store in this test. Talha made an excellent comment. Perhaps AK will do a post and it can be discussed further.
1 Jews are more loyal to Israel than to [this country/the countries they live in] VERY FEW (NO)
2 Jews have too much power in international financial markets NO
3 Jews have too much control over global affairs NO
4 Jews think they are better than other people NO
5 Jews have too much control over the global media NO
6 Jews are responsible for most of the world’s wars NO
7 Jews have too much power in the business world NO
8 Jews don’t care what happens to anyone but their own kind NO
9 People hate Jews because of the way Jews behave NO
10 Jews have too much control over the United States government YES
11 Jews still talk too much about what happened to them in the Holocaust SOME DO (YES)
Not an anti-Semite, but I knew that already.
We need a test for philo-Semite. (I don’t really think of myself as one.)
hahah I got 7/11 too.
Funny how the most “anti-Semitic” countries tend to be the most Semitic as well.
I’d look into this, but I can’t read backwards in any language.
Sort of orthogonal to that, the Israeli novelist Amos Oz, in his memoir, quotes his father as saying that the only Europeans (qua “European”, and not “German” or “French” or whatever) in Europe in the 1920s and 1930s were Jews:
https://twitter.com/dpinsen/status/551292772859527169
In the USSR, a Soviet person wasn’t necessarily a Jew (and probably wasn’t). It would have been a Russian-speaking person with a post-national identity, likely of mixed descent. A half-Russian, quarter-Ukrainian, quarter-Latvian person living in Uzbekistan, a half-Russian, half-Ukrainian living in Latvia, etc. USSR was too pathetic and to completely transform its people into a Soviet “nationality” but certain regions could probably be considered “Soviet.” Donbas was probably neither Russian nor Ukrainian, but Soviet.
There were parallels in other multinational post-nationalistic entities. A Turkish-speaking, half-Albanian, half–Bosniak living in Thrace would probably have an Ottoman identity. And of course America is still full of English-speaking people of mixed Irish, German, Italian etc. descent who are Americans. This creation was historically much more successful than was the failed Soviet experiment.
Those Eastern Europe Jews you are talking about…are you sure they are Semites? Do you know Zionism and Anti-Semitism are two faces of the same coin? But you are right, Russians are Philosemites because they defend the Syrian Arab Republic, yes Sir, Arabs are Semites and not only HEBRAIC Jews are it…then Caucasian Jews (most of the infamous occupiers in three times Sacred Land are NOT Semites) have not minimal rights to demand anything in the Middle East. Strange how logic is blatantly violated by some almost well-educated people because of the ill analyzed veracity from for a purpose fictional facts…
Antisemitism is sympathizing with the Palestinians and pressuring Israel on Palestinian national rights. Putting on fancy dress and screaming Perish Judah, saying Hitler was right, Jews, should be exterminated in self defence is fossilized cargo cult antisemitism. Deep down inside, Jews laugh at it.
https://www.rferl.org/a/un-votes-reject-us-jerusalem-recognition-capital/28931789.html
Russia voted in favor of a nonbinding UN resolution calling for the assembly to declare U.S. recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital “null and void.” For the powers that be, Russia is anti semitic. Rely on it.
Antisemitism is sympathizing with the Palestinians and pressuring Israel on Palestinian national rights.
No it is not.
fossilized cargo cult antisemitism
Yes it is.
“stupid text editor”
No, I just like it that way. Sailer commenters
actually praised the esthetic qualities of my
trapezoid format
I’ve meant to add that I’ll be more than happy to change the format on Karlin.
Reiner Tor: “old guy”
If you don’t watch out getting old might also happen to you
I don’t know if not hating Jews as much as Poles, Hungarians, Romanians, Lithuanians, Latvians and Estonians do is enough to label a group of people philo semites. If there are any Russian philo semites, I sure haven’t met any.
One thing I have noticed about philo Semites is that they are always very “Jew wise”, meaning that while they like Jews, they are just as aware of the Jews’ negative qualities as any Jew hater. Churchill was probably the most philo Semitic leader in Western history and he thought that the Jews were basically trouble making nation wreckers.
Re: Survey
A little history to put the survey in context:
As we know, the Jews in medieval Western Europe were confined to ghettoes. When they were
expelled, often repeatedly, from various European countries (incl. German states), they ended up
in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (a federal highly decentralized republic) where they
were given many privileges and were not confined to ghettoes. By 1550 an estimated 80% of the
world’s Jews (or about 90% of the Ashkenazi Jews) lived in the Rzeczpospolita which was
then the largest country in Europe. This was at the time of the religious wars when
the Western Europeans were butchering each other with glee while Poland was at peace and
accepting refugees and dissidents from all over Europe (e.g., thousands of Scots). Russia was
observing all this and decided to ban the Jews from its territory. The Jews in the Commonwealth
basically formed a country within a country with a separate court system and tax collection system,
and underwent a population explosion.
At the time of the Commonwealth’s First Partition (1772), there were still effectively no
Jews in Russia. By the end of the Third Partition (1795), most of the Commonwealth’s Jews found
themselves in Russia although they were confined to the Pale of Settlement, i.e., effectively
prohibited from settling in Moscow, and other major cities. This prohibition was difficult to
enforce and was lifted by the Bolshevik Revolution. Solzhenitsyn wrote about these matters in
Two Hundred Tears Together, a book considered so incendiary it has not yet been published
in the United States although it is available online.
In Poland at the time of WW I there were some issues that created friction between the ethnic
Poles and the (still enormous) ethnically Jewish population. First, a number of prominent
Polish Jews argued vehemently, incl. in Versailles, against Poland’s independence.Second,
most Jews refused to learn Polish. For example, Isaac Bashevis Singer (Nobel in 1978) wrote in
Yiddish even though he lived in and around Warsaw. In his memoir, “A day of pleasure: Stories
of a boy growing up in Warsaw” he wrote how happy he was to live in Poland. By the way, Kafka also
wrote in German even though he lived in Prague. Third, the Arenda system in Congress Poland
meant that the Jews effectively ran the inns and the bordellos which, apparently resulted in a lot
of sexual abuse. For example, around 1905 in Warsaw the religious Jews were so scandalized
by their secular brethren that they raided the bordellos and other entertainment venues.
Apparently though, the Orthodox Jews were unable to effectively police the secular Jews’
behavior. All those things were of course well-known to the Polish population. In conclusion, Poland
has had about 1000 years of experience with Jews whereas Russia’s experience with Jews is
by comparison very recent and very brief. Western Europe effectively solved its Jewish
problem by expelling the Jews from its territory. Russia tried to solve its Jewish problem
by first banning the Jews, and then confining them to Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, and Lithuania
and keeping them from Russia proper. Whole essays or books could be written on any of
those topics
Anatoly, now I know why I usually use my trapezoid format.
My iPad doesn’t format things properly if my lines are too
long. I’ll see if I can use medium length lines.
Whole essays or books could be written on any of those topics.
Here’s an extract from one:
According to Wikipedia, there are only 150,000 – 200,000 Jews
in Russia today, depending on the definition of who is Jewish. This constitutes
0.1-0.2% of the population, a minuscule percentage compared to 2% in the
United States or 10% in pre-WW II Poland. This is what’s distinctive about
Russian history – the long-term effect of the Pale of Settlement was such that even when
it was abolished, the percentage of the Jews compared to the total population of
the Soviet Union was still very small compared to neighboring Poland or the U.S.
It’s as if Russia never ceased to ban Jews from its territory. After all, small countries
like France or Britain have vastly more Jews than Russia has today.
There are completely different evaluation. According to the Russian Jewish Congress in Russia 1.5 million people feel completely or partially Jewish.
According to the Federation of Jewish communities of Russia – about 1 million
I don’t know how reliable these calculations, but 200 000 seems greatly understated figure.
Yes it’s all just a guess work as well as using different definitions. But figure must be higher than that. Rate of repatriation to Israel each year is still higher than for any other country, which may imply larger total population (certainly than the 150,000-200,000 claim – which would imply over 3.5% of the total population repatriating to Israel each year). http://www.sem40.ru/index.php?newsid=295925