| Why would the Jews bother? |
...President-for-Life of Russia. He gets along well with other presidents for life. He is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from poisoning by polonium or other interesting substance. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to him. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead from poisoning by polonium or other interesting substances...
uses antisemitic rhetoric during his lengthy end-of-year presser, accusing people including "ethnic Jews" of tearing apart the Russian Orthodox Church.
"These people that are attacking the church, they are not atheists," Putin says, addressing a question posed at the presser. "They are absolutely faithless people, Godless people. Well, ethnically, many of them are Jews, but you haven’t seen them visit any synagogue."
Putin’s characterization of Jews in this way can have dangerous consequences, says Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, the president of the Conference of European Rabbis.
"This is just one example of his regime’s explicit and virulent antisemitism, which has intensified following his 2022 invasion of Ukraine and the 2023 events of October 7th," Goldschmidt says. "This is all reminiscent of Stalin’s "Fight against Cosmopolitanism" and the "Doctors’ Plot" of 1948—53, the brutal antisemitic campaign in the Soviet Union, resulting in the arrest and killing of much of the Soviet Jewish leadership in the Soviet Union."
"We cannot emphasize enough the dangerous effect of such statements in a semi-totalitarian society," Goldschmidt continues. "As a representative of Jewish communities across Europe, and someone who was forced to flee my home and community in Moscow, I call on Europa
...the land mass occupying the space between the English Channel and the Urals, also known as Moslem Lebensraum...and the free world to unequivocally condemn President Putin’s dangerous propaganda before it spreads further."
The Russian Orthodox Church is widely criticized by international watchdogs for its close relationship with the Russian government. The Council of Europe recently labeled the church a propaganda tool of the Kremlin, and several European countries have expelled church officials due to security concerns.