History of the Jews in Russia 210710 225588356 2008-07-14T13:07:17Z Sardanaphalus 427947 updating link using [[Project:AutoWikiBrowser|AWB]] {{Jews and Judaism (sidebar)}} The vast territories of the [[Russian Empire]] at one time hosted the largest [[Jewish diaspora|Jewish population]] in the world. Within these territories the Jewish community flourished and developed many of modern Judaism's most distinctive theological and cultural traditions, while also facing periods of intense [[antisemitism|antisemitic]] discriminatory policies and persecutions. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, many Soviet Jews took advantage of liberalized emigration policies, with over half their population leaving, most for [[Israel]], the United States and Germany. Despite this, the Jews in Russia and the nations of the former Soviet Union still constitute one of the larger Jewish populations in Europe. {{Main|Jewish history}} ==Early history== Tradition places Jews in contemporary southern Russia, [[Ukraine]], [[Armenia]], and [[Georgia (country)|Georgia]] since the [[Babylonian captivity]], and records exist from the 4th century showing that there were Armenian cities possessing Jewish populations ranging from 10,000 to 30,000 along with substantial Jewish settlements in the [[Crimea]].{{Fact|date=June 2008}} Under the influence of these Jewish communities, [[Bulan (Khazar)|Bulan]], the [[Khagan Bek]] of the [[Khazars]], and the ruling classes of [[Khazaria]] (located in what is now [[Ukraine]], [[Southern Russia]] and [[Kazakhstan]]), adopted Judaism at some point in the mid-to-late 8th or early 9th centuries. After the overthrow of the Khazarian kingdom by [[Sviatoslav I of Kiev]] (969), Khazar Jews may have fled in large numbers to the Crimea, the [[Caucasus]], and the Russian principality of [[Kiev]] which was formerly a part of the Khazar territory. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, Jews appear to have occupied a separate quarter in Kiev, known as the Jewish town (Old Russian Жидове, ''Zhidove'', i.e. ‘The Jews’), the gates probably leading to which were known as the Jewish gates (Old Russian Жидовская ворота, ''Zhidovskaya vorota''). The Kievan community was oriented towards [[Byzantium]] (the [[Romaniotes]]), [[Babylonia]] and [[Palestine]] in the tenth and eleventh centuries, but appears to have been increasingly open to the European [[Ashkenazim]] from the twelfth century on. Few products of Kievan Jewish intellectual activity are extant, however. Other communities, or groups of individuals, are known from [[Chernigov]] and, probably, [[Volodymyr-Volynskyi]]. At that time Jews are probably found also in northeastern Russia, in the domains of Prince [[Andrei Bogolyubsky]] (1169-1174), although it is uncertain to which degree they would have been living there permanently.<ref>A.I. Pereswetoff-Morath, ''A Grin without a Cat'', vol. 2: ''Jews and Christians in Medieval Russia – Assessing the Sources'' (Lund Slavonic Monographs, 5), Lund 2002</ref> [[Image:Prokudin-Gorskii-54.jpg|thumb|left|[[Bukharan Jews|Bukharan Jewish]] school. [[Samarkand]], ca. [[1910]]]] Though northeastern Russia had few Jews, countries just to its west had rapidly growing Jewish populations, as waves of [[antisemitism|anti-Jewish]] [[pogrom]]s and expulsions from the countries of [[Western Europe]] marked the last centuries of the [[Middle Ages]], a sizable portion of the Jewish populations there moved to the more tolerant countries of [[Central Europe|Central]] and [[Eastern Europe]], as well as the [[Middle East]]. Expelled en masse from [[England]], [[France]], [[Spain]] and most other Western European countries at various times, and persecuted in [[Germany]] in the [[14th century]], many Western European Jews naturally accepted [[Poland|Polish]] ruler [[Casimir III of Poland|Casimir III]]'s invitation to settle in Polish-controlled areas of Eastern Europe as a third estate, performing commercial, middleman services in an agricultural society for the Polish king and nobility between 1330 and 1370, during Casimir the Great's reign. Approximately 85 percent of the Jews in Poland during the 14th century were involved in estate management, tax and toll collecting, moneylending or trade.{{Fact|date=June 2008}} After settling in Poland (later [[Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth]]) and [[Hungary]] (later [[Austria-Hungary]]), the population expanded into the lightly populated areas of [[Ukraine]] and [[Lithuania]], which were to become part of the expanding Russian empire. In [[1495]] [[Alexander the Jagiellonian]] expelled the Jews from [[Grand Duchy of Lithuania]] but reversed his decision in [[1503]]. [[Image:Vilna Gaon portrait.gif|thumb|150px|[[Vilna Gaon]]]] [[Image:Schneur Zalman of Liadi.jpg|thumb|150px|[[Shneur Zalman of Liadi]], founder of [[Chabad Lubavitch]]]] In the ''[[shtetl]]s'' populated almost entirely by Jews, or in the middle-sized town where Jews constituted a significant part of population, Jewish communities traditionally ruled themselves according to [[halakha]], and were limited by the privileges granted them by local rulers. (See also [[Shtadlan]]). These [[Jew]]s were not assimilated into the larger eastern European societies, and identified as an [[ethnicity|ethnic]] group with a unique set of religious beliefs and practices, as well as an ethnically unique economic role. ==Tsarist Russia (1480s-1917)== Documentary evidence as to the presence of Jews in [[Muscovy|Muscovite Russia]] is first found in the chronicles of [[1471]]. The relatively small population of Jews were generally free of major persecution: although there were laws against them during this period, they do not appear to be strictly enforced. In the [[1480]]s the principality of [[Muscovy]] became the religious equivalent of the [[Caliphate]] or [[Holy Roman Empire]]. Based on the theory of the [[Third Rome]], it was believed that the [[Tsar]] ruled the only rightful, practically independent [[Orthodox]] state, surrounded by [[Muslim]] and [[Roman Catholic]] states. According to prophecy, there were to be only three ''Romes'', that is, centers of rightful religious faith. The first two, ancient [[Rome]] and [[Constantinople]], have already fallen, leaving the only hope on earth with [[Moscow]]. The religious zeal of such a theory reasoned for the ultimate measures against the "enemies of the faith", including the Jews. Muscovite treatment of the Jews became harsher in the reign of [[Ivan IV of Russia|Ivan IV, The Terrible]] (1533-84). For example, in his conquest of [[Polatsk|Polotsk]] in February [[1563]], some 300 local Jews who declined to [[religious conversion|convert]] to Christianity were, according to legend, drowned in the [[Western Dvina|Dvina]]. Jews were not tolerated in the area of Muscovy, from [[1721]] the official doctrine of Imperial Russia was openly antisemitic. Even if Jews were tolerated for some modest time, eventually they were expelled, as when the captured part of [[Ukraine]] was cleared of Jews in the year [[1727]]. These policies made Muscovite Russia a very hostile environment for Jewish people. ''See also [[Chmielnicki Uprising]]'' ===Pale of Settlement and Pogroms=== [[Image:Pale of Settlement map.jpg|left|thumb|Map of the Pale of Settlement]] The traditional measures of keeping Russia free of Jews failed when the main territory of Poland was annexed during the [[Partitions of Poland|partitions]]. During the second ([[1793]]) and the third ([[1795]]) partitions, large populations of Jews were taken over by Russia, and the Tsar established a [[Pale of Settlement]] that included Poland and [[Crimea]]. Jews were supposed to remain in the Pale and required special permission to move to Russia proper, while Russian officials pursued alternating policies designed to encourage assimilation (such as opening public schools to Jews) and destroy independent Jewish life (such as forbidding Jews to live in certain towns). Rebellions beginning with the [[Decembrist Revolt]] of [[1825]], followed by the struggle of [[Russia]]'s [[intelligentsia]], and the rise of [[nihilism]], [[liberalism]], [[socialism]], [[syndicalism]], and finally [[Communism]] threatened the old tsarist order. Assuming that many radicals were of Jewish extraction, tsarist officials increasingly resorted to popularizing religious and nationalistic fanaticism. [[Image:Sholom Aleichem listens.jpg|thumb|150px|[[Sholom Aleichem]], a Yiddish writer who portrayed life in the Pale]] [[Alexander II of Russia|Alexander II]], known as the "Tsar liberator" for the 1861 [[Emancipation reform of 1861 in Russia|abolition of serfdom in Russia]], was also known for his suppression of national minorities. Under his rule Jews could not commission Christian servants, could not own land, and were restricted to where they could and couldn't travel.<ref>Duffy, James P., Vincent L. Ricci, ''Czars: Russia's Rulers for Over One Thousand Years'', p. 324</ref> Nevertheless, he approved the policy of Polish politician [[Alexander Wielopolski]] in the [[Congress Poland|Kingdom of Poland]] that gave Jews equal rights to other citizens (the prior status of Jews was different; it is questionable whether this distinct status was more or less beneficial). [[Alexander III of Russia|Alexander III]] was a staunch reactionary who strictly adhered to the old maxim "[[Autocracy, Orthodoxy, and Nationalism]]." His escalation of anti-Jewish policies sought to popularize "folk antisemitism," which portrayed the Jews as "[[Christ-killers]]" and the oppressors of the Slavic, Christian victims. A large-scale wave of [[anti-Jewish pogroms in the Russian Empire|anti-Jewish pogroms]] swept southwestern Russia in 1881, after Jews were wrongly blamed for the assassination of Alexander II. In the 1881 outbreak, there were pogroms in 166 Russian towns, thousands of Jewish homes were destroyed, many families reduced to extremes of poverty;{{Fact|date=June 2008}} large numbers of men, women, and children were injured and some killed. The new czar, Alexander III, blamed the Jews for the riots and on [[May 15]], [[1882]] introduced the so-called ''Temporary Regulations'' ("Временные правила") that stayed in effect for more than thirty years and came to be known as the [[May Laws]]. [[Image:Ekaterinoslav1905.jpg|thumb|left|The victims of a 1905 pogrom in [[Dnipropetrovsk|Yekaterinoslav]]]] The [[Chief Procurator]] of the [[Holy Synod (Russia)|Holy Synod]] and the tsar's mentor, friend, and adviser [[Konstantin Pobedonostsev]] was reported as saying that one-third of Russia's Jews was expected to emigrate, one-third to accept baptism, and one-third to starve.<ref>[http://www.memo.ru/hr/referats/hatespch/kis_kop.htm History of the national question in Russia] at Russian Committee in defense of the human rights (in Russian), also in [http://www.axt.org.uk/antisem/archive/archive4/russia/russia.htm AXT: Russia] and in ''Studies in Comparative Genocide'' by Levon Chorbajian (p.237)</ref> The repressive legislation was repeatedly revised. Many historians noted the concurrence of these state-enforced antisemitic policies with waves of pogroms<ref>''A History of Russia'' by [[Nicholas Riasanovsky]], p.395</ref> that continued until 1884, with at least tacit government knowledge and in some cases policemen were seen inciting or joining the mob. [[Image:Torah scrolls.JPG|thumb|right|200px|[[Torah]] scrolls presented by the Jewish community of [[Kishinev]] to [[Nicholas II of Russia|Nicholas II]], 1914.]] The systematic policy of [[discrimination]] banned Jews from rural areas and towns of fewer than ten thousand people, even within the Pale, assuring the slow death of many [[shtetl]]s. In 1887, the [[quota]]s placed on the number of Jews allowed into secondary and higher education were tightened down to 10% within the Pale, 5% outside the Pale, except Moscow and Saint Petersburg, held at 3%. Strict restrictions prohibited Jews from practicing many professions. In [[1886]], an [[Edict of Expulsion]] was enforced on Jews of [[Kiev]]. In [[1891]], [[Moscow]] was [[ethnic cleansing|cleansed]] of its Jews (except few deemed [[useful Jew|useful]]) and a newly built [[synagogue]] was closed by the city's authorities headed by the Tsar's brother. Tsar Alexander III refused to curtail repressive practices and reportedly noted: "But we must never forget that the Jews have crucified our Master and have shed his precious blood."<ref>''But Were They Good for the Jews?'' by Elliot Rosenberg, p.183</ref> The restrictions placed on education, traditionally highly valued in Jewish communities, resulted in ambition to excel over the peers and increased emigration rates. [[Image:Joseph Trumpeldor.jpg|thumb|150px|[[Joseph Trumpeldor]], the most decorated Jewish soldier in the [[Russian Army]] for his bravery in the [[Russo-Japanese War]]]] In [[1892]], new measures banned Jewish participation in local elections despite their large numbers in many towns of the Pale. "The ''Town Regulations'' prohibited Jews from the right to elect or be elected to town [[Duma]]s… That way, [[inverse|reverse]] [[proportional representation]] was achieved: the majority of town's [[taxpayer]]s had to be subjugated to minority governing the town against Jewish interests."<ref>''The newest history of the Jewish people, 1789-1914'' by [[Simon Dubnow]], vol.3, Russian ed., p.152</ref> ===Mass emigration and political activism=== {| class="sortable wikitable" style="float;" align="left" |+ '''Jewish emigration from Russia, 1880-1928'''<ref>[http://www.friends-partners.org/partners/beyond-the-pale/eng_captions/39-4.html Jewish Emigration from Russia: 1880 - 1928] (Beyond the Pale)</ref> ! Destination ! Number |- | Australia || align="right"| 5,000 |- | Canada || align="right"| 70,000 |- | Europe || align="right"| 240,000 |- | Palestine || align="right"| 45,000 |- | South Africa || align="right"| 45,000 |- | South America || align="right"| 111,000 |- | USA || align="right"| 1,749,000 |} Through an application processes Russian Jews were allowed to join their families in Israel. During the Cold War, these options were out of the question due to specific holding laws not allowing Russian citizens to travel abroad. It was considered the chance to explore the world and/or discover yourself. Because it was a great opportunity, Russian authority made the application process extremely difficult. In order to be considered for this application, the individual had to quit their job. This took place because the organizations of the period did not want record of an employee disloyal to the regime. This was an extremely stressful process due to the uncertainty of the future for the emigrants. After the individual had already lost their job, they were not equipped with the information pertaining to how long the wait for the decision would be and what would occur after the decision to go was made. Therefore, these emigrants lost their source of income and were now, on top of all the other stressful issues, also financially unstable. Even though the persecutions provided the impetus for mass [[emigration]] there were other relevant factors that can account for the Jews' migration. Recent studies have demonstrated how the Russian Jews' emigration was highly correlated with negative Russian economic performance and the high employment rate in the U.S. during those years.{{Fact|date=June 2008}} Moreover, after the first years of large emigration from Russia, positive feedback from the former Jews in the U.S. accounts itself for why so many Russian Jews expatriated to the U.S. Indeed more than two million of them fled Russia between 1880 and 1920. While a vast majority emigrated to the [[United States]], some turned to Zionism. In [[1882]], members of [[Bilu]] and [[Hovevei Zion]] made what came to be known the [[Aliyah#First Aliyah (1882-1903)|First Aliyah]] to [[Palestine]], then a part of the [[Ottoman Empire]]. [[Image:Leon Pinsker.jpg|thumb|The founder of [[Hovevei Zion]] [[Leon Pinsker]]]] The Tsarist government sporadically encouraged Jewish emigration. In [[1890]], it approved the establishment of "The Society for the Support of Jewish Farmers and Artisans in [[Greater Syria|Syria]] and [[Eretz Israel]]," (known as the "[[Odessa Committee]]" headed by Leon Pinsker) dedicated to practical aspects in establishing [[Jewish settlement|agricultural Jewish settlements]] in the [[Land of Israel]]. A larger wave of pogroms broke out in 1903-1906, leaving an estimated 1,000 Jews dead, and between 7,000 and 8,000 wounded.{{Fact|date=June 2008}} At least some of the pogroms are believed to have been organized or supported by the Tsarist Russian secret police, the [[Okhrana]]. Even more pogroms accompanied the [[Russian Revolution of 1917]] and the ensuing [[Russian Civil War]], when an estimated 70,000 to 250,000 civilian Jews were killed in atrocities throughout the former [[Russian Empire]]; the number of Jewish orphans exceeded 300,000. Out of estimated 887 mass pogroms in Ukraine during 1917-1918, about 40% were perpetrated by the Ukrainian forces led by [[Symon Petliura]], 25% by the [[Green Army]] and various nationalist and anarchist gangs, 17% by the [[White Army]], especially forces of [[Anton Denikin]], and 8.5% by the [[Red Army]].<ref>The numbers are from [[Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn]]'s ''200 Years Together'', citing [[Nahum Gergel]]'s 1951 study of the pogroms.</ref> ''See also [[Cantonist]], [[Kishinev pogrom]], [[Beilis trial]], [[Jewish gauchos]], [[Galveston Movement]]'' ==== Jews and Bolshevism ==== {{seealso|Jewish Bolshevism}} <!-- Commented out because image was deleted: [[Image:Protocols of the Elders of Zion 1927 Paris Ru emig.jpg|left|thumb|The ''[[The Protocols of the Elders of Zion|Protocols]]'' published by Russian emigrants in Paris, 1927. The cover image portrays the [[Bolshevik Revolution]] as an alleged "Jewish plot"]] --> A notable number of [[Bolshevik]] party members were ethnically Jewish, especially in the leadership of the party, and the percentage of Jewish party members among the rival [[Mensheviks]] was even higher. The idea of overthrowing the Tsarist regime was attractive to many members of the Jewish [[intelligentsia]] because of the oppression of non-Russian nations and non-[[Eastern Orthodoxy|Orthodox Christians]] within the [[Russian Empire]]. For much the same reason, many non-Russians, notably [[Latvians]] or [[Poles]], were disproportionately represented in the party leadership. This fact was abused by the Tsarist secret police, the [[Okhrana]], which used [[antisemitism]] and [[xenophobia]] as a weapon against the Russian [[revolutionary movement]] and promulgated the [[fraud]]ulent ''[[The Protocols of the Elders of Zion|Protocols of the Elders of Zion]]'' to explain Russian revolutionism as a part of a powerful world [[Conspiracy theory|conspiracy]]. [[Image:WhiteArmyPropagandaPosterOfTrotsky.jpg|thumb|[[White movement|White Army]] propaganda poster depicting Leon Trotsky, the founder of the [[Red Army]]. The caption reads: "Peace and Liberty in [[Sovdepia]]"]] Because some of the leading Bolsheviks were ethnic Jews, and [[Bolshevism]] supports a policy of promoting international proletarian revolution&mdash;most notably in the case of [[Leon Trotsky]]&mdash;many enemies of Bolshevism, as well as contemporary antisemites, draw a picture of Communism as a political slur at Jews and accuse Jews of pursuing Bolshevism to benefit Jewish interests, reflected in the terms "Jewish Bolshevism" or "Judeo-Bolshevism". In [[Nazi Germany]], the regime of [[Adolf Hitler]] used this theory as a [[battle cry|rallying cry]] to paint a picture of a supposed "Jewish-Bolshevik conspiracy". Even today, many anti-semites continue to claim a link between the Jews and Communism. The original [[atheist]]ic and [[international]]istic ideology of the Bolsheviks (''See [[proletarian internationalism]], [[bourgeois nationalism]]'') was incompatible with Jewish traditionalism and the later covert tendencies towards Russian nationalism and (especially after [[World War II]]) antisemitism in the Soviet regime placed many secular Jews in conflict with the regime. Soon after seizing power, the Bolsheviks established the [[Yevsektsiya]], the Jewish section of the [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Communist party]] in order to destroy the rival [[General Jewish Labor Union|Bund]] and [[Zionism|Zionist]] parties, suppress [[Judaism]] and replace traditional Jewish culture with "proletarian culture". Most of the [[Old Bolsheviks]], Jewish and Gentile alike, including members of the Yevsektsiya, were repressed by [[Joseph Stalin|Stalin]] during the [[Great Purge]] of [[1930s]]. == After the October Revolution (1917-1991) == === Under Lenin (1917-1924) === In March 1919, [[Lenin]] delivered a speech ''"On Anti-Jewish Pogroms"''<ref>Lenin's March 1919 speech ''On Anti-Jewish Pogroms'' («О погромной травле евреев»: [[s:Anti-Jewish Pogroms|text]], {{audio|Lenin - Anti-Jewish Pogroms.ogg|audio}})</ref> on a [[gramophone]] disc. Lenin sought to explain the phenomenon of antisemitism in [[Marxist]] terms. According to Lenin, antisemitism was an "attempt to divert the hatred of the workers and peasants from the exploiters toward the Jews." Linking antisemitism to class struggle, he argued that it was merely a political technique used by the tsar to exploit religious fanaticism, popularize the despotic, unpopular regime, and divert popular anger toward a scapegoat. The Soviet Union also officially maintained this Marxist-Leninist interpretation under [[Stalin]], who expounded Lenin's critique of antisemitism. However, this did not prevent the widely publicized repressions of Jewish intellectuals during [[1948]]&ndash;[[1953]] (see [[#After World War II|After World War II]]). Such actions, along with extensive Jewish participation among the Bolsheviks, plagued the Communists during the [[Russian Civil War]] against the [[White Movement|Whites]] with a reputation of being "a gang of marauding Jews"; Jews comprised a majority in the Communist Central Committee, outnumbering even ethnic Russians. At the same time, the vast majority of Russia's Jews, much like their ethnic Russian neighbours, were not in any political party. The attempts of the socialist [[General Jewish Labor Union|Jewish Labor Bund]] to be the sole representative of the Jewish worker in Russia had always conflicted with Lenin's idea of a universal coalition of workers of all nationalities. Like some other socialist parties in Russia, the Bund was initially opposed to the Bolsheviks' seizing of power in 1917 and to the dissolving of the [[Russian Constituent Assembly]]. Consequently, the Bund suffered repressions in the first months of the Soviet regime {{Fact|date=February 2007}}. However, the antisemitism of many Whites during the [[Russian Civil War]] caused many if not most Bund members to readily join the Bolsheviks, and most of the factions eventually merged with the Communist Party. The movement did split in three; the Bundist identity survived in interwar [[Poland]] under [[Rafael Abramovich]], while many Bundists joined the [[Mensheviks]]. In August of 1919 Jewish properties, including synagogues, were seized and many Jewish communities were dissolved. The anti-religious laws against all expressions of religion and religious education were being taken out on the Jewish population, just like on other religious groups. Many Rabbis and other religious officials were forced to resign from their posts under the threat of violent persecution. This type of persecution continued on into the 1920s.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |title=Russia | encyclopedia =Encyclopaedia Judaica | volume = 17 |pages=531-553 | publisher =Keter Publishing House Ltd. | date = | id = |accessdate=11/5/07 }}</ref> In [[1921]], a large number of Jews opted for [[Poland]], as they were entitled by [[Peace of Riga|peace treaty in Riga]] to choose the country they preferred. Several hundred thousand joined the already numerous [[History of the Jews in Poland|Jewish population of Poland]]. ==== Lenin's stance on anti-Semitism ==== The chaotic years of World War I, the February and October Revolutions, and the Civil War were fertile ground for the antisemitism that was endemic to tsarist Russia. During the war, Jews were accused of sympathizing with Germany and often persecuted. Russian anti-semitism continued even after the lifting of official anti-Jewish restrictions by the February regime and the Bolsheviks. Pogroms were unleashed throughout the Civil War, perpetrated by virtually every competing faction, from [[Nestor Makhno|anarchists]], to Polish and Ukrainian nationalists to the Red and White Armies. Continuing the policy of the Bolsheviks before the Revolution, Lenin and the Bolshevik Party strongly condemned the pogroms, including official denunciations in 1918 by the Council of People's Commissars. Opposition to the pogroms and to manifestations of Russian anti-semitism in this era were complicated by both the official bolshevik policy of assimilationism towards all national and religious minorities, and concerns about overemphasizing Jewish concerns for fear of exacerbating popular anti-semitism, as the White forces were openly identifying the Bolshevik regime with Jews.<ref>Benjamin Pinkus. ''The Jews of the Soviet Union: The History of a National Minority''. Cambridge University Press, 1988.</ref><ref>Naomi Blank. Redefining the Jewish Question from Lenin to Gorbachev: Terminology or Ideology. In: Yaacov Ro'i, editor. ''Jews and Jewish Life in Russia and the Soviet Union.''Routledge, 1995.</ref><ref>William Korey. Russian Anti-semitism, Pamyat, and the Demonology of Zionism. Routeledge, 1995.</ref> Lenin was intrigued with technology and in 1919 recorded eight of his speeches on gramophone records. Seven were later re-recorded and put on sale in the [[Khrushchev]] era. Significantly the one which was suppressed outlined Lenin’s feelings on anti-Semitism<ref>Ronald Clark (1988) ''Lenin: The Man Behind the Mask'': 456</ref>: {{cquote|The Tsarist police, in alliance with the landowners and the capitalists, organized [[pogrom]]s against the Jews. The landowners and capitalists tried to divert the hatred of the workers and peasants who were tortured by want against the Jews. … Only the most ignorant and downtrodden people can believe the lies and slander that are spread about the Jews. … It is not the Jews who are the enemies of the working people. The enemies of the workers are the capitalists of all countries. Among the Jews there are working people, and they form the majority. They are our brothers, who, like us, are oppressed by capital; they are our comrades in the struggle for socialism. Among the Jews there are kulaks, exploiters and capitalists, just as there are among the Russians, and among people of all nations… Rich Jews, like rich Russians, and the rich in all countries, are in alliance to oppress, crush, rob and disunite the workers… Shame on accursed [[Tsarism]] which tortured and persecuted the Jews. Shame on those who foment hatred towards the Jews, who foment hatred towards other nations.<ref> {{cite web |last=Lenin |first=Vladimir |title=Anti-Jewish Pogroms |work=Speeches On Gramophone Records |publisher= |date=1919 |url=http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1919/mar/x10.htm}}</ref>}} Lenin was supported by the [[Labor Zionism|Labor Zionist]] ([[Poale Zion]]) movement, then under the leadership of Marxist theorist [[Ber Borochov]], which was fighting for the creation of a Jewish workers' state in [[Palestine]] and also participated in the October Revolution (and in the Soviet political scene afterwards until being banned by Stalin in 1928). While Lenin remained opposed to outward forms of [[Anti-Semitism|anti-semitism]] (and all forms of racism), allowing Jewish people to rise to the highest offices in both party and state, certain historians such as [[Dmitri Volkogonov]] argue that the record of his government in this regard was highly uneven. A former official Soviet historian turned staunch anti-communist, Volkogonov claims that Lenin was aware of pogroms carried out by units of the Red Army during the war with Poland, though the whole issue was effectively ignored. Volkogonov writes that “While condemning anti-Semitism in general, Lenin was unable to analyze, let alone eradicate, its prevalence in Soviet society”.<ref name = "anti-Semitism">Dmitrij Volkogonov: ''Lenin. Počátek teroru.'' Dialog, Liberec 1996, p. 173.</ref> Likewise, the hostility of the Soviet regime towards all religion made no exception for [[Judaism]], and the 1921 campaign against religion saw the seizure of many synagogues (whether this should be regarded as anti-Semitism is a matter of definition since Orthodox churches received the same treatment). However, according to Jewish historian Zvi Gitelman: “Never before in Russian history &mdash; and never subsequently has a government made such an effort to uproot and stamp out anti-Semitism”.<ref> {{cite book |last=Gutelman |first=Zvi | coauthors = Curtis, M. (ed.) |title=Antisemitism in the Contemporary World |publisher=Westview Press |date=1986 |pages=pp. 189&ndash;190 |id=ISBN 0-8133-0157-2}}</ref> === Under Stalin (1927-1953) === [[Image:RussiaJewish2005.png|thumb|[[Jewish Autonomous Oblast]] on the map of Russia]] ==== Before World War II ==== Russian Jews were long considered a non-native "[[Semitic]]" ethnicity in a "[[Slavic peoples|Slavic]]" Russia, and such categorization was solidified when ethnic minorities in the [[Soviet Union]] were categorized according to ethnicity ({{lang|ru|национальность}}), with Jews being no exception. In his 1913 theoretical work ''Marxism and the National Question'' Stalin described Jews as "not a living and active nation, but something mystical, intangible and supernatural. For, I repeat, what sort of nation, for instance, is a Jewish nation which consists of Georgian, Daghestanian, Russian, American and other Jews, the members of which do not understand each other (since they speak different languages), inhabit different parts of the globe, will never see each other, and will never act together, whether in time of peace or in time of war?!"<ref>Stalin, Joseph (1913): ''[http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1913/03.htm Marxism and the National Question]''</ref> According to Stalin, who became the [[People's Commissar]] for Nationalities Affairs after the revolution, to qualify as a nation, a minority was required to have a culture, a language, and a homeland. To offset the growing Jewish national and religious aspirations of [[Zionism]] and to successfully categorize Soviet Jews under Stalin's definition of nationality, an alternative to the [[Land of Israel]] was established with the help of [[Komzet]] and [[OZET]] in [[1928]]. The [[Jewish Autonomous Oblast]] with the center in [[Birobidzhan]] in the [[Russian Far East]] was to become a "Soviet Zion".<ref>[http://www.swarthmore.edu/Home/News/biro/html/panel12.html OZET lottery posters and tickets] featured in [[Swarthmore College]]'s online exhibition "Stalin's Forgotten Zion: Birobidzhan and the Making of a Soviet Jewish Homeland."</ref> The Soviet authorities considered the use of [[Hebrew language]] "reactionary" since it was associated with both Judaism and Zionism, and the teaching of Hebrew at primary and secondary schools was officially banned by the [[Narkompros]] (Commissariat of Education) as early as [[1919]], as part of an overall agenda aiming to [[secularization|secularize]] education.<ref>{{ru icon}} [http://berkovich-zametki.com/Nomer16/MN31.htm ЕВРЕЙСКАЯ СОВЕТСКАЯ КУЛЬТУРА БЫЛА ПРИГОВОРЕНА К УНИЧТОЖЕНИЮ В 1930-Е ГОДЫ] (''The Jewish Soviet Culture Was Doomed Since 1930s'') by Nosonovski, Michael</ref> Hebrew books and periodicals ceased to be published and were seized from the libraries, although liturgical texts were still published until the 1930s. Despite numerous protests in the West,<ref>[http://www.zionistarchives.org.il/ZA/SiteE/pShowView.aspx?GM=Y&ID=48&Teur=Protest%20against%20the%20suppression%20of%20Hebrew%20in%20the%20Soviet%20Union%20%201930-1931 Protest against the suppression of Hebrew in the Soviet Union 1930-1931] signed by [[Albert Einstein]], among others</ref> teachers and students who attempted to study the Hebrew language were pilloried and sentenced for "counter revolutionary" and later for "anti-Soviet" activities. [[Yiddish language|Yiddish]], rather than Hebrew, would be the [[national language]], and [[socialist realism|proletarian socialist literature and arts]] would replace Judaism as the quintessence of culture. Despite a massive domestic and international state [[propaganda]] campaign, the Jewish population there never reached 30% (as of 2003 it was only about 1.2%<ref>Mark Tolts: [http://www.jafi.org.il/education/100/concepts/demography/Tolts_Article1.pdf The Post-Soviet Jewish Population in Russia and the World.] Published in: Jews in Russia and Eastern Europe, 2004, No. 1 (52). p.51</ref>). The experiment ground to a halt in the mid-1930s, during Stalin's first campaign of purges. Jewish leaders were arrested and executed, and Yiddish schools were shut down. In his January 12, [[1931]] letter ''"Antisemitism: Reply to an Inquiry of the Jewish News Agency in the United States"'' Stalin officially condemned antisemitism: <blockquote>In answer to your inquiry: National and racial chauvinism is a vestige of the misanthropic customs characteristic of the period of [[cannibalism]]. Antisemitism, as an extreme form of racial chauvinism, is the most dangerous vestige of cannibalism. Antisemitism is of advantage to the exploiters as a lightning conductor that deflects the blows aimed by the working people at capitalism. Antisemitism is dangerous for the working people as being a false path that leads them off the right road and lands them in the jungle. Hence Communists, as consistent internationalists, cannot but be irreconcilable, sworn enemies of antisemitism. In the U.S.S.R. antisemitism is punishable with the utmost severity of the law as a phenomenon deeply hostile to the Soviet system. Under U.S.S.R. law active antisemites are liable to the death penalty.<ref>Joseph Stalin. Works, Vol. 13, July 1930-January 1934, Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1955, p. 30</ref></blockquote> In [[1936]] ''Pravda'', the party's newspaper and main propaganda organ, printed a beneficial explanation of the vile nature of antisemitism. It stated that "national and racial chauvinism is a survival of the barbarous practices of the cannibalistic period... it served the exploiters... to protect capitalism from the attack of the working class; antisemitism, a phenomenon profoundly hostile to the Soviet Union, is repressed in the USSR." The [[Molotov-Ribbentrop pact]]&mdash;the 1939 non-aggression pact with [[Nazi Germany]]&mdash;created further suspicion regarding the Soviet Union's position toward Jews. The pact, arguably allowed [[Adolf Hitler]] to freely enter [[Poland]], the nation with the world's largest Jewish population, but it was neither an acceptance of Nazism nor instigated by anti-Jewish objectives. This was a disaster for Eastern Europe's Jews, but that was a side effect rather than a motivation. Many Jews fell victim to the The Great Purges, although there is no evidence that Jews were specifically targeted by Stalin. A number of the most prominent victims of the Purges&mdash;[[Trotsky]], [[Zinoviev]], and [[Kamenev]], to name a few&mdash;were ethnic Jews, but Stalin was just as brutal when acting against his real or imagined enemies who were not Jewish&mdash;e.g., [[Bukharin]], [[Mikhail Tukhachevsky|Tukhachevsky]], [[Sergei Kirov|Kirov]], and [[Sergo Ordzhonikidze|Ordzhonikidze]]. The number of prominent Jewish [[Old Bolshevik]]s killed in the purges reflects the fact that Jews were the largest group in the Central Committee after the Russians and that Jews had a high participation among the Bolsheviks. Some Stalinists survived notwithstanding their Jewish heritage. Stalin did not purge [[Lazar Kaganovich]], a loyal supporter who came to Stalin's attention in the [[1920s]] as a successful bureaucrat in [[Tashkent]] who participated in brutal purges in the [[1930s]]. Kaganovich's loyalty endured even after Stalin's death, when he and Molotov were expelled from the party ranks in 1957 due to their opposition to [[History of the Soviet Union (1953–1985)|destalinization]]. ====On the eve of the Holocaust==== Beyond longstanding controversies, ranging from the [[Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact]] to [[anti-Zionism]], the Soviet Union did grant official "equality of all citizens regardless of status, sex, race, religion, and nationality." The years before [[the Holocaust]] were an era of rapid change for Soviet Jews, leaving behind the dreadful poverty of the Pale of Settlement. Forty percent of the population in the former Pale left for large cities within the USSR. Emphasis on education and movement from countryside ''[[shtetl]]s'' to newly [[History of the Soviet Union (1927-1953)#Industrialization in practice|industrialized cities]] allowed many Soviet Jews to enjoy overall advances under Stalin and to become one of the most educated population groups in the world. Due to Stalinist emphasis on its urban population, interwar migration inadvertently rescued countless Soviet Jews; [[Nazi Germany]] penetrated the entire former Jewish Pale&mdash;but were kilometers short of [[Saint Petersburg|Leningrad]] and [[Moscow]]. The great wave of deportations from the areas annexed by Soviet Union according to the Nazi-Soviet pact, often seen by victims as genocide, paradoxically also saved lives of a few hundred thousand Jewish deportees. However horrible their conditions, the fate of Jews in Nazi Germany was much worse. The migration of many Jews deeper East from the part of the Jewish Pale that would become occupied by Germany saved at least forty percent of this area's Jewish population. ====The Holocaust==== {{main|The Holocaust}} Over two million Soviet Jews died during the Holocaust, second only to the number of Polish Jews who fell victim to Hitler. Even before the mass deportations to the [[death camps]] in 1942, German death squads, the [[Einsatzkommando]]s, shot hundreds of thousands of Jews throughout 1941. Among some of the larger massacres in 1941 were: 33,771 Jews of [[Kiev]] shot in ditches at [[Babi Yar]]; 100,000 Jews and Poles of [[Vilnius]] killed in the forests of [[Paneriai|Ponary]], 20,000 Jews killed in Kharkiv at Drobnitzky Yar, 36,000 Jews machine-gunned in Odessa, 25,000 Jews of [[Riga]] killed in the woods at [[Rumbula]], and 10,000 Jews slaughtered in [[Simferopol]] in the Crimea.{{Fact|date=June 2008}} Though mass shootings continued through 1942, most notably 16,000 Jews shot at Pinsk, Jews were increasingly shipped to concentration camps in Nazi-occupied Poland.{{Fact|date=June 2008}} Local residents of German-occupied areas, especially Ukrainians, Lithuanians, and Latvians, sometimes played key roles in the genocide of other Latvians, Lithuanians, Ukrainians, Slavs, Gypsies, homosexuals and Jews alike. Under the Nazi occupation, some members of the Ukrainian and Latvian police carried out deportations in the [[Warsaw Ghetto]], and Lithuanians marched Jews to their death at Ponary. Even as some assisted the Germans, a significant number of individuals in the territories under German control also helped Jews escape death (''see [[Righteous Among the Nations]]''). In [[Latvia]], particularly, the number of Nazi-collaborators was only slightly more than that of Jewish saviours. <!--Latvijas Avize - Newspaper - 7 November 2006 - Page 5: On a History Textbook--> In total, over 200,000 Jews died in battle fighting in the Red Army against the Nazis.{{Fact|date=June 2008}} ====Soviet reaction to the Holocaust==== [[Image:Soviet Jews participation in WW2.png|right|thumb|1946. The official response to an inquiry by [[Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee|JAC]] about the participation of the Jewish soldiers in the war (1.8% of the total number). Some antisemites attempted to accuse Jews of lack of patriotism and of hiding from military service]] The typical Soviet policy regarding the Holocaust was to present it as [[wiktionary:atrocity|atrocities]] against Soviet citizens, not emphasizing the genocide of the Jews. For example, after the liberation of [[Kiev]] from the Nazi occupation, the ''Extraordinary State Commission'' (Чрезвычайная Государственная Комиссия) was set out to investigate Nazi crimes. The description of the [[Babi Yar]] massacre was officially [[censorship|censored]] as follows:<ref>[http://www.friends-partners.org/partners/beyond-the-pale/eng_captions/60-8.html Draft report by the Commission for Crimes Committed by the Nazis in Kiev from February 1944]. The page 14 shows changes made by G. F. Aleksandrov, head of the [[agitprop|Propaganda and Agitation]] Department, Central Committee of the [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union]]</ref> {| class="wikitable" ! width="50%" | Draft report (December 25, 1943) ! width="50%" | Censored version (February 1944) |- | valign="top" | <blockquote>"The Hitlerist bandits committed mass murder of the Jewish population. They announced that on [[September 29]] [[1941]], all the Jews were required to arrive to the corner of Melnikov and Dokterev streets and bring their documents, money and valuables. The butchers marched them to Babi Yar, took away their belongings, then shot them."</blockquote> | valign="top" | <blockquote>"The Hitlerist bandits brought thousands of civilians to the corner of Melnikov and Dokterev streets. The butchers marched them to Babi Yar, took away their belongings, then shot them."</blockquote> |} : ''See also [[Vasily Grossman]], [[Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee]], [[Black Book]]'' ==== After World War II ==== [[Image:Mikhoels in January 1948.jpg|left|thumb|150px|Solomon Mikhoels]] In January [[1948]] [[Solomon Mikhoels]], a popular actor-director of the [[Moscow State Jewish Theater]] and the chairman of the [[Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee]], was killed in a suspicious car accident.<ref>According to historian [[Gennady Kostyrchenko]], recently opened Soviet archives contain [http://www.mk.ru/numbers/1806/article60646.htm evidence that the assassination was organized by L.M. Tsanava and S. Ogoltsov] of the [[MVD]]</ref> Mass arrests of prominent Jewish intellectuals and suppression of Jewish culture followed under the banners of campaign against "rootless cosmopolitans" and [[anti-Zionism]]. On [[August 12]], [[1952]], in the event known as the [[Night of the Murdered Poets]], thirteen most prominent [[Yiddish]] writers, poets, actors and other intellectuals were executed on the orders of Joseph Stalin, among them [[Peretz Markish]], [[Leib Kvitko]], [[David Hofstein]], [[Itzik Feffer]] and [[David Bergelson]].<ref>[http://www.joshuarubenstein.com/rubenstein/stalinsecret/intro.html Stalin's Secret Pogrom: The Postwar Inquisition of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee] (introduction) by [[Joshua Rubenstein]] </ref> In the 1955 [[United Nations General Assembly|UN Assembly]]'s session a high Soviet official still denied the "rumors" about their disappearance. [[Image:Krokodil-doc-plot-01-1953.jpg|thumb|right|A caricature from the Soviet magazine "Krokodil", January 1953]] The [[Doctors' plot]] allegation in [[1953]] was a deliberately antisemitic policy: Stalin targeted "corrupt Jewish bourgeois nationalists," eschewing the usual code words like "cosmopolitans." Stalin died, however, before this next wave of arrests and executions could be launched in earnest. A number of historians claim that the Doctors' plot was intended as the opening of a campaign that would have resulted in the mass [[deportation]] of Soviet Jews had Stalin not died on [[March 5]], [[1953]]. Days after Stalin's death the plot was declared a [[hoax]] by the Soviet government. These cases may have reflected Stalin's paranoia, rather than state ideology &mdash; a distinction that made no practical difference as long as Stalin was alive, but which became salient on his death. :''See also [[Stalinism and antisemitism]]'' === After Stalin === In April 1956, the [[Warsaw]] [[Yiddish language]] Jewish newspaper ''Folkshtimme'' published sensational long lists of Soviet Jews who had perished before and after the Holocaust. The world press began demanding answers from Soviet leaders, as well as inquire about current condition of Jewish education system and culture. The same fall, a group of leading Jewish world figures publicly requested the heads of Soviet state to clarify the situation. Since no cohesive answer was received, their concern was only heightened. The fate of Soviet Jews emerged as a major [[human rights]] issue in the [[Western world|West]]. ===The Soviet Union and Zionism === {{main|Soviet Union and the Arab-Israeli conflict}} Marxist anti-nationalism and anti-clericalism had a mixed effect on Soviet Jews. Jews were the immediate benefactors, but long-term victims, of the Marxist notion that any manifestation of nationalism is "socially retrogressive." On one hand, Jews were liberated from the religious persecution of the Tsarist years of "autocracy, nationalism, and Orthodoxy." On the other, this notion was threatening to Jewish cultural institutions, the [[General Jewish Labor Union|Bund]], [[Jewish Autonomism|Jewish autonomy]], Judaism and [[Zionism]]. Political Zionism was officially stamped out for the entire history of the [[Soviet Union]] as a form of [[bourgeois nationalism]]. Although Leninism emphasizes "self-determination," this did not make the state more accepting of Zionism. Leninism defines self-determination by territory, not culture, which allowed Soviet minorities to have separate oblasts, autonomous regions, or republics, which were nonetheless symbolic until its later years. Jews, however, did not fit such a theoretical model; Jews in the Diaspora did not even have an agricultural base, as Stalin often asserted when attempting to deny the existence of a Jewish nation, and certainly no territorial unit. Marxian notions even denied a Jewish identity beyond religion and caste; Marx defined Jews as a "chimerical nation." Lenin, claiming to be deeply committed to egalitarian ideals and universality of all humanity, rejected Zionism as a reactionary movement, "bourgeois nationalism", "socially retrogressive", and a backward force that deprecates class divisions among Jews. Moreover, [[Zionism]] entailed contact between Soviet citizens and westerners, which was dangerous in a closed society. Soviet authorities were likewise fearful of any mass-movement independent of [[monopoly|monopolistic]] Communist Party, and not tied to the state or the ideology of [[Marxism-Leninism]]. Without changing its official [[anti-Zionist]] stance, from late [[1944]] until [[1948]] [[Stalin]] had adopted a ''de facto'' pro-Zionist foreign policy, apparently believing that the new country would be [[socialism|socialist]] and would speed the decline of [[United Kingdom|British]] influence in the [[Middle East]].<ref>''A History of the Jews'' by [[Paul Johnson (writer)|Paul Johnson]], London, 1987, p.527</ref> The USSR briefly supported the establishment of Israel in a 1947 speech that was not published in the Soviet media. It came during the [[1947 UN Partition Plan]] debate on [[May 14]] [[1947]], when the Soviet ambassador [[Andrei Gromyko]] announced: :"As we know, the aspirations of a considerable part of the Jewish people are linked with the problem of Palestine and of its future administration. This fact scarcely requires proof... During the last war, the Jewish people underwent exceptional sorrow and suffering... : The United Nations cannot and must not regard this situation with indifference, since this would be incompatible with the high principles proclaimed in its Charter... : The fact that no Western European State has been able to ensure the defence of the elementary rights of the Jewish people and to safeguard it against the violence of the fascist executioners explains the aspirations of the Jews to establish their own State. It would be unjust not to take this into consideration and to deny the right of the Jewish people to realize this aspiration."<ref>[http://www.mideastweb.org/gromyko1947.htm UN Debate Regarding the Special Committee on Palestine: Gromyko Statement. 14 May 1947 77th Plenary Meeting] Document A/2/PV.77</ref> Soviet approval in the [[United Nations Security Council]] was critical to the UN partitioning of the [[British Mandate of Palestine]], which led to the founding of the [[Israel|State of Israel]]. Three days after [[Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel, May 14, 1948|Israel declared independence]], the Soviet Union legally recognized it [[de jure]]. ==== Effects of the Cold War ==== By the end of 1948 the USSR switched sides in the [[Arab-Israeli conflict]] and throughout the course of the [[Cold War]] unequivocally supported various Arab regimes against Israel. The official position of the Soviet Union and its satellite states and agencies was that Zionism was a tool used by the Jews and Americans for "racist imperialism". [[Image:Russian Birth Certificiate of Michael Lucas.JPG|thumb|left|A Soviet birth certificate from 1972 where the nationality is "Jewish"; the practice has been discontinued.]] As [[Israel]] was emerging as a close [[Western world|West]]ern ally, the specter of [[Zionism]] raised fears of internal dissent and opposition. During the later parts of the Cold War Soviet Jews were suspected of being possible traitors, Western sympathisers, or a security liability. The Communist leadership closed down various Jewish organizations and declared Zionism an ideological enemy. Synagogues were often placed under police surveillance, both openly and through the use of informers. {{Fact|date=December 2007}} As a result of the persecution, both state-sponsored and unofficial, antisemitism became deeply ingrained in the society and remained a fact for years: ordinary Soviet Jews often suffered hardships, epitomized by often not being allowed to enlist in universities, work in certain professions, or participate in government. However, it should be mentioned that this was not always the case and this kind of persecution varied depending on the region. Still many Jews felt compelled to hide their identities by changing their names. The word "Jew" was also avoided in the media when criticising undertakings by [[Israel]], which the Soviets often accused of racism, chauvinism etc. Instead of ''Jew'', the word ''Israeli'' was used almost exclusively, so as to paint its harsh criticism not as antisemitism but anti-Zionism. More controversially, the Soviet media, when depicting political events, sometimes used the term '[[fascism]]' to characterise Israeli nationalism (e.g calling Jabotinsky a 'fascist', and claiming 'new fascist organisations were emerging in Israel in 1970s' etc). ''See also [[rootless cosmopolitan]], [[Doctors' plot]], [[Zionology]] and [[Anti-Zionist committee of the Soviet public]]'' ==The collapse of the Soviet Union and emigration to Israel== A mass emigration was politically undesirable for the Soviet regime. As increasing number of Soviet Jews applied to emigrate to Israel in the period following the [[1967]] [[Six Day War]], many were [[Refusenik (Soviet Union)|formally refused permission]] to leave. A typical excuse given by the ''OVIR'' (ОВиР), the [[MVD]] department responsible for provisioning of [[exit visa]]s was that the persons who had been given access at some point in their careers to information vital to Soviet [[national security]] could not be allowed to leave the country. [[Image:19730110 Soviet refuseniks demonstrate at MVD.jpg|thumb|January 10, 1973. A demonstration of [[Jew]]ish [[refusenik (Soviet Union)|refuseniks]] in front of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for the right to emigrate to Israel]] After the [[Dymshits-Kuznetsov hijacking affair]] in [[1970]] and the crackdown that followed, strong international condemnations caused the Soviet authorities to increase the emigration [[quota]]. In the years 1960-1970, only 4,000 people left the USSR; in the following decade, the number rose to 250,000.<ref>''[http://www.memo.ru/history/diss/books/ALEXEEWA/alexeeva_toc.htm History of Dissident Movement in the USSR]'' by [[Ludmila Alekseyeva]]. Vilnius, 1992 (in Russian)</ref> In [[1972]] the USSR imposed the so-called "[[diploma]] tax" on would-be emigrants who received [[higher education]] in the USSR. In some cases, the fee was as high as twenty annual salaries. This measure was apparently designed to combat the [[brain drain]] caused by the growing emigration of Soviet Jews and other members of the [[intelligentsia]] to the West. Following international protests, the [[Moscow Kremlin|Kremlin]] soon revoked the tax, but continued to sporadically impose various limitations. At first almost all of those who managed to get exit visas to Israel actually made [[aliyah]], but after the mid-1970s, many of those allowed to leave for Israel actually chose other destinations, most notably the United States. In [[1989]] a record 71,000 Soviet Jews were granted exodus from the USSR, of whom only 12,117 immigrated to Israel. Since the adoption of the [[Jackson-Vanik amendment]], over one million Soviet Jews have immigrated to Israel. ''See also [[Aliyah#Russian Aliyah|Russian aliyah in Israel]].'' ==Jews in Russia today== ===Jewish life=== [[Image:Russian Jew.jpg|thumb|240px|A prayer in a Moscow synagogue]] <!--To be added: Jewish institutions, Jewish organizations, etc.--> Most Russian Jews are secular and identify themselves as Jews via ethnicity rather than religion, similar to secular Jews in America and other Western countries, although interest about Jewish identity as well as practice of Jewish tradition amongst Russian Jews is growing. [[Lubavitch]] has been a catalyst in this sector, setting up synagogues and Jewish kindergartens in Russian cities with Jewish populations. In addition, most Russian Jews have relatives in Israel. Since the [[dissolution of the USSR]], democratization in the former USSR has brought with it a good deal of tragic irony for the country's minorities, especially the Jewish population. The absence of Soviet-era repression exposed the remaining Jews to a resurgence of antisemitism in the former Soviet Union. However, there has not been a return to mass antisemitic incidents in Russia or anywhere else throughout the former Soviet Union. Russian Jews are well represented in the fields of medicine, law, science and education. [[Henri Reznik]], the head of Moscow Bar Association, as well as three out of five wealthiest [[oligarchs]] in Russia, are Jewish: [[Roman Abramovich]] tops the list, [[Mikhail Fridman]] is in the third position and [[Viktor Vekselberg]] in fifth. [[Mikhail Khodorkovsky]], a former oil tycoon and outspoken critic of president [[Vladimir Putin]] who has been jailed on tax evasion charges, is also Jewish. Exiled oligarchs [[Boris Berezovsky]], fugutive [[Leonid Nevzlin]] and [[Vladimir Gusinsky]] are likewise Jewish. [[Image:Medvedev Lazar.jpg|thumb|300px|[[President of Russia|President]] [[Dmitri Medvedev]] and Rabbi [[Berel Lazar]]]] There are several major Jewish organizations in the territories of the former USSR. The central Jewish organization is the [[Federation of Jewish Communities of the CIS]] under the leadership of Chief Rabbi [[Berel Lazar]]. Perhaps stemming from the now obsolete Soviet nationality policy, a linguistic distinction remains to this day in the Russian language where there are two terms for "Jew". The word Еврей ("Yevrey" - Hebrew) typically denotes a Jewish ethnicity, while the world Иудей ("Iudey" - Judean) is reserved for denoting a follower of the Jewish religion, although the latter term has mostly fallen out of use. ===Post-Soviet countries and antisemitism=== ====Russia==== {{Mergefrom|Jews in Russia|date=May 2008}} [[Image:protestinrussia.jpg|thumb|240px|A demonstration in Russia. The antisemitic slogans cite [[Henry Ford]] and [[Elizabeth of Russia|Empress Elizabeth]]]] Despite stipulations against fomenting hatred based on ethnic or religious grounds (Article 282 of [[Russia|Russian Federation]] [[Penal Code]]),<ref>[http://www.unhchr.ch/tbs/doc.nsf/0/9c2a2d5b40020ece80256587005964ca?OpenDocument International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. Russian Federation. 28/07/97. CERD/C/299/Add.15]</ref> antisemitic pronouncements, speeches and articles are not uncommon in Russia, and there are a large number of antisemitic neo-Nazi groups in the republics of the former Soviet Union, leading ''[[Pravda]]'' to declare in 2002 that "Anti-Semitism is booming in Russia".<ref>[http://english.pravda.ru/main/2002/07/30/33489.html Explosion of anti-Semitism in Russia] ''Pravda'', 2002-07-30, retrieved 17 Oct 2005.</ref> Over the past few years there have also been bombs attached to antisemitic signs, apparently aimed at Jews, and other violent incidents, including stabbings, have been recorded. The government of [[Vladimir Putin]] takes an official stand against antisemitism, while some movements parties and groups are explicitly antisemitic. In January 2005, a group of 15 [[State Duma|Duma]] members demanded that Judaism and Jewish organizations be banned from Russia.<ref>[http://www.fsumonitor.com/stories/012805Bigotry.shtml Deputies Urge Ban on Jewish Organizations, Then Retract] - Bigotry Monitor. Volume 5, Number 4. January 28, 2005. Published by UCSJ. Editor: Charles Fenyvesi</ref> In June, 500 prominent Russians, including some 20 members of the nationalist [[Rodina]] party, demanded that the state prosecutor investigate ancient Jewish texts as "anti-Russian" and ban Judaism. An investigation was in fact launched, but halted after an international outcry.<ref>[http://www.fsumonitor.com/stories/061705BM.shtml Prosecutor Drops Charges of Antisemitism Against Duma Deputies] - Bigotry Monitor. Volume 5, Number 24. June 17, 2005. Published by UCSJ. Editor: Charles Fenyvesi</ref><ref>[http://www.fsumonitor.com/stories/070105Bigotry.shtml Russia to Drop Probe of Jewish Law Code Accused of Stoking Ethnic Hatred] - Bigotry Monitor. Volume 5, Number 26. July 1, 2005. Published by UCSJ. Editor: Charles Fenyvesi</ref> In Russia, both historical and contemporary antisemitic materials are frequently published. For example a set (called ''Library of a Russian Patriot'') consisting of twenty five antisemitic titles was recently published, including ''[[Mein Kampf]]'' translated to Russian (2002), ''The Myth of Holocaust'' by [[Jürgen Graf]], a title by [[Douglas Reed]], ''[[Protocols of the Elders of Zion]]'', and others. Antisemitic incidents have ranged from random acts of violence against Jews to the detonation of explosives in Jewish communities, to high-profile cases such as the stabbing of eight Russian Jews in a Moscow synagogue on January 11, 2006 by a man with [[neo-Nazi]] ties. ''See also: [[Pamyat]], [[Neo-Nazism#Russia|Neo-Nazism in Russia]].'' The [[Jewish Autonomous Oblast]] continues to be an [[autonomous oblast]] of the Russian state. [http://www.jewishaz.com/jewishnews/041008/revival.shtml] The [[Chief Rabbi]] of [[Birobidzhan]], [[Mordechai Scheiner]], says there are 4,000 Jews in the capital city. [http://www.fjc.ru/news/newsArticle.asp?AID=525676&cid=84435&NewsType=80052] [[Governor]] [[Nikolay Mikhaylovich Volkov]] has stated that he intends to, "support every valuable initiative maintained by our local Jewish organizations." [http://www.fjc.ru/news/newsArticle.asp?AID=221939] The [[Birobidzhan Synagogue]] opened in [[2004]] on the 70th anniversary of the regions founding in [[1934]]. [http://www.fjc.ru/news/newsArticle.asp?AID=166969] == Assimilation trends == {{Peacock|date=May 2008}} In the Tsarist Russia, [[cultural assimilation|assimilation]], [[russification]] and [[religious conversion|conversion]] to the state religion of [[Russian Orthodox Church|Orthodox Christianity]] were official policies. After coming to power and dealing severe blows to all religions, the Bolsheviks undertook efforts to form a new nation of the [[Soviet people]] (Советский народ). The Russian Empire and later the Soviet Union, one of the world's most ethnically diverse nations, with hundreds of distinct nationalities, was also home to a Jewish population of about two million before its disintegration in 1991, making Jews the eleventh largest Soviet nationality (the USSR classified Jews as a nationality). Despite such diversity, Jews were a unique minority in the ideological state. Before and after the [[Bolshevik Revolution]] many of the Russian, [[Ukraine|Ukrainian]], [[Belarus]]ian, and [[Baltic region|Baltic]] Jews embraced secular education and culture, thereby becoming a minority that had adapted the Russian language and culture. Jews, in that sense, were not "foreigners" within Soviet Russia but instead a distinct, cohesive group bounded by a common value system, Yiddish language, exclusive cultural institutions, synagogues, and Zionist nationalism, despite the absence of a territorial unit or a single locale. This existence is thus alien to [[Marxism-Leninism]] as espoused by the Soviet state, which viewed Jewish cohesiveness as resulting from class struggle, binding proletariat Jews to Jews in oppressor classes. Marxist egalitarianism and universality suggested that it would be ideal to see the assimilation of Jews and the renunciation of [[Judaism]], in a sense contradicting the elements that allowed Jews to be distinct members of society. All Soviet ethnic groups, such as [[Russians]], [[Ukrainians]], [[Uzbeks]], [[Tatars]], were encouraged to look at class over nationality, but did not face assimilation and cultural annihilation because of their individual locales and common languages. While Jews had been bound together in the past by Yiddish, most by the end of the Stalinist era had already adapted the Russian language and culture, and tended to live alongside Slavic gentiles. Certain Marxists predicted such a sociological trend, but miscalculated the extent to which this trend would erode the cohesiveness of the Jewish community. [[Karl Marx]] and some later Marxists assumed that the Jewish identity would cease to exist after the demise of capitalism since man can only be free when he transcended the confines of individuality and locality and recognized a shared humanity, "a universal existence", free of antagonism and divisiveness, which, he believed, only existed due to class struggle. Although the Jewish community went from being one of the most isolated in Europe to one of its most assimilated from the time of the Bolshevik Revolution to the 1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union, the identity has not faded away. Law throughout Soviet history, however, listed Jews as one of the Union's "basic nations", with their own language ([[Yiddish]]), and their own [[Jewish Autonomous Oblast|autonomous region]], a failed, inhospitable settlement in the [[Russian Far East]] that was nonetheless symbolic. The word "Еврей" (Yevrei, "Jew") was also listed in the "национальность" ("nationality") section (the infamous "Пятая графа" (pyataya grafa, "the fifth record") of the obligatory [[internal passport]] document, which stated the ethnic or national background of all Soviet citizens. Such treatment of Jews as a nationality is somewhat alien to Jewish law, but reminiscent of Zionism. In May [[1976]], the Soviet journal ''Party Life'' prominently displayed Jews as a distinct "nationality." While Soviet socialism clearly did not destroy the Jewish identity, it nevertheless weakened a degree of cultural cohesiveness. Hebrew and Yiddish languages, [[Jewish theater]]s, Jewish schools, religion and Zionism bounded the Soviet Jewish population together despite the absence of a common locale; but these were the very elements restricted by a Soviet Union promoting secularism among all its citizens. The closings of synagogues and other important Jewish cultural institutions, such as theaters, schools and periodicals, were conducted under this ideological context of egalitarianism. While threatening to Judaism and the Jewish culture, the regime enforced the same policies on other religions, leading to the development of a modern, secular state. However, after the end of the [[Second World War]], the restrictions against Christians and Muslims were gradually reduced, while the persecution of Judaism remained in force. The rise of Jewish secularism thus paralleled social trends among Soviet non-Jews, but had threatening overtones to Jewish existence. Soviet secularism, the discouragement of Yiddish, and the restriction of other elements that forged an exclusive, Jewish identity, caused [[cultural assimilation|assimilation]] to be a foreboding threat to Jewish existence. Soviet rule can be characterized by a rise in intermarriages and abandonment of Jewish identities by those who were eager to prove their loyalty to the Communist Party's [[atheism]] and [[proletarian internationalism]], and committed to stamp out any sign of "Jewish cultural particularism", such as [[Leon Trotsky]], [[Maxim Litvinov]] or [[Lazar Kaganovich]]. Assimilated Jews significantly contributed to Russian and Soviet multi-ethnic culture, science and technology. It is hard to imagine [[Russian art]] without [[Isaac Levitan]] and [[Léon Bakst]]; [[Russian literature]]&mdash;[[Isaac Babel]], [[Osip Mandelstam]] and [[Boris Pasternak]]; [[Russian ballet]]&mdash;[[Ida Rubinstein]] and [[Maya Plisetskaya]]; [[Cinema of the Soviet Union|Soviet cinematography]]&mdash; [[Dziga Vertov]], [[Mikhail Romm]], [[Grigori Chukhrai]]; Russian and Soviet music&mdash;[[Anton Rubinstein]] and [[Isaak Dunayevsky]]; comedy&mdash;[[Faina Ranevskaya]], [[Arkady Raikin]] and [[Mikhail Zhvanetsky]]; science&mdash;[[Lev Landau]], [[Abram Ioffe]] and [[Yakov Zel'dovich]]; [[Military history of the Soviet Union|defense industry]]&mdash;[[Boris Vannikov]], [[Mikhail Gurevich]] (of [[MiG]]) and [[Semyon Lavochkin]]. ==Demographic data== {{Refimprove|date=August 2007}} The official census data on Jewish population of Imperial Russia and the Soviet Union.<ref><cite>Implemented Myth</cite> (Russian ed.: ''Воплощённый миф'') 2003, p. 46) by Dr. [[Alexander Militaryov]], director of [[Moscow Jewish University]] ISBN 5-8062-0068-X</ref> The number of Jews has fallen from about 2.15 million in [[1970]] (the third largest population in the world, after the USA and Israel) to 1.45 million in 1989 (less than 600,000 in Russia itself) and to some 250,000 in Russia, according to the 2002 census.{{Fact|date=June 2008}} The decline is mostly due to emigration to [[Israel]], but close to one million Jews living on former Soviet territory other than Russia do not appear in the most recent census. {| class="wikitable" align="center" ! Year ! Jewish population, millions ! Note |- | 1914 || More than 5.25 || Russian Empire |- | 1939 || 3 || A result of border change, emigration, assimilation and repressions |- | Early 1941 || 5.4 || A result of the annexation of Western Ukraine and Belarus, Baltic republics, and inflow of Jewish refugees from Poland |- | 1959 || 2.26 || See the [[Shoah]] ([[Holocaust]]) |- | 1970 || 2.15 || &nbsp; |- | 1979 || 1.81 || &nbsp; |- | 1989 || 1.45 || &nbsp; |- | End of 1993 || Less than 0.4 || A result of mass emigration and assimilation. Militaryov calls this number "especially funny". By his estimate, the real number should be 2-3 million. See also [http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/Judaism/jewpop.html Jewish Virtual Library] |} The Jewish population in the [[Jewish Autonomous Oblast]] of the [[Russian Far East]] as of 2002 is 2,327 (1.22%). The [[Bukharan Jews]], self-designating as ''Yahudi'', ''Isroel'' or ''Banei Isroel'', live mainly in [[Uzbekistan|Uzbek]] cities. The number of Central Asian Jews was around 20,800 in 1959. Before mass emigration, they spoke a dialect of the [[Tajik language]]. [http://www.eki.ee/books/redbook/asian_jews.shtml] The [[Georgian Jews]] numbered about 35,700 in [[1964]], most of them living in [[Georgia (country)|Georgia]]. [http://www.eki.ee/books/redbook/georgian_jews.shtml] The Caucasian [[Mountain Jews]], also known as [[Tats]] or Dagchufuts, live mostly in [[Dagestan]], with a scattered population in [[Azerbaijan]]. In 1959, they numbered around 15,000 in Dagestan and 10,000 in Azerbaijan. Their [[Tat language]] is a dialect of [[Persian language|Persian]]. [http://www.eki.ee/books/redbook/mountain_jews.shtml] The Crimean Jews, self-designating as [[Krymchak]]s, traditionally lived in the [[Crimea]], numbering around 5,700 in 1897. Due to a famine, a number emigrated to Turkey and the USA in the 1920. The remaining population was virtually annihilated in the [[Holocaust]] during the Nazi occupation of the Crimea, but Krymchaks re-settled the Crimea after the war, and in 1959, between 1,000 and 1,800 had returned. [http://www.eki.ee/books/redbook/crimean_jews.shtml] ==Russian Jewish Diaspora== ====Israel==== {| class="sortable wikitable" style="float" align="left" |- ! Year ! TFR |- |2000 |1.544 |- |1999 |1.612 |- |1998 |1.632 |- |1997 |1.723 |- |1996 |1.743 |- |1995 |1.731 |- |1994 |1.756 |- |1993 |1.707 |- |1992 |1.604 |- |1991 |1.398 |- |1990 |1.390 |- |} The largest number of Russian Jews now live in Israel, not in Russia. Israel is home to a core Russian-Jewish population of 825,000 and an enlarged population of 1,150,000 (including halachically non-Jewish members of Jewish households, but excluding 70,000 of them who reside in Israel illegally).{{Fact|date=June 2008}} The Aliyah in 1990s accounts for 85-90% of this population. The population growth rate for FSU immigrants were among the lowest for any Israeli groups, with a Fertility rate of 1.70 and natural increase of just +0.5% per year.<ref>[http://www.demographic-research.org/volumes/vol10/4/10-4.pdf Fertility behaviour of recent immigrants to Israel: A comparative analysis of immigrants from Ethiopia and the former Soviet Union<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref> The increase in Jewish birth rate in Israel during the 2000-2007 period was partly due to the increasing birth rate among the FSU immigrants, who now form 20% of the Jewish population of Israel.<ref>http://wsupress.wayne.edu/judaica/folklore/fialkovaesi/fialkovaINT.pdf</ref><ref>http://www.jafi.org.il/education/100/concepts/demography/Tolts_Article1.pdf</ref> 96.5% of the enlarged Russian Jewish population in Israel is either Jewish or non-religious, while 3.5% (35,000) belongs to other religions (mostly Christians) and about 10,000 messianic Jews.<ref>[http://www.cbs.gov.il/yarhon/c1_e.htm Monthly Bulletin of Statistics<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref> The Total Fertility Rate for FSU immigrants in Israel is given in the table below. The TFR increased with time, peaking in 1997, then slightly decreased after that and then again increased after 2000.<ref>[http://www.demographic-research.org/volumes/vol10/4/10-4.pdf Fertility behaviour of recent immigrants to Israel: A comparative analysis of immigrants from Ethiopia and the former Soviet Union<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref> As of 1999, about 1,037,000 FSU immigrants lived in Israel, of whom about 738,900 immigrated after 1989.<ref>http://www.middle-east-info.org/league/israel/israelpopulation.pdf</ref><ref>http://www1.cbs.gov.il/www/population/ussrp/tab01.pdf</ref> The second largest ethnic group (Moroccans) numbered just 501,000. In 2000-2006 period 142,638 FSU immigrants moved to Israel. While 70,000 of them emigrated from Israel to countries like USA and Canada, bringing the total population to 1,150,000 by 2007 January (Excluding illegals).<ref>[http://www.cbs.gov.il/archive/200701/yarhon/e4_e.htm Monthly Bulletin of Statistics<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref> The natural increase was around 0.3% in late 90s. For example 2,456 in 1996 (7,463 births to 5,007 deaths), 2,819 in 1997 (8,214 to 5,395), 2,959 in 1998 (8,926 to 5,967) and 2,970 in 1999 (9,282 to 6,312). In 1999, the natural growth was +0.385%. (Figures only for FSU immigrants moved in after 1989).<ref>[http://www1.cbs.gov.il/www/population/ussrp_e.htm Mmigrant Population From The Former Ussr<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref> Notable recent immigrants from FSU include [[Lev Leviev]], [[Avigdor Lieberman]], [[Roman Dzindzichashvili]], [[Akiva Megrelashvili]], [[Haim Megrelashvili]], [[Victor Mikhalevski]], [[Evgeny Postny]], [[Maxim Rodshtein]], [[Tatiana Zatulovskaya]], [[Maria Gorokhovskaya]], [[Katia Pisetsky]], [[Aleksandr Averbukh]], [[Jan Talesnikov]], [[Vadim Alexeev]], [[Michael Kolganov]], [[Alexander Danilov]], [[Evgenia Linetskaya]], [[Marina Kravchenko]], [[David Kazhdan]], [[Leonid Nevzlin]], [[Vadim Akolzin]], [[Roman Bronfman]], [[Michael Cherney]], [[Arcadi Gaydamak]], [[Sergei Sakhnovski]], [[Natan Sharansky]], [[Roman Zaretski]], [[Alexandra Zaretski]], [[Larisa Trembovler]] and [[Boris Tsirelson]]. ====USA==== The second largest population is in USA. According to RINA, there is a core Russian-Jewish population of 350,000 in USA. The enlarged Russian Jewish population in USA is estimated to be 700,000. [http://www.ajcrussian.org/atf/cf/%7B66BD09D8-5251-4553-8C19-5FC7BEAF0E76%7D/russian_jews_in_america.pdf]. Most noticeable FSU Jews in USA are [[Dmitry Salita]], [[Sergey Brin]], [[Alexei Alexeyevich Abrikosov]], [[Regina Spektor]], [[Anthony Fedorov]] and [[Gregory Kaidanov]]. Bukharan Jews alone number close to 50,000 in USA, mostly in Queens and Phoenix. [http://www.jewishaz.com/jewishnews/050304/bucharian.shtml] ====FSU==== The number of Russian Jews remaining in [[FSU]] is dwindling. The number of core Russian-Jews was estimated at 435,000 in 2002 and the enlarged Jewish population estimated at 800,000. (At 1.9 ratio given in JAFI) [http://www.jafi.org.il/education/100/concepts/demography/demjpop.html]. The core Russian Jewish population for FSU was estimated at 366,000 in 2006. The enlarged Russian Jewish population stands at 700,000. [http://www.sras.org/news2.phtml?m=779] ====Germany==== The fourth largest Russian-Jewish community exists in Germany with a core Russian-Jewish population of 110,000 and an enlarged population of 200,000.<ref>Sergio DellaPergola, [http://www.jafi.org.il/education/100/concepts/demography/demjpop.html "World Jewish Population 2002"], American Jewish Year Book, 102, New York, 2002</ref><ref>[http://www.zentralratdjuden.de Central Council of Jews in Germany]</ref><ref>[http://www.berlin-judentum.de/englisch/immigration.htm Foreigners in Wonderland: Jewish immigration from the former Soviet Union] by Judith Kessler</ref> In 1991-2006 period, approximately 230,000 ethnic Jews from FSU immigrated to Germany. In the beginning of 2006, Germany tightened the immigration program. A survey conducted among the approximately 215,000 enlarged Russian Jewish population (taking natural decrease into consideration) indicated that about 81% of the enlarged population was Jewish or Atheist by religion, while about 18.5% identified as Christians. That gives a core Russian Jewish population of 111,800 (religion Jewish, 52%) or 174,150 (religion Jewish or Atheist).<ref>{{ru icon}} [http://demoscope.ru/weekly/2007/0303/analit06.php В Германии началась депопуляция еврейских общин] (In Germany, Depopulation of Jewish Community Has Begun) by [[Pavel Polian]]. Demoscope</ref><ref>{{ru icon}} [http://demoscope.ru/weekly/2007/0303/analit07.php Новое о еврейских иммигрантах из б. СССР в Германию. Результаты государственного обследования] (''New About Jewish Immigrants from FSU to Germany.'') by Pavel Polyan. Demoscope</ref> Notable Russian Jews in Germany include [[Valery Belenky]], [[Lev Kopelev]]. ====Canada==== The fifth largest Russian Jewish community is in Canada. The core Russian Jewish population in Canada numbers 30,000 and the enlarged Russian Jewish population numbered 50,000+, mostly in Montreal and Toronto. [http://jewishtoronto.org/getfile.asp?id=13787] Notable Russian Jewish residents includes [[Mark Berger (judoka)|Mark Berger]]. ====Australia==== Small number of FSU Jews exist in Australia (Core population of 10,000 constituting 33% of all Russian born and 25% of all Ukranian born citizens in 1996 Census. Enlarged population around 20,000) [http://www.abs.gov.au]. Some Jewish organizations claim that there are up to 50,000 Russian Jews in Australia. ====Finland==== Hundreds of Russian Jews have moved to Finland since 1990 and have helped to stem the negative population growth of the Jewish community there. [http://www.jewishtoronto.net/page.html?ArticleID=142181] The total number of Jews in Finland have grown from 800 in 1980 to 1,200 in 2006. Of all the schoolgoing Jewish children, 75% have at least one Russian born parent. ====Other Countries==== The Netherlands, England, Finland, Belgium, New Zealand, Italy, Austria and Switzerland. The addition of Russian Jews have neutrilized the negative Jewish natural increase in some European countries like The Netherlands and Austria. There are a considerable number of Russian Jews living in England, most noticeable ones being [[Roman Abramovich]], [[Boris Berezovsky]] and [[Selig Brodetsky]]. Notable ones in France include [[Anatoly Vaisser]], [[Leon Poliakov]] and [[Lev Shestov]]. Some other important Russian Jews are [[Gennadi Sosonko]] (Netherlands), [[Anna Smashnova]] (Italy), [[Viktor Korchnoi]] (Switzerland) and [[Maya Plisetskaya]] (Spain). == See also == *[[History of the Jews in Ukraine]] *[[History of the Jews in Belarus]] * [[Jewish history]] and [[Jewish diaspora]] ** [[Timeline of Jewish History]] ** [[History of the Jews in Poland]] ** [[History of the Jews in Carpathian Ruthenia]] ** [[History of the Jews in Bessarabia]] ** [[Ashkenazi Jews]] - [[Lithuanian Jews]] - [[Galician Jews]] - [[Georgian Jews]] - [[Bukharan Jews]] - [[Mountain Jews]] ** [[History of antisemitism]] ** [[Sect of Skhariya the Jew]] ** [[Jews and Judaism in the Jewish Autonomous Oblast]] ** [[Jewish Cossacks]] * Regional history ** [[History of the Soviet Union]] ** [[History of Russia]] *[[List of Jews from Russia, Ukraine and Belarus]] ==References== {{reflist|2}} ==External links== *[http://www.shtetlinks.jewishgen.org/Colonies_of_Ukraine Jewish Agricultural Colonization in the Ukraine] {{History of the Jews in Europe}} [[Category:Jewish Russian and Soviet history| ]] [[de:Geschichte der Juden in Russland]] [[es:Historia de los judíos en Rusia y la Unión Soviética]] [[he:יהדות רוסיה]] [[ru:Русскоязычные евреи]]