FSU (Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, etc.) - Anti-Semitic Attacks in 2008

This page is part of a section on "2008 List of Anti-Semitic Attacks" maintained by PaulaSays. This is only a partial list. If you know of an attack not reported on these pages, please send a note to attacks@paulsays.com.

General

• Many Russian textbooks may be anti-Semitic, a study has found. A joint study by the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Russian Jewish Congress found that many school history textbooks completely avoid the subject of the Holocaust, despite the fact that the Nazis and their collaborators killed millions of Soviet Jews. Pogroms during the Russian Civil War were not mentioned in most textbooks. One textbook reportedly dramtically undercounted the number of Jews in the Russian empire in the 19th century, using the figure 175,000. The researchers were unable to find a single textbook that adequately assesses the role of Jews in Russian history, and they plan to ask the Ministry of Education to review their recommendations, according to the Russian Jewish Web site Jewish .ru

Belarus

• February: Arsonists set fire to the Holocaust memorial in Brest, Belarus, according to the Russian Jewish website Jewish.ru. The memorial was erected in memory of 34,000 Jews who were murdered by the Nazis in Brest.  Police are investigating, but local Jewish leaders are skeptical that they will find or arrest the anti-Semites who started the fire. Jewish community spokesman Boris Brul said there have been no arrests in previous year despite numerous anti-Semitic incidents.
• April: Vandals painted swastikas and graffiti on a Holocaust memorial site to mark the anniversary of Adolf Hitler's birth. The site, in the town of Slutsk, south of the capital, Minsk, is being cleaned by city services. The memorial marks the site where the Nazis shot and burned to death 3,000 Jews in 1941.
• June: Anti-Semitic graffiti were sprayed on a synagogue and Jewish Community Center building in the town of Borisov, about 75 km. south of the capital, Minsk. The slogan sprayed on the walls read “Out with the Jews”.

Latvia

• In April, despite a law banning the incitement of ethnic hatred, antisemitic literature is openly sold in a Riga, Latvia bookstore. "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" and several other antisemitic works by Russian authors is available for purchase at the Pa Rokai bookstore on Krasta Street.

Lithuania

• In May, vandals desecrated a Holocaust memorial in Lithuania, according to UCSJ's Baltic Bureau. Someone set a memorial monument on fire at the site where Nazis murdered 1,446 Jews from surrounding towns in the Varnikai forest. It is not clear if police are investigating the incident.

Russia

• Ulyanovsk – In January: A local Jewish community center was the site of an anti-Semitic protest allegedly organized by the Russian All-Nation Union. A group of about 10 young people demonstrated outside the center, shouting anti-Semitic slogans and painting swastikas on a wall. Some of the demonstrators forced their way into the building. Police arrested four demonstrators.
• Nizhny Novgorod— In January: Three men vandalized a local synagogue, tearing the tablecloths and throwing religious books out of a window. Local police have arrested the perpetrators.
• In March, vandals threw stones at the windows of the synagogue in Tomsk. The windows were smashed.
• In April, Anti-Semitic graffiti was found on of Tambov’s streets. The inscriptions included ‘Russia for Russians,” “Skin forever” and “Death to the Jews.” A member of the Jewish community went to the local police, asking to open an investigation for ethnic hatred instigation. The local police the consented and even made sure that the inscriptions be removed an hour after the incident was reported
• In April, swastikas and death threats was painted on the walls of the synagogue in Orenburg.
• In April, at a rally of around 400 far-right nationalists, speakers called for the murder of various government officials, praised terrorist methods, and demonized Jews, all while police looked passively on. The rally took place on Triumph Square in Moscow. Around 400 members of the National Great Power Party of Russia, the Union of Orthodox Standard Bearers, and the neo-Nazi Slavic Union (“SS” in its Russian abbreviation) held signs condemning “Jewish fascism” and the “Jewish mafia” and calling on Slavic women to “guard the purity of your race.”
• In April, someone painted a swastika and other antisemitic graffiti on the door of a synagogue in Vladivostok, Russia. Police are investigating the incident and are focusing on local extremist groups.
• In June, two young men attacked a Jew in Volzhsky. Oleg Polonksy, age 40, went to the cafe to eat dinner, but when he placed his keys on the table, the two men sitting nearby noticed that he had a Star of David key chain. They approached him and asked, "Are you a Jew?" to which he answered in the affirmative and was savagely beaten. Mr. Polonsky is currently in the hospital recovering from his injuries.
• In June, a professor at a Tyumen, Russia University asserted her belief in the medieval accusation that Jews ritually murder Christian children and use their blood to bake matzo. Worse, Professor Svetlana Shestakovaya's lecture was part of the state sponsored educational program "Fundamentals of Orthodox Culture" which has been introduced in Russian schools in several regions, at times as part of the compulsory curriculum. Shestakovaya, an assistant professor of sociology at Tyumen State Oil-Gas University, gave a series of lectures on the topic of "Sectarian Studies" in a course geared for future teachers of the "Fundamentals" curriculum. She reportedly defined matzo as: "A Jewish Eucharist that uses a small quantity of blood of [Christian] Orthodox people whom they [the Jews] martyred... They use a special method for killing an Orthodox child or a saint, such as when the Tsar's family was killed... they were bled because a live person needs to be stabbed before he is dead, and while he dies, the blood comes out... That's why sometimes children go missing, it's the Jews...."
• In June, someone painted anti-Semitic graffiti on the walls of a synagogue in Dzherzhinsk, Russia (Nizhny Novgorod region) before trying to burn it down. The synagogue is located in a residential building on Gastello Street. On Sunday night, someone threw a Molotov cocktail at the building's window. Luckily, the bottle did not break the glass and the fire was confined to the outside of the building. No injuries were reported. Police are investigating the incident.
• In July, Hundreds of monarchists turned out in central Moscow to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the slaying of Russia's last tsar Nicholas II and his family by Bolsheviks. Elderly women in headscarves sold far-right nationalist literature nearby including "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion," an anti-Semitic pamphlet, and books titled "Why We Hate the Jewish Mafia" and "Xenophobia or Self-Defence."
• In July, vandals painted swastikas and Stars of David on 15 gravestones in Nizhny Novgorod cemetery. The vandals knocked over 10 gravestones and smashed an additional five.
• In July, someone painted a swastika on the door of the Jewish community's leader apartment in Ivanovo.
• In July, vandals daubed swastikas on a wall facing the Jewish community center in the nearby town of Kineshma. Swastikas left by a previous act of vandalism had just been painted over the day before.
• In August, vandals struck two Jewish cemeteries in Makhachkala, Russia (Republic of Dagestan), damaging more than 80 gravestones over the course of two nights, according to an August 13, 2008 report by the AEN news agency. Jewish community members discovered the vandalism on August 11. The head of the local Jewish community, Shimi Dibiyaev, said that because of inadequate funding, local Jews have been unable to build a more secure fence around the cemeteries to prevent such incidents. "I will do everything I can to ensure that these criminals are not just caught, but punished," Mr. Dibiyaev said. "That last time [this happened] the vandals were caught, but for some reason, they were released afterwards."
• In August, Jewish graves were once again vandalized in the Krasnaya Etna cemetery of Nizhny Novgorod, Russia, according to an August 15, 2008 report by the Privolzhe Novoe Telegrafnoe Agenstvo. Police detained two suspects, aged 11 and 13, a day after cemetery management discovered that 21 gravestones had been vandalized. Police are determining whether to bring charges against the youths. The Krasnaya Etna cemetery was vandalized multiple times over the course of May and June; police detained a separate suspect in June.
• In November, a man attacked the head rabbi of Vladivostok, Yisroel Silberstein, while the latter was walking through the center of town. The man struck the rabbi on the head, knocking him unconscious. When he regained consciousness he stumbled home and called rescue services. Doctors diagnosed him with a concussion, and the police launched an investigation. In response Silverstein said, "The attack could have ended much worse."

Slovakia

• Komarno – In January: A swastika and the number “88,” a neo-Nazi symbol that stands for “Heil Hitler,” were spray-painted on a local synagogue two days before the town was to celebrate International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Tajikistan

• Tajikistan has knocked down its only synagogue to make way for a new presidential palace, casting the Jewish community into despair, community members said in June. The 19th century building is due to be replaced by a park adjoining the new palace for President Imomali Rakhmon, who has ruled the impoverished, mainly Muslim nation since 1992. Community leaders said the weekend demolition of their synagogue - a wooden, one-story house adorned with stars of David - put their 350-strong community under threat. Rabbi Mikhail Abdurakhmanov said after the building was bulldozed, "At the moment the existence of Tajikistan's only Jewish community is under threat. It's also a threat to elderly people who came here for help". The mayor's office of the capital Dushanbe declined to comment but the government has previously promised to allocate a new plot of land for the synagogue. Abdurakhmanov said he had yet to hear from the city authorities about its fate. The building technically belonged to the state because Soviet officials nationaliZed it in 1951 while allowing Jews to continue to worship there. Before its demolition, the synagogue ran a daily canteen for the poor and allocated humanitarian aid to its mainly elderly community members with an average monthly income of about $20.
  

Ukraine

• January: In Dnepropetrovsk, four men attacked one of eastern Ukraine city's Chabad-Lubavitch rabbis. Rabbi Dovber Baitman was walking home from synagogue Thursday night when he noticed the men following him. They stayed with him for about four blocks, even passing a mall where video cameras captured their images, said the rabbi. They waited to attack until Baitman, an educator at the Shiurey Torah Jewish educational center, entered his yard. "They started beating me, and when I hit them back, one man fell down and one of them pulled out a knife," said Baitman, who added that the attackers shouted anti-Semitic slurs during the melee. "I screamed, and they ran away."
• March: The tomb of chassidic master Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berdichev was vandalized with swastikas and Nazi slogans Monday. The walls of the building atop the rabbi’s tomb were spray-painted with nationalist Ukranian slogans in addition to swastikas and anti-Jewish messages. Local Jews say the tomb itself was also attacked, and its windows smashed last Saturday, according to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Though Ukrainian police are investigating, no arrests have been made.
• March: Several graves at the Jewish cemetery in the Ukranian village of Berdichev were vandalized (same time period as above). 
• March: Swastikas and Nazi slogans were spray-painted on the walls of a small mausoleum of Rabbi Levi Itzhak at the Jewish cemetery in Berdichev. The vandals also spray-painted the Ukrainian nationalistic slogan.
• March: A meeting of Ukrainian Cossacks featured antisemitic speeches. Hetman (a Cossack honorific) Nikolai Pantelyuk reportedly announced that "we have a state, but it is not Ukrainian" and then listed Russian and Jewish oligarchs and other examples of "the non-state forming ethnic groups" that Ukrainians should ignore as they go forward building their state. Taras Chukhlib, a historian, went even further in his speech, condemning "the dominance of enemies of Ukraine, the betrayers of Christ in the government, business and culture who destroy both the state and the nation."
• April: The gravesite of Rabbi Aaron of Zhitomir was desecrated. The structure was burnt down and anti-Semitic symbols were sprayed in the ancient Zhitomir cemetery.
• June: An unknown group called the Union of Young Orthodox Ukrainians made antisemitic and racist threats at a press conference in Kiev. On June 11, the group held a press conference, during which they stated that, "Ukrianians have the right to any action in defense against the kike occupation and immigrants." The group's charter calls for "cleansing from Ukrainian television screens" all "Rabinoviches"- an obvious reference to Jews - and demands a struggle against unspecified forces that supposedly aim to "destroy the Ukrainian culture, religion and nation."
• June: Anti-Semitic slogan with the word, “Death” sprayed on a poster board in the center of Kiev.
• July: Oleg Tyagnybok, a former member of President Viktor Yushchenko's parliament faction Our Ukraine, in a speech called for "merciless" action against Jews and Russians who have seized power in Ukraine. Tyagnybok heads the Nationalistic Freedom Party, which holds several seats in the Lvov regional parliament. Tyagnybok habitually labels Jews and Russians with the pejorative terms "kikes" and "moskali." In a speech, Tyagnybok reportedly lashed out at Yushchenko by claiming that his surrogates are beginning to use the words such as "kike" and "moskali" in their speeches - words that four years ago got him expelled from the president's parliament faction. "So now it's OK to use those words?" Tyagnybok asked. "But it's too late now! The kikes and moskali and their minions have seized power, and without a tough, merciless purge, there is nothing we can do about it."
• July: Vandals damaged a Holocaust memorial plaque in the Ukrainian city of Lviv. The plaque at the local train station notes that Nazis deported 500,000 Jews through the station to death camps in Poland during the war. Jewish tourists reported that they noticed a hangman and a Star of David had been scrawled on the plaque. Police were notified but there has been no report of an investigation.
• July: Anti-Semites attacked the local office of the Torah study program "Stars" in Lviv, Ukraine this week and beat two teachers, according to the Union of Councils for Jews in the Former Soviet Union (UCSJ). The assailants broke windows and beat the teachers with metal rods. The anti-Semites screamed, "Kikes, leave Ukraine" and "Ukraine is occupied by Kikes." UCJS spokesman Meylakh Sheykhet said, "There is no doubt that this is an act of anti-Semitism and those attackers do not want to see observant Jews meeting at the building. It is possible because some Ukrainian leaders promote xenophobic and anti-Semitic ideas in society." The victims filed a report in the local police office.
• A Ukrainian toy manufacturer is reportedly marketing an Adolf Hitler doll. The 16in figure - complete with moveable arms - will first be available in the capital Kiev and come with a selection of outfits. There will be “early days Adolf” - brown shirt and jodhpurs - and “wartime Adolf” - his grey double breasted tunic, black trousers and simple Iron Cross medal. The doll will have accessories like a miniature Blondi, Hitler’s faithful Alsatian whose loyalty was repaid with a cyanide capsule in the Berlin bunker.
• In August, someone painted swastikas on a Holocaust monument in Lviv, Ukraine, according to an August 21, 2008 report by the AEN news agency. The Nazis murdered around 200,000 people, most of them Jews, at the Yanovsky concentration camp, where the monument was placed in 1992.
• In September, antisemitic leaflets inside a Russian Orthodox cathedral affiliated with the Moscow Patriarchate in Kamenets-Podolsky, Ukraine, according to an August 27, 2008 report by the Kiev-based newspaper "Gazeta 24." According to the article, posters calling for a boycott of kosher products hang outside the city's Aleksandr Nevsky Cathedral. Inside the cathedral, a newspaper article is posted claiming that "kikes" were behind the creation of "Ukraine" (referred to with pejorative quotation marks, along with the term "Ukrainian language"). Supposedly, "kikes don't like the words Russia and Russians" so they created an artificial state called Ukraine to divide and weaken the Russian empire. Somehow, this Jewish conspiracy was behind both the Russian Revolution that brought the Communists to power in 1917 and the 2004 Orange Revolution, all in the service of brainwashing the nation in the service of the USA, according to whoever wrote the posters.