Russian Jews in Israel
Dateline: 08/09/99
Throughout time, the Jewish people, no matter where in the world they have settled, have
consistently be on the receiving end of bigotry and/or outright persecution. Anti-semitism is the
term used to indicate a variety of forms of prejudice against the Jews.
Russia has a long history of anti-semitism which continues in modern times. Anti-semitism
was a key issue in Russia's last presidential election. The Communists consider the Jews to be in control of the world's economy, with one of their goals being the destruction of Russia.
Stalin's grandson, Yevgeny Dzhugashvili, recently blamed Russian Jews for all of the
country's troubles.
One of the things a group does, when faced with intolerable conditions, is to immigrate to
where they feel they can have a better life. Up until 1989, Russian Jews were able to immigrate
to the U.S. and Europe. In late 1989, these countries closed their doors to Jewish immigrants
from the Soviet Union. In the early 1990's the surge of Russian Jews into Israel was
tremendous. This group was, generally, highly educated and brought with them a great deal of
high tech abilities and the drive to succeed. In 1995 and 1996, rougly 83% of all immigrants
into Israel; ca. 59,000; came from Russia and the CIS. Today, about 20% of the Jews in Israel
speak Russian. ( The situation for Jews in Russia seems to be so bad today,
that they rather go to Germany than to stay in the former USSR : webmasters comment)
After the initial influx of Russian Jews into Israel, the numbers tapered off.
This was due the temporary improvement in Russia's economy. When this took a turn for the worse,
immigration picked up, again. In 1998, 14,000 immigrants left Russia for Israel; 46,000 total
from the former Soviet republics; and constituted roughly 90% of the total number of
immigrants to enter Israel.
There are, currently, about 1 million Jews still living in Russia and the fourteen former Soviet
states. It is anticipated that roughly 60,000 of them will immigrate to Israel this year (1999). So
far this year, almost a third of the Russian immigrants sited a rise in antisemitism in Russia as
their main reason for leaving.
Since the dramatic fall in Russia's economy last fall, there have been more and more
accusations of blame directed at the Russian Jews. Ultranationalist, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, in
April 1998, openly blamed the Jews for Russia's financial problems, accused them of starting
WWII and of stealing Russian children and gold. Gennady Zyuganov, the Communist Party
leader, stated he had nothing against Jews but did blame Zionists for Russia's woes. There has
been an increase in vandalism against Russian synagogues and Jewish cemeteries. The Jews
are to blame for Russia's economic crisis and antisemitism is now being used as a political
weapon.
Most of the the Russian Jewish immigrants of the early '90's went to Israel to find religious
freedom. A great number were Zionists. The most recent and current waves of immigrants are
mostly non-religious, many have never been to a synagogue and are not moving to Israel to
join a Jewish State. They simply are looking for a country where there is opportunity to work
and live a normal life.
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