Anti-Semitism and Counteraction to Anti-Semitism in Russia. 2004-Early 2005. Summary for OSCE conference

This summary was distributed on OSCE Conference on Anti-Semitism and on Other Forms of Intolerance, Cordoba, 8 and 9 June 2005.


In 2004 the major trend was quite inadequate opposition of the state bodies to anti-Semitiс activities against a background of increasing anti-Semitic activism.

It is still propaganda that remains a major mode of Russian anti-Semitic activities. Anti-Semit propaganda is being spread not only via marginalized leaflets, pamphlets and newspapers: anti-Semit ideas and interpretations find their way to the periodicals and books of quite a considerable circulation. It is because of the fact that anti-Semitism in Russia is a major component of almost any widespread nationalist and xenophobic ideology, Russian ethnic nationalism and radical politicized Islam included. Occasional hostile declarations against Jews actually do no more provoke any public response. Anti-Semitism is becoming a routine element of public life background, though for the most of the population it is still disagreeable.

When in 2002 TVC channel once broadcasted :Anti-Deza; programme based on anti-Semit myths, the incident caused a grave scandal and the programme was immediately suspended. Nowadays, since 2004, St.Petersburg TV-3 channel that is being received as well in Moscow and some other regions, broadcasts on a regular basis :Our Strategy; programme containing nationalist propaganda (including anti-Semitic one), and no one respond to the fact. The presenters of the programme are well-known activists of anti-Semitic organizations, and very often their guests are persons of the same kind. TV-3 channel as a whole is in no way associated with nationalism; so since April 2005 broadcastings are accompanied by a notice that the editorial board of the channel is not accountable for the programme content.

It's rather seldom that even the most consistent and aggressive propaganda that evidently fall under Criminal Code provisions, involves criminal charges. But even if the court trial takes place, there is usually no penal sanctions for the perpetrators. E.g. in 2004 only one of fore accused ones was imposed a fine, while three others were for some or other reasons freed from punishment in spite of the fact that two of them had already been convicted earlier for the same offence.


Habitualness of anti-Semitism resulted in signing in 2005 Jan. by 19 State Duma Deputies the address to the Prosecutor-General, containing demand to suspend all the Jewish organizations as extremist ones. (At that time the address was signed by 500 persons; now the number of the signatures amounts already to 10 000.) The demand was founded by a complex of long ago refuted anti-Semit myths, among them a myth of some special aggressiveness of the Jews towards non-Jews, of ritual killings, of the all-World Jewish conspiracy.

Noteworthy is the fact that there is no LDPR Deputies among Duma Deputies having signed the address though LDPR leader Vladimir Zhirinovskiy seems to be best-known outside Russia as a Russian nationalist. LDPR is long since disinclined for such radical acts. These were :Rodina; [:Motherland;] block and Communist Party Deputies who signed the address. And it was :Motherland; block that brought in the late 2003 the group of the extremely radical nationalist to the Parliament. In the present Duma there are much more such Deputies than in any Russian Parliament of recent times, and the fact heavily affects the climate in the Country.

In January the President and State Duma condemned anti-Semitism, but Office of Public Prosecutor is still engaged in studying the question raised by the authors of the address. Now the claims of anti-Semits and the counter-claim of Jewish organizations to bring a criminal action against the authors of the address are being studied together under the framework of the single Public Prosecutor examination. There is no question as yet of the punishment of the perpetrators of the biggest anti-Semitic provocation of the recent time.


Of course, anti-Semitic activities are not confined to propaganda. In 2004 several rather grave attempts to pogroms or to burning of Jewish institutes were made in the cities of Moscow, Ulyanovsk, Chelyabinsk, Nizhniy Novgorod and Penza. There were several cases of placing plaster casts of bombs, and once a real bomb detonated at the threshold of the Institute of Judaistic studies in Moscow. In 2005 this practice endured, in particular, with attempts against synagogues in Samara and Moscow.

Vandalism is the most common form of :direct action; manifestating anti-Semitic sentiments. There's little point in listing cases of making anti-Semitic inscriptions. Desecration of tombs is the major form of vandalism: vandals seem to believe it less dangerous. Though actually the only two convictions for anti-Semitism activities, passed in 2004 were just convictions for vandalism in cemeteries. As for perpetrators of more dangerous attempts against synagogues and other Jewish centers, they were not punished.

Street attempts against Jews, caused by ideological motives, are rather rare. Street attempts are usually perpetrated by skinheads, and their priority objects are visitors and migrants of Southern or Oriental appearance. Besides, Jews are not so visible in the crowd, except ones wearing kipa or traditional garment.

On the whole, racially motivated street violence in Russia cities increase rapidly. According to our data, in 2004 it caused not less than 45 deaths, and the number of victims is many times more. Against this background we identified since January to November 2004 only two grave attempts against Jews. That was attempt against son of the leader of Jewish community in Yoskar-Ola (Mariy-El Republic) and attempt against a person passing by a synagogue in Kostroma (the victim even was not a Jew). But in 2004 Dec. and 2005 Jan. several grave attempts were perpetrated in Moscow, the best-known being an attempt against two rabbies near synagogue in Maryina Roshca.

Some of those beating rabbi A. Lakshin were detained and the series of attempts ceased at once: it seems that all the attempts were perpetrated by the same group. Soon several more perpetrators were detained. Unfortunately it took an attempt against US citizen A. Lakshin to cause such immediate and efficient actions by the police. But the fact of efficient suppression of skinhead activities does inspire some optimism.