The same old scapegoat
Blaming the Jews for a war going wrong? I've seen this movie many times before.
First of all, I think I’m gonna put my plans to turn Rigid Thinking into an investment-tips newsletter on hold.
I feel like the war - sorry, “special military operation” - purportedly launched to wipe out “Nazis” in Ukraine was always destined to end this way:
Soon after he rose to power 22 years ago, Russian President Vladimir Putin cracked down on the open antisemitism that nearly all of his predecessors had either encouraged, tolerated or ignored.
Now, as Russia’s war effort in Ukraine flounders, openly anti-Jewish rhetoric is entering the country’s mainstream media, with a popular talk show host naming Jews on air as being insufficiently patriotic and a think tank accusing a prominent Jewish philosopher of siding with Ukraine out of greed.
The shift in rhetoric about Jews in Russian media began about two months ago, according to Roman Bronfman, a former Israeli lawmaker who is writing a book about post-Soviet Jewry. That was around when news emerged that Ukrainian troops had successfully stopped the advance of Russian forces on Ukrainian territory; since then, they have repelled Russian troops from some areas the Russians had captured.
“At a moment when the regime’s stability was threatened, a Jewish target was selected,” Bronfman said. “In many ways this is a repeat of multiple episodes in Russian history, including the final days of Josef Stalin’s time in power.”
[…]
But Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has left him isolated on the world stage, with his claims of Nazis in Ukraine largely dismissed as a fabrication, making a strong stance against antisemitism less useful. And as Russia’s war machine stalls in Ukraine — Putin this week announced a draft of 300,000 reserves soldiers for the war — there are mounting signs that the Putin-era taboos on displays of antisemitism are falling.
In July, Vladimir Solovyov, a popular talk show host who has Jewish ancestry himself, listed on air the names of Jews whom he faulted for lacking patriotism. That was around the same time that Russia began seeking to end local activity of the Jewish Agency for Israel, which facilitates emigration of Jews to Israel. A court case on the matter is pending.
In recent weeks, the rhetoric appears to be accelerating. In a Sept. 18 article in Moskovskij Komsomolets, a highbrow Russian daily, a senior and veteran writer named Dmitry Popov compiled a list of well-known Jews whom he called “foreign agents,” a term that the Russian government frequently applies to its perceived enemies. He added sarcastically that the Jews might one day form a government in “the beautiful Russia of the future” — ostensibly after Putin exits office.
The article shocked many readers, including Yulia Kalinina, a former longtime writer at the paper who had worked closely with Popov. (It was later revised to omit the apparently antisemitic passages.)
“Antisemitism has returned: Jews are blamed for the ‘beautiful Russia of the future,’” Kalinina, who has Jewish ancestry, wrote in an article published last week in the Novi Izvestiya website.
Speaking anonymously, another former or present employee of Moskovskij Komsomolets told Novi Izvestiya: “Russian antisemitism is much older than the Soviet Union. One of the three Russian words that have become an international term, in addition to vodka, is pogrom.”
More evidence of a shift in tolerance for antisemitic rhetoric came last week as Bernard-Henri Lévy, a prominent French-Jewish journalist and philosopher who is a vocal advocate of Ukraine, visited the war-torn country.
The Strategic Culture Foundation, a Russian conservative think tank that is often cited in mainstream media in Russia and beyond, published a screed about Lévy that used language reminiscent of the classical antisemitism of the 19th and 20th centuries.
“This 74-year-old French citizen, born in a family of Algerian Jews, smells blood with his nose and, without delay, flies to lap it up — and for good money,” read the article, which was signed by Agnia Krengel, a frequent contributor for the think tank.
You know the really sad thing about all of this? Compared to historic Russian and Soviet leaders, the antisemitism of Putin and his government might still be on the low side.
That brief, wonderful period when Putin at least appeared to move against Jew-hatred makes you wonder what Russia might have become - or whether it was always destined to end up like this.
Mind you, Ukraine has its own shameful history of antisemitism, and it still bubbles up from time to time. It was a Ukrainian university, the Interregional Academy of Personnel Management, gave this guy a doctorate. And not just an honourary degree, but a Ph.D. for a thesis called “"Zionism as a Form of Ethnic Supremacism."1
And yet, not too long ago, the country’s current leader couldn’t in his wildest dreams have ascended to the Presidency of Ukraine. And not just because he was best known as a comic actor.
Electing a Jewish president doesn’t mean antisemitism no longer exists in Ukraine, any more than electing Obama means racism has been eradicated in America.
But it sure as heck isn’t nothing. And if Ukraine can change, Russia sure as hell can.
I just hope it won’t require the kind of military occupation and bottom-up reconstruction which had to be imposed on other countries with a notorious history of militarism and invading its neighbors. Because it’s sure starting to feel that way. (See the screenshot atop this post, for example.)
This also ties into the raging debate over what to do with Russians streaming out of the country to avoid being drafted. I’ve had many arguments on Twitter - some relatively civil, others ending with me getting blocked - with people who insist they all supported and/or still support the war and are just trying to save their own skin, and they should be sent back en masse.
One of my arguments in response is that many of the Russians leaving the country aren’t, well, Russians. Not as far as other Russians are concerned, anyway. It’s a country with many different ethnic groups, some of whom are being press-ganged into the Ukraine meat-grinder in disproportionate numbers.
The Jerusalem Post story linked above notes that 20,000 Russian Jews have noped out of the country this year alone, mostly to Israel. And that was presumably before the partial mobilization and long lines to get out before the borders are closed (from either side).
Most have and will Make Aliyah, but Israel is located far from Russia and plane tickets out of the country are in high demand. I would not be the least bit surprised if the border lineups include Russian Jews and members of other put-upon minority groups.
At the very least, I ask that people berating, insulting and trolling (sometimes in person) Russians leaving by land acknowledge that the crowds include people caught in an impossible situation by accident of birth - “not Russian enough” for Russia, and “too Russian” for everywhere else.
Duke later wiped the moonshine stains off his thesis and turned it into a book called Jewish Supremacism, a phrase that in turn has been adapted by anti-Zionists - wink, wink - into “Zionist supremacism.” Horseshoe theory is real.