They're looking for incitement to religious hatred, eh? Have they looked at a book that calls Jews (and Christians) apes and pigs (2:62-65; 5:59-60; 7:166) and says they are under Allah's curse (9:30) and are the "vilest of creatures" (98:6)? And that believers must wage war against them (9:5, 9:29)? Just wondering.
Oh, and while we're on the subject, is Kitsur Shulhan Arukh the foundation of a global network of people who are committing violence in its name? Do people behead innocent civilians while chanting the praises of God and holding up copies of Kitsur Shulhan Arukh?
From AP, with thanks to Anthony:
MOSCOW -- Prosecutors have launched an investigation into whether a Russian translation of an ancient Jewish religious text incites national and religious hatred, a move condemned by many Jewish organizations as anti-Semitic.Moscow district prosecutors summoned Rabbi Zinovy Kogan for questioning last week as part of a probe into whether the Russian translation of Kitsur Shulhan Arukh, a code of ancient Jewish religious laws, provokes religious hatred, Kogan told The Associated Press in a telephone interview Monday.
The investigation was meant to review a ruling last month by Moscow prosecutors that the text did not inspire hatred and a criminal case was not warranted, said Kogan, chairman of the Congress of Jewish Religious Organizations who published the translated text.
The Israeli government and Jewish organizations, including the Conference of European Rabbis, condemned the probe.
"To take a traditional Jewish text and try to ban it reminds us of the official state-sponsored anti-Semitism that we saw in czarist Russia," Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said.
The original probe was initiated after two nationalist activists including a prominent far-right ideologue complained the text is aimed at "insulting human dignity based on national and religious affiliation," according to an earlier prosecutors' statement posted on the Web site of an anti-xenophobia group, Sova. The text was also accused of labeling Christians "worshippers of idols" in a reference to Christians' main religious symbol, the cross.
That's it? Sounds like standard religious polemic. Does it tell Jews to wage war against Christians? I think they're looking at the wrong book.
Utterly preposterous.
The Islamist-Jihadi/Extreme Right Wing/Extreme Left Wing nexus takes on ever more complex and contorting shapes.
Disgusting. They already forgot about Beslan? Are they blind to what's happening in Israel? Don't they know what's going on in Darfur? Does 9/11 ring a bell? Is Russian media ignoring Europe's inner city's? The violent rhetoric of Iraqi (and Saudi, Iranian, Syrian, etc) 'insurgents' falls on deaf ears? If these people continue to be so freakin stupid they deserve everything they're going to get in the years to come. Germany is putting a stop to Jewish immigration, now the Russians are doing this, the sheer lunacy of the left in Europe that's constantly hammering away at Israel...it's INSANE! The world is INSANE! It's official.
um, guys? comrades? listen, i don't want to seem like i'm intruding in your personal business or anything. hey, far be it for me to tell someone else how to live their life, wouldn't want you guys comin' over and telling me what to do in my house, but really, i just have one little point, then i'll be on my way, ok?
thanks, ok, here's the rub;
WRONG BOOK! you got that? WRONG FREAKIN' BOOK!
Leveller,
don't expect Russia to make sense, to act logically, to have good and generally understandable reasons for what it's doing. Russia has a long tradition of anti-Semitism; and it has no natural aversion against Fascist, totalitarian ideologies and practices. Why should they care for what's happening in Sudan or Israel? They don't. They're not fighting the Chechens because they're Islamic terrorists, they're fighting them to keep their territory intact in Caucasus. If the Islamic terrorists would help them to do so, they could just as well be on their side. The reason for this "investigation" is hardly any sincere concern for religious hatred (when did Russia ever care for anything like that?). If it were, like mr. Spencer says, then they'd be looking at another book.
The more things change the more they remain the same.
Alas, the Eastern Orthodox Church has, unfortunately, grown very tight and cozy with "the Dark Side", i.e., the moslems. The communist nationals also burn deep with anti-Semitism, making Russia, as always, a hot spot for blood libel anti-Semitism.
Another report, from Arutz Sheva News out of Israel, http://www.arutzsheva.org/news.php3?id=84682, added this bit of info:
"The Moscow prosecutor ordered the investigation after 500 public figures signed a letter urging outlawing of Judaism and all Jewish organizations operating in Russia."
Brings a chill down the spine of every Jew. My great grandparents fled Russia for America in 1903 to escape this vitriol.
-MZ
For Russians, anti-semitism is almost inborn (as is Lysenkoism). They have a long path to trod before they are truely Western.
It's the oldest established permanent floating hatred in the world:
The Ruskie nationalists are lookin’ for a flaw,
A flaw in the code of Jewish law.
So they’re taking the book to court,
Hopin’ it’ll come up short.
Those Protocols can be used in a pinch,
But they need a new gimmick that’s still tried and true.
And things being how they are,
You can depend on defaming the Jew.
So the code is route they will take
To awaken the semi-somnolent hate.
Why, it’s bad old reliable Jew-hate,
Hateful, hateful, hateful Jew-hate.
If you’re looking for action, a guaranteed rise,
Just feed ‘em lots of libels and some fabulous lies.
'Cause for bad old reliable Jew-hate,
Seems the flags are always unfurled
For the oldest established permanent floating hatred in the world.
There are well-heeled haters everywhere, everywhere,
There are well-heeled haters everywhere.
And an awful lot of seethers
And some primo fire-breathers who will say,
“If we only killed the Jews, all our cares would go away.”
Oh it's bad old reliable Jew-hate,
Hateful, hateful, hateful Jew-hate.
If a mass of the public you want to command
Infect their minds with hatred, soon they’ll eat from your hand.
Then they’ll saddle their steeds, ride like the Cossacks,
As their guns and sabers are twirled
For the oldest established permanent floating hatred in the world.
Where’s the action? Where’s the game?
Gotta have the game to appease our shame.
It’s the oldest established permanent floating hatred in the world.
Russia is rapidly being islamized. Go to Moscow, and look around. But officials there have other fish to fry, obviously -- some code of "ancient Jewish religious law" which may be of historical interest but does not appear to be a guide to vast numbers of Jewish terrorist groups blowing up planes and buildings, setting off bombs in subways and schools, and so on. Let us all know when that starts to happen. We'll be right there to confiscate those codes of "ancient Jewish religious Law," along with the rather unpleasant laws of the Visigoths, and some dangerous runes found scratched on a rocky promontory, on the Isle of Lewis and Harris, near the Standing Stones of Callanish.
Meanwhile, there's this book, see, called the Qur'...
MZ (or anybody else),
Let's say you knew a cranky old Orthodox Christian, plain ol' American, Russian-speaking, who wanted to put his flea-weight Gentile muscles to work against these instances of anti-Semitism in Russia? Is there some place you could point him? Some committee or organization or web site or newspaper or person here or in Russia? If not, where would you start in order to hunt for such an organization or person?
--Pilgrim, ISGK
P.S. And don't y'all tell me it's not worth it and it won't change anything and all that.
Pilgrim,
Here are some excellent websites you can check out:
http://www.christiansagainstbuchanan.com/
http://christianactionforisrael.org/
http://www.jcrelations.net/
http://www.americanthinker.com/
Incidentally, the Protocals of the Elders of Zion, one of the most infamous blood libel forgeries against Jews in history, was created and released by the Russian Orthodox clergy in the late 1890's.
-MZ
"the Protocals of the Elders of Zion, one of the most infamous blood libel forgeries against Jews in history, was created and released by the Russian Orthodox clergy in the late 1890's."
-- from a posting above
No. The Protocols was concocted out of something that first appeared in France, and had nothhing to do with Jews, and was posssibly meant satirically. It was picked up by Sergey Nilus, a member of the Okhranka, before World War I (about 1910-1911), but after Khodynka (where a crowd stampeded, and hundreds were killed, and this reflected badly on the government), and the 1905 uprisiing, and the double-agent Gapon, and used to divert attention, it was hoped, onto the Jews. Always a ready device.
The Protocols, a forgery (like the Donation of Constantine, or the Zimmermann Telegram, or many other examples in world history) were neither "created" nor "released" by the Russian Orthodox clergy. Some of those Russian Orthodox clergy behaved badly toward Jews; some did not.
For one faithful Russian Orthodox nun who did not, google "Mat' Mariya" or Mariya Skobstova, and see what she was like, and how she died. Look up Aleksandr Men' (born a Jew, he became a Russian Orthodox priest and writer on theology, and was murdered for his views, including his condenation of antisemitism).
There are all kinds, always. It is a question of relative strength, of how many good, as opposed to how many bad.
"the Protocals of the Elders of Zion, one of the most infamous blood libel forgeries against Jews in history, was created and released by the Russian Orthodox clergy in the late 1890's."
-- from a posting above
No. The Protocols was concocted out of something that first appeared in France, and had nothhing to do with Jews, and was posssibly meant satirically. It was picked up by Sergey Nilus, a member of the Okhranka, before World War I (about 1910-1911), but after Khodynka (where a crowd stampeded, and hundreds were killed, and this reflected badly on the government), and the 1905 uprisiing, and the double-agent Gapon, and used to divert attention, it was hoped, onto the Jews. Always a ready device.
The Protocols, a forgery (like the Donation of Constantine, or the Zimmermann Telegram, or many other examples in world history) were neither "created" nor "released" by the Russian Orthodox clergy. Some of those Russian Orthodox clergy behaved badly toward Jews; some did not.
For one faithful Russian Orthodox nun who did not, google "Mat' Mariya" or Mariya Skobstova, and see what she was like, and how she died. Look up Aleksandr Men' (born a Jew, he became a Russian Orthodox priest and writer on theology, and was murdered for his views, including his condenation of antisemitism).
There are all kinds, always. It is a question of relative strength, of how many good, as opposed to how many bad.
"the Protocals of the Elders of Zion, one of the most infamous blood libel forgeries against Jews in history, was created and released by the Russian Orthodox clergy in the late 1890's."
-- from a posting above
No. The Protocols was concocted out of something that first appeared in France, and had nothhing to do with Jews, and was posssibly meant satirically. It was picked up by Sergey Nilus, a member of the Okhranka, before World War I (about 1910-1911), but after Khodynka (where a crowd stampeded, and hundreds were killed, and this reflected badly on the government), and the 1905 uprisiing, and the double-agent Gapon, and used to divert attention, it was hoped, onto the Jews. Always a ready device.
The Protocols, a forgery (like the Donation of Constantine, or the Zimmermann Telegram, or many other examples in world history) were neither "created" nor "released" by the Russian Orthodox clergy. Some of those Russian Orthodox clergy behaved badly toward Jews; some did not.
For one faithful Russian Orthodox nun who did not, google "Mat' Mariya" or Mariya Skobstova, and see what she was like, and how she died. Look up Aleksandr Men' (born a Jew, he became a Russian Orthodox priest and writer on theology, and was murdered for his views, including his condenation of antisemitism).
There are all kinds, always. It is a question of relative strength, of how many good, as opposed to how many bad.
Hugh-
I thought the "Zimmerman telegram" (getting Wilson to call for war against Gernmany in 1917) was finally proved to be a real intercept by British Code breakers.
I know Barbara Tuchman wrote a book with that as the title.
I'll have to read up on it.
Any details about its alleged inauthenticity?
Another Russian 'holy man' who was opposed to anti-semitism was Grishka Yevimovich from Tobolk in Siberia, commonly known as Rasputin.
He urged the Tzar, Nicolas II, to grant equal rights to the Jews
Hey, sportsfans. Why don't we put together a Protocols of the Imams of Islam? This would be a Western work, of course, but even better than that obscene forgery: it would actually be true.
We'd give nice Arabic prose about how child molestation is a good thing (Alia was only 9 when Mohammed deflowered her), etc. Then we'd segue into a thinly disguised Bush Administration, and Grover Norquist's gay crypto-Muslim plan of world domination.
Hugh,
I think you are right that the documents did originate in Paris, but I am positive that by the very early 1900's it had been released to the Russian Orthodox church, from whom it was released to the people to divert populas uprisings from the Tzar to the Jews. In true scapegoat fashion, the orthodox church, in cahoots with the tzar, helped launch brutal pogroms against the Jews based on Protocals to save their own skin from the growing threat of Marxism.
-MZ
Loxias:
While you're at it, how about writing "The Nakba Industry" which would be the truth, as opposed to nutbar Chomsky acolyte (ab)Norm(al) Finkelstein's book of Holocaust denial.
Yurodivy or not, Rasputin is not exactly the kind of person one would wish to count on for coherent views. But what with his magic powers (Alexandra counted on his constant predictions that young Alexey would recover -- and what do you know, some of Rasputin's predictions seemed to come true.)= On the other hand, Yusupoff or the other one who claimed to have done the deed -- or at least the final deed, since everyone knows it was as hard to kill Rasputin as it apparently is to put paid to the idiotic phrase the "war on terror," Purishkevich ("Comment j'ai tue Raspoutine" appeared in the emigration, published by one of those doubtful presses) were not pleasant characters and, I think, at least Purishkevich was a known antisemite, of the Shabelsky or Volunteers-for-Vlasov variety.
As for the Zimmermann telegram being, or not being, a forgery -- I will have to look into it. But at the moment I can't.
Barbara Tuchman was a model of what to do when you have the leisure to do anythig. No one can read "The Guns of August" and think of the Avenue Foch in quite the same way ever again. No one can read "Bible and Sword" and think of the heroic and incredible story of the restoration of the Jewish Commonwealth in the same way again. But I haven't read her book on the telegram. No time like the present, but at the present, I have no time.
And speaking of telegrams, don't forget the one that Robert Benchley sent back to his editors from Venice: "Streets full of water. Please advise."
Correction above:
I was unfair when I wrote "Volunteers-for-Vlasov." Though the alliteration is lost, I should more accurately have written "Volunteers-for-Krasnov" or to preserve it, "Comrades-for-Krasnov" (the two-headed eagle fellow, who for all I know still may rate a furtive panikhida in the cathedral on Rue Daru, but I doubt it. Vlasov and Krasnov, and those who fought under each, respectively, should not be confused or lumped together.
Hugh,
In 1914 Rasputin pleaded with the Tzar not to authorize mobilization as he knew that this would be crossing the rubicon into the abyss of conflict, and he entreated Nicolas to hold back as it would spell a dreadful war the result of which would be the end of the Romanov monarchy.
Is this from that mysterious telegram that Rasputin supposedly predicted that the war would end in misery and defeat? In Radzinsky's "The Last Tsar" he tells of coming across other, less mysterious telegrams, one predicting peace and another, written after the war began, predicting victory. Radzinsky writes that "as always, he [Rasputin] predicted what his masters wanted to hear."
You and Radzinsky should step outside and settle this.
I'm surprised the Russians could stay sober for long enough to launch this investigation. But still, let's hope it goes the same way as their economy, their nuclear subs, and their international prestige - into oblivion.
MZ,
Thank you for the URLs. I will follow up. If you (or others) know of any specifically Russian-language sites, let me know.
Does anyone know about this "Web site of an anti-xenophobia group, Sova."
--Pilgrim, ISGK
Correction:
A metathetic mistake -- otherwise known as a typo -- yielded above not the correct "Maria Skobtsova" but "Skobstova" which is an impossibility. I would hate for googlers to be lead astray about such an important person. She helped poor Russians. During the war, she helped the Resistance, and Jews. She was murdered by the Germans in Ravensbrueck.
Even if ancient Jewish texts did incite violence, those texts are irrelevant to today's practices. Neither Jews nor Christians commit violence because of ancient scriptural mandates or in the name of their religions or because of their religion. They do so for political reasons or in self-defense.
Islam is the only ideology whose members act in accordance to mandates from ancient religious passages that mandate violece. Islam is the only ideology whose members admire and exalt an historical figure that was a brigand, an assassin, a slaver, a slaughterer, and a pedophile.
This exalted figure is admired, not for promoting peace and love, but for promotiving violence and vengeance. the laws this man promoted instill loathing and fear, loathing of basic human behaviors and other beings, and fear of Allah and fear of retribution and vengeance carried out by Allah's representatives on earth.
The idea that the Russian government is wasting time by looking through ancient Jewish texts is ludicrous and points to anti-Semetism, a bias that again has raised its ugly head in Europe.
Hello, many posters here.
I am sad to read the vague and bitter slurs against Russians. So sad.
--Pilgrim, ISGK
Over Babiy Yar
rustle of the wild grass.
The trees look threatening, look like judges.
And everything is one silent cry.
Taking my hat off
I feel myself slowly going grey.
And I am one silent cry
over the many thousands of the buried;
am every old man killed here,
every child killed here....
How horrible it is that pompous title
the anti-semites calmly call themselves,
Society of the Russian People.
No part of me can ever forget it.
extracts from Yevgeny Yevtushenko's Babiy Yar.
>some code of "ancient Jewish religious law" which may be of historical interest
This particular code dates from the 19th century. It is still used in casual rahter than serious Torah study, although, as with any Jewish text, many other opinions can be found in other texts. In particular, where the subject is not perfectly straightforward, it reflects a Hungarian Chassidic POV, which of course is not shared by all. It is therefore read with discrimination. I'm not sure how one reads "antiRussianism" into it.
>Even if ancient Jewish texts did incite violence, those texts are irrelevant to today's practices.
I don't think they ever did, at least after King Saul and the Amalekites. Europeans for centuries had the luxury of equating non-Christianity with anti-Christianity, and that is reflected in their view of our literature. Jewish Law *does* treat Jews and non-Jews differently - we expect certain behaviors of ourselves that we do not require of people who do not practice Judaism, and this is codified in our law. Is that bad? Isn't this lack of discrimination what people find problematic about Islam? But nowhere does this imply incitement to violence or even negative feelings.
"I am sad to read the vague and bitter slurs against Russians.."
Look again. One could have gone on. About Kerensky, who defended Beilis. About the Kadet Party. About those who denounced the pogroms. About the White Russians who saw the Nazis for exactly what they were (read Osorgin's letters from the south of France, for example). About the daugher of Skriabin, and others who behaved as well as anyone could, just as did the many Russian Jews "mort pour la France" such as Boris Vilde and those in the Trocadero group.
No slurs here. In fact, the distinction to be made between General Krasnov (or Krasnoff, as his books in English render it)and ex-Soviet general Vlasov (a distinction not all would make), shows good faith, does it not? But that does not mean that those who were mystagogues of the Russian Church should 'scape whipping, either.
In Holland there was the heroine Mies Giep. But there was also the arch-villain Pieter Menten. And the same variety could be obseved in Russia, and among the emigres in Berlin, Paris, and Prague, and possibly in Harbin and Buenos Aires as well. And sometimes we don't even know who was who. Who can pierce behind the veil of the "French" correspondent in Rome, Jean Neuvecelle, the son of Vyacheslav Ivanov? And if he had a good war, who gets the credit -- France, or Russia?
The variousness of human response inhibits wholesale condemnation, and wholesale praise. Praise Kerensky and Miliukov and the contributors to Vekhi (including the father, by the way, of the American scientist George Kistiakowsky, who was Eisenhower's Science Adviser). Praise Mat' Mariya to the skies. Condemn those who whipped up antisemitism to divert peoples' attention from their real problems. Nothing mysterious about it.
I hate it when my brethren make slanderous mis-statements about Judaism. We have to put up with enough of this crap from the anti-Semites, must we defile Judaism ourselves, too?
Anyway, the Shulchan Aruch was written in the 1560's by Yosef Karo. It is a compelation of Halacha (Jewish Laws) that are most relevant to the every day life of the Jew, and is accepted as the primary code of Halacha for Jews to this very day.
The Shulchan Aruch is based on the Halacha as known from the time of Moses. Halacha is also referred to as Oral Law, as this was the divinely related explanation of what the Torah text means. Without the Oral Law, the Torah Laws would be indesipherable. These laws were compiled in writing for the first time around the year 200 CE by the Rabbis of the Sanhedrin, led by Rabbi Judah Hanassi.
Before this time, Jews had practiced Judaism according to the Oral Traditions handed down when the Torah was given to the Jews at Mount Sinai. There was no need for a written version of the Oral Law, as it was strictly passed down by word of mouth from generation to generation. In other words, for about 1700 years Jews were not to put Halacha in writing as it was determined that it would be safest to just transmit it orally rather than left to writing which can be burned, lost, or as we see today in Russia, held over our heads for persecution.
However, once the Temple was destroyed in 70 CE, the Jews were becoming widely dispersed and unable to practice the Temple sacrifices as had always been done. In the void it began to become apparent that with the mass dispersal and destroyed Temple the Oral Traditions would be impossible to maintain and Judaism would become corrupted. Thus, the Rabbis compiled the Mishnah, the first book of Halacha in writing, to preserve the Oral Traditions for all times.
About 200 years later, the need for further explanation and commentary of how to practice the Oral Laws and what they meant became necessary, so again the Rabbis, one group from Babylon and one from Israel, wrote Mishnah commentaries in interactive detail called Gamara, and those volumes became known as the Talmud. There is, therefore, the Babylonian Talmud and the Jerusalem Talmud.
The Babylonian was the last one finished, and is therefore the more extensive of the two. It was completed around the year 500.
Maimonedes, or the Rambam, in about the year 1204 completed the Mishnah Torah, which in essance summarized the Oral Law in 14 categories and 27 volumes so that it would be more accessable than the incredibly expansive Talmud.
Then, in 1560 we have Caro's Shulchan Aruch, which further simplified the Oral Law even more concisely, breaking it down to 4 essential categories. It is this Halachic source which to this day is followed by observant Jews everywhere, and is the book which the Russians are now looking to prosecute the Jews for.
The Shulchan Aruch is not an ancient legend or some obsolete text which is no longer important, rather it is the very heart and soul of how Jews live their lives. If this book is banned than everything Jewish before it or since is banned, as it is not an isolated novel, but built on 3500 years of Torah. Nothing is more critical to being a Jew than the Written Torah text and the occompanying Oral Laws which explain the meaning and obligations we as Jews live by.
In other words, the Russians have put the Torah on trial.
-MZ
>I hate it when my brethren make slanderous mis-statements about Judaism. We have to put up with enough of this crap from the anti-Semites, must we defile Judaism ourselves, too?
I hope you're not referring to my post. I was trying to be factual and truthful. I respect Judaim too much to have to pull punches.
>Anyway, the Shulchan Aruch was written in the 1560's by Yosef Karo.
True. But the book in question is the "Kitzur (Abridged) Shulchan Aruch" written by Rabbi Rabbi Shlomo Ganzfreid in the 19th century. It follows the order of the Shulchan Aruch, and isn't necessarily in disagreement with it, but it is not the same work.
"But the book in question is the "Kitzur (Abridged) Shulchan Aruch" written by Rabbi Rabbi Shlomo Ganzfreid in the 19th century"
Thanks for the clarification, but it still is putting Torah on trial and that I cannot accept.
However, I do owe you an apology because my frustration for this situation led me to imply you were the one slandering Judaism, when, rather, I was upset with the post by "epg" and wrongly lumped you into it.
Sorry for that.
-MZ
Jun. 29, 2005 8:38
Ukraine: Babi Yar memorial site vandalized
By JPOST.COM STAFF
The memorial to thousands of Ukrainian Jews massacred by the Nazis in Babi Yar, has been vandalized, head of the Kiev Jewish community Rabbi Yaakov Zilberman said Wednesday.
A group of teenagers from the United States, who on Tuesday visited the site, which is located minutes from downtown Kiev, discovered the vandalism, Israel Radio reported.
The rabbi said that they planned to file a complaint with the police.
The Babi Yar massacre began in late September 1941 when Nazi forces occupying Kiev ordered its Jews to gather and bring their warm clothes and valuables - as if they were to be deported.
The Jews were then marched to the brink of the steep Babi Yar ravine and shot. More than 33,700 Ukrainian Jews were killed over just a few days.
Within months, some 100,000 people, including thousands who were not Jewish, were executed in Babi Yar.
Hugh, and others,
Hugh, your posts are not "vague and bitter slurs." Your posts are narrow and particular, and whether critical or not, are not slurs.
I had intended that "vague and bitter slurs" would select the intended recipients but I can see why it wouldn't.
Perhaps I should have said something like "To many posters here but not all" and been more exlicit. As I shall be now:
"For Russians, anti-semitism is almost inborn (as is Lysenkoism)."
"I'm surprised the Russians could stay sober for long enough to launch this investigation."
There were other such "vague and bitter slurs" sprinkled here and there.
--Pilgrim, ISGK
MZ and others,
Links I found:
http://xeno.sova-center.ru/3BF1358/47E15F6
for which see an interesting and much less pessimistic and critical appraisal of the situation than that of many but not all who posted here:
"But Russian nationalism is also genetically related to anti-Semitism. That is why any growth of Russian nationalism may give rise to anti-Semitism in the society. It goes without saying that on the whole anti-Semitism is not a part of President’s policy or that of the authorities. Federal authorities give no ground for such suspicion. Here we mean indirect influence. It is important to understand whether growth of anti-Semitism of late is connected to the major political factor in the country, policy of federal authorities.
"Still no Parliamentary or circum-Parliamentary party can be called an anti-Semitic one. Even Vladimir Zhirinovsky makes fewer statements that can be interpreted as anti-Semitic ones, and his party is not so much contaminated with anti-Semitism as other nationalist parties or movements. But Zhirinovsky’s party actively promotes ethnic xenophobia in the broadest sense of the word, and this concerns Jews, too."
Another site of interest (I am restricting myself to sites relating specifically to Russia) is in Russian and I see no link to an English version:
http://www.antisemitismu.net/
The site name is a pun: "antisemitismu" is "antisemitism" in the dative (indirect object) case, and "net" is of course "nyet" i.e., "No!" So the site name means "'No!' to antisemitism."
--Pilgrim, ISGK
Robert,
You rhetorically ask: "They're looking for incitement to religious hatred, eh? Have they looked at a book that ..."
What if we made the question real and an "actionable item" rather than rhetorical? And for now let us set aside the question of whether or not the following is possible. Is it desirable? Or is it to be excluded by principle?
The idea that occurred to me is to try to make it so that this law inside Russia is invoked regarding a translation of the Koran into Russian. An analogous case to the one in the news item.
Many here were saying that it was dumb or wrong or a waste of time for the Russian authorities to be pursuing this Jewish book (straining out the gnat) while there is this big camel in the background. In a way I am trying to call these posters' bluff, in a friendly way.
As a thought experiment: what if one could help initiate a legal action by Russian citizens using this law in relation to a translation of the Koran into Russian? Would such a course of action be inherently wrong as a violation of the principles that underlie the first amendment? Or would it be a valid invocation of a law aimed at preventing or reducing religion-based hatred? Or would it be an allowable as a cynical public relations play doomed to produce no actual legal sanctions but producing useful headlines?
Anyhow, some folks seemed to be saying "Why don't the Russians ..." or "It would be cool if the Russians ..." or "It's dumb for the Russians not to ..." and so on. But that discussion was all predicated on the assumption that the Russians won't. What if we remove that axiom? What if, for discussion, it really could happen? What would folks say then?
--Pilgrim, ISGK