On Monday, an expert group of the Russian Jewish community presented a report “Anti-Semitism in Russia in 2010.” The main conclusion of the document: over the past year in Russia there has been a decrease in manifestations of anti-Semitism. However, the authors admit that there are more cases of anti-Semitism in Russia than are recorded by monitoring, and compare the situation to a smoldering peat bog.

The presented report was prepared by an expert group of the Russian Jewish community on the problems of anti-Semitism, which was created in 2007. The founders of the expert group are the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia, the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress and the Federal Jewish National-Cultural Autonomy. Representatives of these organizations have been conducting annual research on anti-Semitism since 2007. “The report is formed from the data we have collected, which we take from open sources, that is, from the media, reports from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, as well as from statements from citizens,” Andrei Glotser, a member of the group and press secretary of the Chief Rabbi of Russia Berl Lazar, told Kommersant. report - to draw public attention to the situation in the field of xenophobia and anti-Semitism in Russia.”

“In 2010, the decline in the number of registered manifestations of anti-Semitism in various forms of public manifestation, noted in two previous reports, continued,” the report says. “The number of incidents involving violence against Jews and vandalism remains insignificant.” The report’s authors note that “anti-Semitism has virtually disappeared from public political discourse in government.” Over the past year, there were only three violent attacks, one desecration of graves, 13 attacks on buildings occupied by synagogues and Jewish organizations, and 25 cases of making anti-Semitic inscriptions and graffiti. In total, 45 incidents were recorded in 2010. Separately, the authors of the document highlighted the events on Manezhnaya Square that occurred on December 11, 2010. “Anti-Semitic literature, which is openly sold at the largest book fairs in Moscow, remains a powerful channel for the penetration of anti-Semitic stereotypes into the mass consciousness,” the document says. “Holocaust denial remains an integral part of anti-Semitic propaganda.”

Experts call one of the reasons for the decline in the growth of anti-Semitism in Russia “the intensification of the authorities to suppress extremist activities.”

However, the authors of the document admit that there are more cases of anti-Semitism in Russia than are recorded by monitoring. “The situation with anti-Semitism resembles a smoldering peat bog: widespread latent anti-Semitism under certain circumstances can lead to an explosion,” the authors of the report are convinced. “Persons who have tainted themselves with xenophobic and anti-Semitic calls should not work in the field of education, the media, or in the civil service.”

Pavel Korobov

Anti-Semitism in Russia is on the decline