Russian Antisemitism and Other Stories
This story raised the hairs on my neck because of my familiarity with Russian history. It raises questions about where things are heading for Mountain Jews in Dagestan. These kinds of so-called fakes preceded Progroms during the Tsarist period.
One good example is the Kishinev Pogrom of 1903:
It was a moment that cast a shadow so deep, wide, and variegated as to leave its imprint on Jews, on Jew-haters, and on wounds licked ever since,” wrote Zipperstein. In addition to the murder of 49 Jews, at least 600 Jewish women were raped, and hundreds more injured. Although the town’s Jews organized at least one large-scale defense action, this resistance was largely ignored for decades, buried in the notebooks of Zionist reporters sent to cover the atrocities.
Located in Tsarist Russia’s fertile Bessarabia region, turn-of-the-century Kishinev was home to about 55,000 Jews among a population of 280,000. Today, the city is called Chisinau, and is the capital of the Republic of Moldova. Wedged between Ukraine and Romania, the small country is home to 15,000 Jews, most of whom live in the city that defined the word pogrom in 1903.
As with other attacks organized against Jews, the Kishinev pogrom began with a “blood libel,” or the accusation that Jews murdered a Christian child to use its blood for ritual purposes. The region’s anti-Semitic intellectuals, including journalists, played a key role in stirring up animosity against Jews, making sure the masses knew it was permissible — and even desirable — to deal with them harshly.
“From its start their attack on Jews was justified as self-defense, a reasonable response to a pariah people, capable of any and all transgressions,” wrote Zipperstein, a professor of Jewish history and culture at Stanford University in California.
I bring to your attention that pogrom because it echoes to the present. That particular form of blood libel goes to the Middle Ages. It was a common belief that Jews used the blood of Christian children to make unleavened bread. These days, it is transferred to reporting from Gaza. Even after the UN revised numbers, because quite honestly, Hamas knows what it is doing.
Given that history, this should not be a surprise. The Jewish community is small and just lost a temple in Derbent. There are not that many temples to begin with. As I pointed out the other day, it was not considered a historic building, and it was from the 19th century. So here is the post:
Information about the land allocation for the construction of synagogues and Jewish centers is fake!
An alleged decree of the head of Dagestan on the allocation of land plots for the construction of five synagogues and two Jewish cultural centers in the region is being circulated on social networks and messengers. Specialists from the Regional Management Center turned to the Administration of the Head and Government of Dagestan for clarification, where they called the information fake.
“Such a decree has not existed and is not planned, it is a fake. In addition, there were many errors in the document,” explained the RD AGiP.
The SDG of Dagestan calls for trusting only official sources. You can also check the accuracy of the information in the comments of the channel and the center’s communities.
So, let me introduce you to tropes. This is a version of Jews controlling high places. Mind you, this community is small. In my view, it’s also in danger of getting ethnically cleansed. We are talking of 300–400 families. They just lost their temple. So they were going to build five temples? Ok, it indeed tracks, not.
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