Several young Jews swept up in Belarus crackdown
Opposition supporters protest against disputed presidential elections results at Independence Square in Minsk on August 18, 2020. Image by SERGEI GAPON/AFP via Getty Images
By David Ian Klein August 21, 2020
Ever since disputed election results were announced two weeks ago, hundreds of thousands of people have gathered in the streets of Belarus to call for the end of President Alexander Lukashenko’s 26-year rule.
In response, security forces have arrested thousands of protesters, with hundreds reported injured and nearly half a dozen killed. Reports have emerged of guards conducting beatings, threats and even torture on detainees.
Belarusian Jews say that leaders of the community – which comprises about 20,000 people — have tried to remain neutral, but that several young Jews have been swept up in the crackdown.
Artur Raisky and Albert Kengerli, both alumni of the Reform Jewish youth group Netzer, were picked up last week by authorities and spent days in detention.
According to Raisky, they were not even part of the protests. “We were just walking on the street downtown going to McDonalds and suddenly riot police came up to us and took us to a police bus,” he told the Times of Israel.
Raisky said he experienced no antisemitism in detention, another detainee told a different story. Alexander Fruman, an Israeli national who was born in Minsk but does not today have Belarusian citizenship, reportedly was beaten mercilessly, forced to sing patriotic songs and showered with antisemitic insults. When the police learned he was Israeli, they threatened him with a second circumcision, the Times of Israel reported.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and the protests on college campuses.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
