Quarter of Russia’s 200 Top Billionaires Are Jews
A member of Russia’s Human Rights Council condemned a news website that said that nearly a quarter of Russia’s top billionaires are Jews.
Nikolai Svanidze of the council – a Kremlin-affiliated body with no executive powers –- made the condemnation last week against Lenta.ru, which analyzed according to faith and ethnicity the Forbes Magazine list for 2014 of people Forbes identified as Russia’s wealthiest.
The Lenta.ru study claimed that 48 of the 200 richest Russians were Jews, who own a total capital of $122.3 billion. Ukrainians also owned an outsized share of Russia’s private capital, the publication claimed.
“It’s a Nazi and racist approach,” Svandiza was quoted as saying by the Slon.ru news site.
But Yuri Kanner, president of the Russian Jewish Congress, defended the decision to publish the study.
“If you cannot compare the proportion of representatives of various nationalities in the general ethnic composition of the country, it is impossible to understand who is really successful and who is not,” he told the currsorinfo.co.il news website on Oct. 29.
He said, however, that he doubted the authenticity of the research.
“The proportion of Jews in the population of the Russian Federation is calculated incorrectly. Besides, to compare the Jewish population, which is mainly concentrated in the major cities and has a university degree, with a total mass of Russian citizens, it is not accurate,” Kanner said.
Among the people listed in the Lenta study as Jewish were Mikhail Fridman ($17.6 billion); Viktor Vekselberg ($17.2 billion) and Leonid Michelson.
They did not identify themselves to Lenta as Jewish, the news website said.
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.