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News Is Vladimir Putin’s Embrace of Jews for Real — or Political Show?
(JTA) — When even Russian policemen had to pass security checks to enter the Sochi Winter Olympics, Rabbi Berel Lazar was waved in without ever showing his ID. Lazar, a Chabad-affiliated chief rabbi of Russia, was invited to the opening ceremony of the games last month by President Vladimir Putin’s office. But since the event…
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Fast Forward Latvia Warns Against Nazi Veterans March Amid Ukraine Tension
Latvia’s government warned people to avoid an annual march of World War Two Waffen SS veterans through its capital Riga on Sunday, citing tensions over Ukraine. Many of Latvia’s large Russian-speaking minority say the event distorts history, honours Nazism and insults the victims of the conflict. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s intervention in Ukraine’s Crimea, on…
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Opinion Why Vladimir Putin Will Keep Playing Jewish Card in Ukraine Crisis
The Kremlin has issued more condemnations of anti-Semitism in the past week than in the preceding decade. The danger of anti-Semitism was on the lips of the Russian Ambassador to the United Nations, Vitaly Churkin, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, and President Vladimir Putin himself. Not Russian anti-Semitism, of course. It was Ukrainian “Neo-Nazism, fascism and…
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Fast Forward Russian Jewish National Was Aboard Missing Malaysian Airlines Plane
One of the passengers aboard the Malaysian Airlines plane that vanished is a Jewish Russian national. Nikolai Brodskii, 43, of the Siberian city of Irkutsk, appears on the missing plane’s passenger manifest. He is a husband and father of sons aged 17 and 11. Rabbi Aharon Wagner, a Chabad rabbi for the region, contacted Brodskii’s…
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News How Do I Tell My Russian Host Family I’m a Jew?
When I was 18 years old I lived for six months with a family in the provincial Russian city of Novgorod. It was 1995, just four years after the fall of the Soviet Union, and I was the first Englishman that most people in Novgorod had ever met. My host family and their relatives had…
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News Why Tiny Ukraine Jewish Community Plays Key Role in Propaganda War
Jews make up just 0.2% of Ukraine’s 44.5 million population. But to hear activists, analysts and commentators discussing the Ukrainian crisis, a listener could be forgiven for thinking that the fate of Ukrainian Jews is one of the central issues at stake. In recent weeks, Russian and Ukrainian politicians, as well as Ukrainian-Jewish leaders, have…
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Fast Forward Some Crimea Jews Express Support For Russian Military Incursion in Crimea
(JTA) — Shortly after Russian soldiers occupied the Crimean city of Sevastopol last week, Leah Cyrlikova took her two children out for an afternoon stroll in a city park. When they passed a group of soldiers, they stopped to have a friendly chat and pose with them for photos. While many Ukrainian Jews have strongly condemned…
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Fast Forward Ukraine Chief Rabbi Accuses Russia of Anti-Semitic ‘Provocations’ in Crimea
Rabbi Yaakov Dov Bleich, a chief rabbi of Ukraine, accused Russia of staging anti-Semitic “provocations” in Crimea in order to justify its invasion of the former Soviet republic. At a press conference in the Manhattan office of the United Jewish Communities of Eastern Europe, Bleich compared Russia’s behavior to that of the Nazis prior to…
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Opinion Israel deported me for helping West Bank Palestinians. I won’t give up on a peaceful future for the country I love
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Culture Hey, Irving — why are there so many Jews named Irving?
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Culture A shocking true story of Mexico’s Jewish community comes to Netflix
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Books Esteemed by Oscar Wilde, England’s ‘greatest Jewess’ may finally be getting her due
In Case You Missed It
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Fast Forward Germany’s antisemitism czar says slogans like ‘From the river to the sea’ should be illegal
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Fast Forward There’s something missing from John Fetterman’s memoir: Israel
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Looking Forward How a Russian samovar connects me to the old country — and my black market dealing great-great-grandmother
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Fast Forward Mark Mellman, pollster who championed Democrats and Israel, dies
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