c. 1999 Religion News Service

MOSCOW _ When Vadim Kruglikov opened his tongue-in-cheek”The Truth About Jews”exhibit in a small art gallery here, he was expecting everyone to understand it as a parody of Russian anti-Semites. “There was a good number of people who came off the street, looked at the exhibit and viewed it as just that, `The Truth About Jews.’ They liked it,”said Kruglikov, 38, of the show that included a piece of matzoh identified as”the Jewish national food baked with Christian blood.” Such a reaction by gallery-goers underscores the depth of prejudice against Jews in Russian society, said Kruglikov, himself Jewish. The exhibit lampooning absurd Russian notions about Jews comes at a time when the country is experiencing a rash of anti-Semitism in public life not seen since the beginning of the century.

In recent months, hardline Communist politicians have repeatedly blamed Jewish businessmen, journalists and politicians for the country’s economic woes. One member of the Communist-dominated parliament, Gen. Albert Makashov, has called for sending Jews”into the next world.”A 15,000-member neo-Nazi party staged a march through Moscow streets at the end of January.

Anti-Semitism is nothing new in Russia, where czarist police authored the”Protocols of the Elders of Zion”and Communist authorities enforced quotas limiting the number of Jews admitted to universities and party posts. But the current wave, coming with an economic crisis that has impoverished much of the population, is especially ominous because of Russians’ rising anger.”It has put fear into the Jews who are living here,”said Alla Gerber, a Jewish politician who is president of Russia’s Holocaust Fund.”It has again raised the question of what to do, whether to leave or not.” Despite a massive post-Soviet emigration to Israel and the United States, about 500,000 Jews remain in Russia. About half of them live in Moscow, which has enjoyed a Jewish renaissance of sorts and now boasts four synagogues, along with Jewish secondary schools, university programs, theaters and restaurants.

Gerber contrasted the current wave of anti-Semitism with the Soviet-era institutional discrimination that never would have countenanced such a blossoming of Jewish culture. “The anti-Semitism is nothing now like it was on a government level before Gorbachev,”she said.”In the way people are treated, in getting work, in taking part in different activities, in real terms it was worse then.” Russian presidential hopefuls and the man they hope to replace, Boris Yeltsin, have denounced the new anti-Semitism. So has the head of the 80-million-member Russian Orthodox Church, Alexii II.

The West, too, has weighed in. Last month in Brooklyn, some 1,000 Jewish emigres from Russia voiced their concern at a protest meeting. During a January visit to Moscow, Israeli foreign minister Ariel Sharon raised the issue with his Russian counterpart.

Such condemnations mean little to Makashov, the Communist legislator recognized as starting the most recent wave of verbal attacks on Jews with a televised speech and newspaper article. In a recent interview in his cramped office near Red Square, Makashov was decidedly unrepentant, saying Hitler’s armies had been less of a threat to Russia than were today’s Jews. “For us, the Fascists were a clear enemy and we conquered them,”said Makashov, 60, a stout man with a stern demeanor.”The Zionists are a kind of internal enemy, a kind of inconspicuous enemy, a kind of internationalist enemy. And, as a result, Zionism and its representatives have destroyed our government.” Although Makashov is a member of a hardline, nationalist wing of the Russia’s still powerful Communist Party, the Party’s leadership has refused to condemn him, as has the Duma, the lower house of parliament. This, Russian political analysts say, is a troubling sign when a mainstream party which controls the Duma tacitly condones Makashov.

Far less mainstream an anti-Semite than Makashov is Alexander Shtilmark. He leads the Black Hundred, a group of several hundred people who take their name from the pre-Revolutionary organization that claimed millions of members, counted the czar as a supporter and systematically raped, tortured and killed tens of thousands of Jews in pogroms.

Shtilmark, a 44-year-old high school history teacher, peddles many of the same Jewish conspiracy theories as Makashov but adds a strong dose of Russian Orthodoxy. In his 5,000-circulation magazine, Shtilmark calls for the restoration of the monarchy, the adoption of Orthodoxy as a state religion and the return to Orthodox values. “We need to pray more, pray that God frees us from this government, frees us from the criminals,”said Shtilmark during an interview in a Moscow hospital room he was sharing with five other men with respiratory ailments.

Like other devout ultranationalists, Shtilmark views Russia’s destiny as messianic, as a preserver of Christianity and upholder of truth.”We are not fighting against the Jewish people but against the ideology of criminal Jewish fascism,”he continued.”In the Talmud it is written that the Jews are the chosen people. Why are they the chosen people and not us?” Both Makashov and Shtilmark are under investigation for violating Russia’s anti-hate laws. Makashov is accused of using the word”zhidy”_ or yids _ to describe Jews in rallies last fall. Shtilmark’s group is being scrutinized for staging a November demonstration outside the Duma where protesters carried placards bearing messages including”Kill the Jews.” Despite all the ugly speech, it doesn’t seem to have resulted in a rise in anti-Semitic violence. Last May, a bomb exploded outside a Moscow synagogue and over the summer there were two cases of Jewish cemeteries being vandalized in Moscow. All three incidents came before the August economic crisis and Makashov’s October speeches. “It is no more dangerous to be a Jew here than it was six months ago,”said Boris Usherenko, executive director of the Russian Jewish Congress, a secular group representing Jewish groups across Russia.”We think that Jews can and will and must live here.” According to political analyst Vladimir Pribylovsky, the uproar over anti-Semitism has few significant political implications other than discrediting and dividing the Communist Party. “There is that everyday anti-Semitism of a noticeable part of the population, maybe 10 or 20 percent. They think that Jews are too active in society but this is not so important to them. It doesn’t affect how they would vote,”said Pribylovsky, who runs the Moscow-based Panorama Research Center.”Then there is another group, maybe it is 3 or 5 percent of the people, for whom the Jewish question is the most important in life. They vote according to that.”

DEA END BROWN