anti-Semitism, imported

February 13, 2007 - 2:53 PM by Sarah

From Ynet, a sad and disturbing story about certain immigrants from the Former Soviet Union — many of whom are not Jews — whose anti-Semitic attitudes find fertile grounds for expression in the Jewish State. Often their bigotry is directed at other Russian immigrants:

Ella Shapira from Tel Aviv is a veteran immigrant who came to Israel in 1976 from Leningrad. In her hometown, she was not able to pursue a career or get accepted to a university because she was a Jew. She personally experienced anti-Semitism and hoped that she could forget this unpleasant experience upon her arrival in Israel.

However she can tell of the many hateful utterances she has heard in the Russian stores, in public parks, or just in the streets. One incident, in 2001, even became physical, when a drunken man attacked her and yelled Russian slurs at her. “I walked in the streets and cried. “To where have we come, if in the Jewish state they humiliate me because I am Jewish”, she says.

Shapira is angered by the comprehensive disregard of the problem. “This is a subject that no one likes or is afraid to speak of. For the workers in the Jewish Agency, bringing new immigrants to Israel is a good business, many people profit from it. But they are bringing people who have no connection to Judaism, and some who have been brought up to hate it. I often encounter these situations. My outer appearance does not reveal my origins. Thus, a few weeks ago I went into a clothing store and the two saleswomen began to talk about me in Russian: ‘Here is a dirty Jew, she is going to touch everything and make it dirty.’ They were shocked when I answered them in Russian and explained to them that it is forbidden to speak that way”.

“I once heard a group of kids next to a school, cursing each other with the words “stinking Jew”. I decided that I had to approach them and find out why they had so much hatred towards Jews. They explained that until they came to Israel, they had no idea that they had any Jewish blood. Their parents and relatives, including those who had come to Israel- hated Jews…the word “Jew” in Russia was considered a bad word. Most of them were embarrassed to be Jews, hated it and learned from the Russians to hate Jews”.

Kinda makes one wonder why people who are inclined to paint swastikas on walls and desecrate mezuzahs would move to Israel to begin with. But the other level at which this story is disturbing is the number of other Israelis who will use it (and do) to make sweeping generalizations about Russian immigrants.

::sigh::

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