By David Twersky
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
January 24, 2001
WHIPPANY, N.J., — Following a Tuesday, Jan. 23 meeting with
visiting Israeli President Moshe
Katsav, Russian President Vladimir Putin said political upheaval in
Washington, DC and Jerusalem wouldn't upset
the Middle East peace process -- you can depend on Moscow.
Depending on Moscow isn't a very good idea for Israel, which is served
by an American dominated
diplomatic effort. It is unclear what benefits would accrue to Israel from
granting the former KGB official Putin a
place at the table.
But the real news from Moscow this week came Tuesday evening at a
Kremlin reception for Katzav.
According to our sources in Washington and Moscow, among the names the
Israeli president's office requested for
the invitation list were three rabbis, Adolf Shayevich, Berel Lazar and
Pinhas Goldschmidt. Significantly, Putin's
office only invited Lazar.
For most of the past year, Shayevich and Lazar have been dueling over
the title of chief rabbi. Shayevich is
associated with the Russian Jewish Congress, and Putin's ever more embattled
political foe, media magnate Vladimir
Goussinsky. (Goldschmidt is Moscow's head rabbi and is associated with
Shayevich and the Congress).
When Putin decided to move against the ``oligarchs," many of them
Jewish
like Goussinsky, he needed
protection from the charges of anti-Semitism sure to be revived in the West.
Putin's interests found fertile soil among
leaders of Russia's Chabad movement who formed their own Federation of
Jewish
Communities, naming Lazar chief
rabbi.
As the invitation list to the Katzav dinner shows, the government has not
recognized and dealt equally with the
different Jewish groups and denominations, despite an agreement hammered out
last June. (The Congress has
Reform and Conservative as well as Orthodox affiliates). Our Moscow sources
say the government is trying to
intimidate Jewish groups which are not part of the Chabad federation. In
effect, they say, Lazar has become the
government's rabbi, supporting Kremlin positions from increased involvement
in the Middle East to the return of
``the Stalin hymn'' as Russia's national anthem and defending the attacks on
Goussinsky as non-political.
In the good old Soviet days, the Kremlin had Sovietishe Heimland and
other communist apologists. To
Putin's credit, in a more complicated time, he has deployed a shrewder
policy. All this may be quite convenient for
Putin, but it does immense harm to the Jews.
