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Russian Jews Are Still Coming to Israel
Russian President Vladimir Putin and then Chief of the General Staff of Russian Armed Forces Valery Gerasimov attend an annual meeting of the Defence Ministry Board in Moscow, Russia, December 21, 2022. Photo: Sputnik/Mikhail Kuravlev/Kremlin via REUTERS/File Photo
I was young when I first learned about the six million Jews who died in the Holocaust. I knew that this number represented two thirds of the Jews of Europe. To make matters worse, I learned that more than three million were trapped behind the Iron Curtain, in the Soviet Union and its satellite neighbors.
Then, a miracle took place, and Soviet Jews were given exit visas. In response to pressure from within and without, by the year 2000, two million Jews had left the Former Soviet Union.
According to the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, more than 1.3 million individuals immigrated to Israel between the founding of the state in 1948 and the year 2021 from the Former Soviet Union.
Amazingly, the Russians are still coming. More than 83,000 emigres from Russia have come to Israel since the start of the Ukraine-Russia war in early 2022, according to figures from the Aliyah and Integration Ministry. Moreover, according to a report published on the anniversary of October 7 by The Moscow Times, these immigrants feel that political tensions in Russia are personally more dangerous than the multi-front war Israel is currently fighting.
In fact, Jews from both Russia and Ukraine have been immigrating to Israel since the start of the war. Most are not Jewish according to strict Jewish religious law. They are immigrating in accordance with the Law of Return, which gives an individual with one Jewish grandparent the right to Israeli citizenship. However, citing Israeli data, Interfax, a Russian non-governmental news agency in Moscow, reported that in 2023, nearly 70% of the 45,000 immigrants who came to Israel were from Russia, while only 4.5 % were from Ukraine.
If that information is indeed accurate, what explains this difference? Both Ukraine and Russia still have Jewish notable Jewish populations. Moreover, indiscriminate Russian attacks have killed thousands of Ukrainian civilians. There is no Iron Dome in Ukraine. If anything, civilian life in Ukraine is much more harrowing than that experienced by Israelis.
A blog in The Times of Israel by Anna Abramzon, an artist based in Los Angeles, may be relevant to answer that question. Abramzon writes that while many American Jews are shocked by the antisemitism unleashed after the brutal Hamas pogrom on October 7, those who grew up in the Soviet Union are not.
She cites several recent examples of discrimination toward American Jews. These include the cancellation of an exhibit by a Jewish artist, the reluctance by university presidents to renounce antisemitism, the retraction by an American literary magazine of an essay by a left-wing Israeli writer, and whether Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro was considered too Jewish to be a vice presidential running mate in the US election.
Abramzon writes, “Jews knew their limits in Soviet society. There was only so far a Jew could get professionally, educationally, or socially in the Soviet Union. Universities had quotas; travel visas abroad were impossible. You could be talented, hardworking, and even a loyal Communist, but first and foremost, you would always be a Jew.”
To Abramzon, it is this kind discrimination, and the impact it has on limiting the freedom of an individual to make life choices, that may now be experienced by American Jews. Life for Jews in Ukraine may not be a bed of roses (the Democracy Index rates Ukraine to be a hybrid regime, not a democracy), but, this is a far cry from the autocratic regime that rules Russia today.
Abramzon ends her blog stating, “There is a vast space between ‘Globalize the Intifada’ and Auschwitz, but there is no reason we have to settle for living in it.”
Is she suggesting that North American Jews make aliyah too?
Jacob Sivak, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, is a retired professor, University of Waterloo.
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Iran, US Task Experts to Design Framework for a Nuclear Deal, Tehran Says
Atomic symbol and USA and Iranian flags are seen in this illustration taken, September 8, 2022. Photo: REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
Iran and the United States agreed on Saturday to task experts to start drawing up a framework for a potential nuclear deal, Iran’s foreign minister said, after a second round of talks following President Donald Trump’s threat of military action.
At their second indirect meeting in a week, Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi negotiated for almost four hours in Rome with Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, through an Omani official who shuttled messages between them.
Trump, who abandoned a 2015 nuclear pact between Tehran and world powers during his first term in 2018, has threatened to attack Iran unless it reaches a new deal swiftly that would prevent it from developing a nuclear weapon.
Iran, which says its nuclear program is peaceful, says it is willing to discuss limited curbs to its atomic work in return for lifting international sanctions.
Speaking on state TV after the talks, Araqchi described them as useful and conducted in a constructive atmosphere.
“We were able to make some progress on a number of principles and goals, and ultimately reached a better understanding,” he said.
“It was agreed that negotiations will continue and move into the next phase, in which expert-level meetings will begin on Wednesday in Oman. The experts will have the opportunity to start designing a framework for an agreement.”
The top negotiators would meet again in Oman next Saturday to “review the experts’ work and assess how closely it aligns with the principles of a potential agreement,” he added.
Echoing cautious comments last week from Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, he added: “We cannot say for certain that we are optimistic. We are acting very cautiously. There is no reason either to be overly pessimistic.”
There was no immediate comment from the US side following the talks. Trump told reporters on Friday: “I’m for stopping Iran, very simply, from having a nuclear weapon. They can’t have a nuclear weapon. I want Iran to be great and prosperous and terrific.”
Washington’s ally Israel, which opposed the 2015 agreement with Iran that Trump abandoned in 2018, has not ruled out an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities in the coming months, according to an Israeli official and two other people familiar with the matter.
Since 2019, Iran has breached and far surpassed the 2015 deal’s limits on its uranium enrichment, producing stocks far above what the West says is necessary for a civilian energy program.
A senior Iranian official, who described Iran’s negotiating position on condition of anonymity on Friday, listed its red lines as never agreeing to dismantle its uranium enriching centrifuges, halt enrichment altogether or reduce its enriched uranium stockpile below levels agreed in the 2015 deal.
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Hamas Says Fate of US-Israeli Hostage Unknown After Guard Killed in Israel Strike
Varda Ben Baruch, the grandmother of Edan Alexander, 19, an Israeli army volunteer kidnapped by Hamas, attends a special Kabbalat Shabbat ceremony with families of other hostages, in Herzliya, Israel October 27, 2023 REUTERS/Kuba Stezycki
Hamas said on Saturday the fate of an Israeli dual national soldier believed to be the last US citizen held alive in Gaza was unknown, after the body of one of the guards who had been holding him was found killed by an Israeli strike.
A month after Israel abandoned the ceasefire with the resumption of intensive strikes across the breadth of Gaza, Israel was intensifying its attacks.
President Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff said in March that freeing Edan Alexander, a 21-year-old New Jersey native who was serving in the Israeli army when he was captured during the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks that precipitated the war, was a “top priority.” His release was at the center of talks held between Hamas leaders and US negotiator Adam Boehler last month.
Hamas had said on Tuesday that it had lost contact with the militants holding Alexander after their location was hit in an Israeli attack. On Saturday it said the body of one of the guards had been recovered.
“The fate of the prisoner and the rest of the captors remains unknown,” said Hamas armed wing Al-Qassam Brigades’ spokesperson Abu Ubaida.
“We are trying to protect all the hostages and preserve their lives … but their lives are in danger because of the criminal bombings by the enemy’s army,” Abu Ubaida said.
The Israeli military did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Hamas released 38 hostages under the ceasefire that began on January 19. Fifty-nine are still believed to be held in Gaza, fewer than half of them still alive.
Israel put Gaza under a total blockade in March and restarted its assault on March 18 after talks failed to extend the ceasefire. Hamas says it will free remaining hostages only under an agreement that permanently ends the war; Israel says it will agree only to a temporary pause.
On Friday, the Israeli military said it hit about 40 targets across the enclave over the past day. The military on Saturday announced that a 35-year-old soldier had died in combat in Gaza.
NETANYAHU STATEMENT
Late on Thursday Khalil Al-Hayya, Hamas’ Gaza chief, said the movement was willing to swap all remaining 59 hostages for Palestinians jailed in Israel in return for an end to the war and reconstruction of Gaza.
He dismissed an Israeli offer, which includes a demand that Hamas lay down its arms, as imposing “impossible conditions.”
Israel has not responded formally to Al-Hayya’s comments, but ministers have said repeatedly that Hamas must be disarmed completely and can play no role in the future governance of Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to give a statement later on Saturday.
Hamas on Saturday also released an undated and edited video of Israeli hostage Elkana Bohbot. Hamas has released several videos over the course of the war of hostages begging to be released. Israeli officials have dismissed past videos as propaganda.
After the video was released, Bohbot’s family said in a statement that they were “deeply shocked and devastated,” and expressed concern for his mental and physical condition.
“How much longer will he be expected to wait and ‘stay strong’?” the family asked, urging for all of the 59 hostages who are still held in Gaza to be brought home.
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Oman’s Sultan to Meet Putin in Moscow After Iran-US Talks
FILE PHOTO: Sultan Haitham bin Tariq al-Said gives a speech after being sworn in before the royal family council in Muscat, Oman January 11, 2020. Photo: REUTERS/Sultan Al Hasani/File Photo
Oman’s Sultan Haitham bin Tariq al-Said is set to visit Moscow on Monday, days after the start of a round of Muscat-mediated nuclear talks between the US and Iran.
The sultan will hold talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday, the Kremlin said.
Iran and the US started a new round of nuclear talks in Rome on Saturday to resolve their decades-long standoff over Tehran’s atomic aims, under the shadow of President Donald Trump’s threat to unleash military action if diplomacy fails.
Ahead of Saturday’s talks, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi met his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Moscow. Following the meeting, Lavrov said Russia was “ready to assist, mediate and play any role that will be beneficial to Iran and the USA.”
Moscow has played a role in Iran’s nuclear negotiations in the past as a veto-wielding U.N. Security Council member and signatory to an earlier deal that Trump abandoned during his first term in 2018.
The sultan’s meetings in Moscow visit will focus on cooperation on regional and global issues, the Omani state news agency and the Kremlin said, without providing further detail.
The two leaders are also expected to discuss trade and economic ties, the Kremlin added.
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