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Russians’ Negative Views About Israel Are Unprecedented in Modern Times
Russian President Vladimir Putin shakes hands with then-Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi during a meeting in Moscow, Russia, Dec. 7, 2023. Photo: Sputnik/Sergei Bobylev/Pool via REUTERS
A year has passed since the beginning of the war that Israel, with the support of its allies, primarily the United States, has been waging against the “Axis of Evil” — an anti-Western alliance consisting of Iran, its satellites (Syria, Iraq), and terrorist proxies that have effectively taken control of their respective regions, such as Hezbollah and Hamas.
As the conflict escalates, the issue of international support for Israel’s actions has become increasingly pressing.
Of particular concern to Jerusalem, naturally, is the stance of Western countries, especially Israel’s allies, most notably the United States and several key European nations.
As the fighting intensifies, the diplomatic rhetoric of these governments has increasingly emphasized the “humanitarian dimension” of the conflict, largely driven by the growing trends in local public opinion, which are not always favorable to the Jewish State. However, a closer look reveals that the sympathies of some segments of the public in democratic countries towards the Palestinian Arabs do not, in most cases, translate into support for the radical Islamist terrorist groups in the Middle East. The primary diplomatic message from Washington and the majority of its NATO partners remains steadfast support for Israel’s right to self-defense.
Another perspective is that of the so-called “Global South,” a diverse and loosely organized conglomerate of developing and moderately developed countries from the Third World and, to some extent, the former Second World. The majority of these nations tend to hold either moderately pro-Palestinian views regarding the current Middle Eastern conflict or, more commonly, remain neutral. However, this does not prevent both groups from almost automatically voting in favor of anti-Israel resolutions at the UN, in line with the traditions of the still residual “Non-Aligned Movement.” The approach of regimes vying for leadership of the “Global South” looks fundamentally different. Competing for this status, they attempt, to varying degrees, to challenge the global economic and political dominance of the so-called “Global West,” typically associated with the US-led bloc of “old” and “old-new” democracies of both the New and Old Worlds.
The discussion is generally about Russia, China, and, to a lesser extent, India. While Delhi, whose relations with Jerusalem have reached a state of strategic partnership in recent years, maintains a largely neutral position in the conflict between Israel and Iran, as well as its Arab proxies, Moscow and Beijing have taken sides — and it’s clearly not Israel’s side.
China’s support for Iran remains largely moral, and Tehran has little chance of dragging Beijing into a direct confrontation with Israel. However, Russia’s support for its current closest partner in the region — Iran — is significantly more tangible, despite some differences between them. This includes direct solidarity from Moscow with Tehran’s Arab satellites, including Hamas and Hezbollah.
All of this significantly distinguishes the current situation from Moscow’s previous strategy of balancing and mediating between nearly all parties involved in the Middle East conflict, which was intended to position itself as an “impartial mediator.”
Factors of Views of Israel in the Russians Public Discourse
Over the course of 12 months of Israel’s war with Iranian proxies, the Russian leadership’s propaganda and diplomatic efforts in support of these regimes and groups, often loosely and not always convincingly framed as “solidarity with the Palestinians,” have become quite significant. On the flip side of this trend, there has been a series of anti-Israel moves, featuring elements bordering on antisemitism.
Unsurprisingly, the reaction of Russian society, which is highly susceptible to official propaganda — particularly pro-Kremlin television (which, according to polls, remains the main source of information for Russians) — and “patriotic” Telegram channels, has also shifted.
Public sentiment among Russians, who were generally quite favorable toward Israel in the past, changed almost instantly. This is notable given that, according to public opinion monitoring conducted by the reputable Levada Center since 1988, Israel has historically been viewed positively in Russia. The country’s economically established, younger, and better-educated citizens, as well as residents of Moscow, have been the most likely to show interest in and sympathy toward Israel.
Twenty years ago, in 2004, over two-thirds of respondents in a Levada Center poll reported very positive or somewhat positive attitudes toward Israel, while fewer than one-fifth of those surveyed held the opposite view. One possible factor contributing to such favorable sentiments was the emerging public partnership between Jerusalem and Moscow in the fight against terrorist groups. This included Russia’s willingness — expressed by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov during a visit to Israel — to learn from Israel’s experience following the Beslan school tragedy in North Ossetia, where an attack by armed Islamists killed over 350 people, half of them children.
However, by 2006, the proportion of those with positive views of Israel had dropped by about half, while the share of those holding negative opinions increased from less than 20% to over 30%.
A March 2006 poll appears to have captured a surge in public frustration, likely driven by the sharp and widely discussed response from official Jerusalem to Moscow’s refusal to classify Hezbollah and Hamas as terrorist organizations. This frustration was compounded by the high-level reception of a Hamas delegation in the same month (and again a year later), led by Khaled Mashal, the head of the group’s political bureau and one of Israel’s most bitter enemies. Additionally, the Hamas delegation’s meeting with Patriarch Alexy II, head of the Russian Orthodox Church, was seen by many as not just political but also religious legitimization of the radical Islamist group.
These negative sentiments among the Russian public regarding Israel were, at the very least, not softened during the 34-day Second Lebanon War in July–August 2006, when the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) launched an operation against Hezbollah, the pro-Iranian Shia terrorist group controlling southern and eastern Lebanon.
The rise in Russian-Israeli relations began in the second half of the 2000s, as Russia reestablished itself as a significant player in the Middle East. Moscow recognized that, unlike the Soviet Union, modern Russia could not rely solely on its ties to the Arab world and sought greater understanding with Israel as well. This approach was positively received by Israel’s leadership at the time. The shift toward a close partnership with Russia was considered one of the foreign policy priorities of Benjamin Netanyahu’s second government (2009–2013). Netanyahu viewed his personal relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin as a valuable political asset.
Most of the second decade of the 21st century indeed saw a significant revitalization of Russian-Israeli relations, including rapid growth in mutual trade, as well as increased cooperation in economic, technological, scientific, cultural, and humanitarian sectors — although the scale of this cooperation lagged behind the real potential of both countries. Political dialogue at the highest levels was also very active. While these political and diplomatic contacts were “more symbolic than practical,” as noted by prominent Russian political analyst Fyodor Lukyanov, this symbolism reflected an unusual situation where “Russia’s relations with Israel were better than with almost the entire Arab world. Apart from the Iran issue, there were few significant points of differences between Moscow and Tel Aviv [sic]. Meanwhile, Russia’s cooling relations with most Arab regimes were tied to its support for Syria.”
This positive portrayal of Russian-Israeli relations in both federal and regional Russian media was paralleled by a gradual improvement in Russian public opinion toward Israel. By 2010, according to Levada Center data, favorable attitudes toward Israel had peaked at 70%. However, over the next decade, this support steadily declined. A notable exception was a sharp drop in 2014, likely in response to the Israel Defense Forces’ (IDF) anti-terror operation in Gaza, Protective Edge. Nonetheless, this dip was short-lived, and thanks to the relatively balanced position taken by Russian authorities during the conflict, public sympathies for Israel rebounded to around 60%. This level of support remained fairly stable over the following four years.
The 2015–2017 agreements on the “deconfliction” of Russian and Israeli interests in Syria, as well as numerous meetings — around two dozen – between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Benjamin Netanyahu, likely played a key role in the development of their relations. Netanyahu, who valued his warm personal relationship with Putin as a crucial factor in bilateral cooperation and a significant resource for both his foreign and domestic policies, met with Putin roughly twice as often as he met with US presidents during the same period. However, even at that time, it was clear that this was more of a tactical partnership, based on overlapping interests and mutually agreed-upon “rules of the game.” As a result, there were lingering concerns that if the political landscape changed, so would the interests.
The first signal that these fears were well-founded came with the incident in the skies over Syria on September 23, 2018. During this incident, one of the dozens of missiles fired by Syrian air defense batteries equipped with Russian S-200 systems shot down a Russian IL-20 electronic intelligence aircraft. The Russian side quickly blamed the Israeli Air Force, which had been conducting an operation to destroy Iranian equipment intended for the production of precision missiles in Syria. According to Israeli and foreign media, by the time the Syrian forces began their “indiscriminate firing,” the Israeli F-16s had already completed their mission and were back in Israeli airspace.
Despite this, the Russian Ministry of Defense — and to a lesser extent, the Kremlin—blamed Israel without substantiation. However, both Jerusalem and Moscow soon moved to de-escalate the diplomatic conflict, clearly showing a desire to maintain their coordination mechanism in Syria. It was harder to ignore the “patriotic” campaigns in many Russian media outlets, including federal TV channels, where numerous public figures competed in making harsh anti-Israel statements, some of which bordered on or crossed into antisemitism. Although this media campaign was quickly wound down—likely due to guidance from relevant authorities—it became evident that the reintroduction of Soviet-era anti-Israel and antisemitic clichés into Russia’s legitimate public discourse was a real possibility, should such narratives be required by the government.
The impact of this political atmosphere on the Russian public was quickly evident. The once-positive attitude of Russians toward Israel began to sharply decline, while negative sentiment toward the Jewish State increased in parallel. For example, compared to 2018, when 60% of surveyed Russians still had a “very positive” or “mostly positive” view of Israel, and less than one-fifth held an opposing view, by 2020 Israel’s positive rating had dropped by 10%, while negative perceptions rose by 50%.
This trend accelerated dramatically after the start of the war in Ukraine in February 2022, and even more so with the onset of Israel’s war with the Iranian bloc in October 2023. Although Israel, unlike NATO member states that provided Ukraine with security guarantees, did not directly align itself with the Western coalition opposing Russia, official Jerusalem condemned the Russian invasion, offered significant humanitarian and material aid to Ukraine, provided diplomatic and political support, and supplied the Ukrainian Armed Forces with some types of defensive and non-lethal equipment. Despite attempts to maintain a sense of “business as usual,” this approach caused notable irritation within the Russian leadership. Consequently, public support for Israel among Russians dropped to 35%, a historic low, nearly matching the share of those holding a negative view of Israel for the first time in Levada Center’s years of polling.
By September 2024, 51% of Russians expressed a negative attitude toward Israel, marking a 34 percentage point increase from 2018. Meanwhile, positive sentiment toward Israel fell by 32 percentage points, reaching just 27%.
Since the collapse of the USSR, Russian-Israeli relations have experienced both highs and lows, but the current situation, where the number of Russians with a negative view of Israel nearly doubles the number of its supporters, is unprecedented in the post-Soviet era.
It seems reasonable to assume that the opinions and sentiments of Russians, at least regarding the subject of this text, are largely — if not entirely — a reflection of the foreign policy vision of the Russian political establishment, shaped by the tools it controls to influence public consciousness. In other words, we are witnessing a phenomenon that, until recently, appeared to be a relic of the distant past.
Prof. Vladimir (Ze’ev) Khanin lectures in Political Studies at Bar-Ilan University and is Academic Chairman of the Institute for Euro-Asian Jewish Studies in Herzliya, Israel. A version of this article was originally published by The BESA Center.
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Jewish Synagogue, Holocaust Memorial Vandalized in Poland After Politician Denies Holocaust

An antisemitic slur spray-painted on the ruins of a former synagogue in Dukla, Poland. Photo: World Jewish Restitution Organization
Two Jewish sites in Dukla, Poland, were vandalized over the weekend mere days after Polish member of the European Parliament (MEP) Grzegorz Braun claimed gas chambers at the former Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp were fake and repeated an antisemitic blood libel in a live radio interview.
Vandals spray-painted the word “F–k” followed by a Star of David on the ruins of a former synagogue that was destroyed by the Nazis during the Holocaust, and a memorial commemorating Holocaust victims located at the entrance of the Jewish cemetery in Dukla was defaced with a swastika and the word “Palestine,” according to the World Jewish Restitution Organization (WJRO). The memorial honors Jews of Dukla and the surrounding areas who were murdered by Nazis during the Holocaust.
The two Jewish sites in Dukla are cared for by the Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland (FODZ), which was established in 2002 by the Union of Jewish Communities in Poland and the WJRO to protect and commemorate Poland’s Jewish heritage sites.
“These hateful acts are not only antisemitic, but they are also attempts to erase Jewish history and desecrate memory,” said WJRO President Gideon Taylor in a released statement on Tuesday. “Polish authorities must take swift and serious action to identify the perpetrators and ensure the protection of Jewish heritage sites in Dukla and across the country.”
“The vandalism of Jewish sites in Dukla—with swastikas and anti-Israel slurs—is not an isolated act,” insisted Jack Simony, director general of the Auschwitz Jewish Center Foundation (AJCF), in a statement to The Algemeiner. The nonprofit focuses on preserving the memory of the Jewish community in Oświęcim (Auschwitz) and maintains the Auschwitz Jewish Center, the last remaining synagogue in town.
“While we cannot say definitively that it [the vandalism] was sparked by Grzegorz Braun’s Holocaust denial, his rhetoric contributes to an atmosphere where hatred is emboldened and truth is under assault,” added Simony. “Braun’s lies are not harmless — they are dangerous. Holocaust denial fuels antisemitism and, too often, violence. This is why Holocaust education matters … because when we fail to confront lies, we invite their consequences. Memory must be defended, not only for the sake of the past, but for the safety of our future.”
On July 10, a ceremony was held commemorating the 84th anniversary of the 1941 Jedwabne massacre, when hundreds of Polish Jews were massacred – mostly by their neighbors – in the northeastern town in German-occupied Poland. The ceremony was attended by dignitaries and faith leaders including Poland’s Chief Rabbi Michael Schudrich and Israeli Deputy Ambassador Bosmat Baruch. Groups of anti-Israel and far-right activists — including MEP Braun and his supporters – tried to disrupt the event by holding banners with antisemitic slogans and blocking the vehicles of the attendees, according to Polish radio.
Hours later, during a live radio broadcast, Braun falsely claimed the Auschwitz gas chambers were “a lie” and the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum was promoting “pseudo-history.” He also claimed that Jewish “ritual murder is a fact.” Polish prosecutors launched an investigation into Braun’s comments, they announced that same day. Under Article 55 of the Act on the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN), Holocaust denial is a criminal offense in Poland.
The Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum issued a swift condemnation of Braun’s remarks and said it intents to pursue legal action. The Institute of National Remembrance — which is the largest research, educational and archival institution in Poland – also denounced Braun’s remarks, saying there is “well-documented” evidence supporting the existence of gas chambers. His comments were also condemned by the Embassy of Israel in Poland, Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski and the US Embassy in Warsaw, which said that his actions “distort history, desecrate memory, or spread antisemitism.” AJCF called on the European Parliament to consider disciplinary measures against Braun, including potential censure or expulsion.
Auschwitz Jewish Center Director Tomek Kuncewicz said Braun’s comments are “an act of violence against truth, against survivors, and against the legacy of our shared humanity.” AJCF Chairman Simon Bergson called the politician’s remarks “blatant and baseless lies,” while Simony described them as “a calculated act of antisemitic incitement” that “must be met with legal consequences and universal moral condemnation.”
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Coalition of 400 Jewish Orgs and Synagogues Urge Teachers Union to Reverse Decision Cutting Ties with ADL

Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt. Photo Credit: ADL.
Following a vote by the National Education Association (NEA) on July 6 to end its relationship with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), 400 Jewish communal groups, education organizations, and religious institutions have come together to call for the influential teachers union to change course.
“We are writing to express our deep concerns about the growing level of antisemitic activity within teachers’ unions, particularly since the Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel on October 7, 2023,” the letter to NEA President Becky Pringle stated. “Passage of New Business Item (NBI) 39 at the National Education Association (NEA) Representative Assembly this past weekend, which shockingly calls for the boycott of the Anti-Defamation League, is just the latest example of open hostility toward Jewish educators, students and families coming from national and local teachers’ unions and their members.”
In addition to the ADL, signatories of the letter included American Jewish Committee (AJC), Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Jewish Federations of North America, #EndJewHatred, American Jewish Congress, B’nai B’rith International, CAMERA (Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting & Analysis), Combat Antisemitism Movement, Democratic Majority for Israel, StandWithUs, Simon Wiesenthal Center, Zioness Movement, and Zionist Organization of America (ZOA).
The group told Pringle that “we have heard directly from NEA members who have shared their experiences ranging from explicit and implicit antisemitism within the union to a broader pattern of insensitivity toward legitimate concerns of Jewish members – including at the recently concluded Representative Assembly. We are also deeply troubled by a broader pattern of union activity over the past 20 months that has targeted or alienated Jewish members and the wider Jewish community.”
The letter to Pringle included an addendum providing examples of objectionable rhetoric. These named such incidents as the Oakland Education Association (OEA) putting out a statement calling for “an end to the occupation of Palestine” and the Massachusetts Teachers Association (MTA) accusing Israel of genocide.
The coalition of 400 organizations urged the NEA to “take immediate action” and suggested such steps as rejecting NBI 39, issuing a “strong condemnation” of antisemitism within the union, drafting a plan to counter ongoing antisemitism in affiliate chapters, and opposing “any effort to use an educator’s support for the existence of Israel as a means to attack their identity.”
ADL CEO and National Director Jonathan Greenblatt wrote on X that “Excluding @ADL’s educational resources from schools is not just an attack on our org, but on the entire Jewish community. We urge the @NEAToday Executive Committee to reverse this biased, fringe effort and reaffirm its commitment to supporting all Jewish students and educators.”
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Zohran Mamdani Won’t Condemn Calls for Violence Against Jews; Why Are Jewish Leaders Supporting Him?
In the wake of Zohran Mamdani’s surge in New York City politics, a disturbing trend has emerged: prominent Jewish leaders are being urged to join “Jews for Zohran,” a newly formed effort to legitimize a candidate whose record and rhetoric are alarmingly out of step with Jewish communal values.
In a city that’s home to the largest Jewish population outside of Israel — and where antisemitic incidents are on the rise — this is a profound mistake.
Mamdani has refused to explicitly condemn the slogan “Globalize the Intifada,” which has been widely understood as a call to violence against Jews. His defenders insist it’s a symbolic plea for Palestinian rights. But nuance offers little comfort when the phrase glorifies violent uprisings, and is routinely chanted alongside calls for Israel’s destruction.
Institutions such as the US Holocaust Memorial Museum and watchdogs like StopAntisemitism.org have made it clear: attempts to sanitize violent language must be firmly rejected.
Mamdani’s vocal support for the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement is equally troubling. BDS does not merely critique Israeli policy; it seeks to economically isolate and politically delegitimize the Jewish state. When a candidate stands against the most visible symbol of Jewish survival — Israel — while brushing off violent slogans as misunderstood metaphors, we must ask what message this sends to our communities.
The answer should be clear. Jewish New Yorkers were the targets of over half the city’s reported hate crimes last year. From Crown Heights to Midtown, visible Jews have been harassed, assaulted, and mocked. Mamdani was flagged by national antisemitism monitors in December for promoting material that mocked Hanukkah. This is not abstract. This is personal, present, and dangerous.
Yes, Mamdani has pledged to increase hate crime funding from $3 million to $26 million. But that’s not enough. The Jewish community — especially now — needs more than budgetary gestures. We require moral clarity, as Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel powerfully stated: “Morally speaking, there is no limit to the concern one must feel for the suffering of human beings, that indifference to evil is worse than evil itself….”
Moral clarity demands more than financial promises, it requires principled rejection of rhetoric that endangers Jews. Belonging isn’t forged by slogans; it’s proven through sustained empathy, shared responsibility, and unwavering commitment to safety.
Calls for Jewish leaders to publicly support Mamdani, including those made to officials like Brad Lander and Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), aim to provide political cover for a candidate whose worldview clashes with core Jewish values. These aren’t harmless endorsements. They’re symbols. And symbols matter.
Endorsing Mamdani sends a troubling signal: that political convenience or progressive branding outweighs communal safety and historical memory. When Jewish leaders align with someone who flirts with the delegitimization of Jewish statehood and refuses to condemn slogans rooted in violence, they are telling our adversaries that our moral lines are negotiable.
New York’s Jewish community has long been a moral compass in American politics. What happens here echoes across the nation. If our leaders can be cajoled into supporting a candidate like Mamdani, what message does that send to Jews in swing districts, smaller cities, and across college campuses? It normalizes equivocation. It emboldens the fringe. It tells the next generation that Jewish dignity is up for debate.
This is about more than Mamdani. It’s about whether Jewish pride and Jewish safety remain non-negotiable pillars of our political participation. Some have argued that this is simply politics as usual — that strategic alliances are part of coalition-building. But the Jewish people know better than most that what begins as a small compromise can metastasize into a much greater danger.
Former Democratic Councilman Rory Lancman said it best: “If ever there was a time to put principle over party, this is it.” He’s right. And that’s why this moment requires Jewish leaders to speak not just as political actors, but as moral stewards.
Jewish leaders are free to engage with any candidate they choose. But engagement is not endorsement. One can listen, challenge, and debate without aligning oneself publicly with a candidate whose positions cross communal red lines. Outreach does not require complicity.
If Jewish political figures join “Jews for Zohran,” they risk helping mainstream dangerous ideologies. They risk fracturing communal unity even further at a time when Jewish communal unity is our best defense. They risk allowing today’s ambiguity to become tomorrow’s regret.
Jewish history teaches us the cost of silence, of appeasement, and of looking away. We cannot afford those mistakes again — not in this city, not in this era; history is beginning to repeat itself and we cannot allow that to happen.
To every Jewish leader now weighing their public stance: choose principle. Choose safety. Choose the kind of moral leadership our tradition demands; reject the logic of “Jews for Zohran.” The stakes are too high — and the message matters.
Samuel J. Abrams is a professor of politics at Sarah Lawrence College and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
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