Scholars and activists say Russian officials have taken their words out of context and completely distorted their meaning.
After the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Sergey Lavrov called Ukraine a “Nazi state” , and his wards cited research by Jewish experts to back up their claims.
Now all these experts have told Haaretz that Moscow's disgusting propaganda has angered them. Two prominent researchers of anti-Semitism in Eastern Europe resented the Russian government after their work was quoted to justify Lavrov's claims about the “Nazis” in Ukraine. In an interview with Italian media, the Russian minister said that the Jewish origin of President Volodymyr Zelensky did not justify the Ukrainian “Nazis”. At the same time, he repeated the crazy theory that Adolf Hitler allegedly had “Jewish blood.” In addition, Lavrov said that “the biggest anti-Semites are usually Jews.” Following Israeli protests, Russia has become even more insistent, citing a statement quoting Israeli Holocaust historian Xavi Dreyfuss and Ukrainian Jewish activist Eduard Dolinsky.
Read also: Russia's chief rabbi says Lavrov must apologize for his words about the Jews and Hitler
The Russian Foreign Ministry pointed to Dreyfuss's words in 2018 about the fact that Jews during World War II were forced to cooperate with the Nazis within the so-called Judenrat (Jewish Council).
this is the fact that during the Second World War some Jews were forced to take part in crimes, while Volodymyr Zelensky speculated on his roots consciously and voluntarily. He uses his origin as a cover, “the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
Dreyfuss, who is a professor at Tel Aviv University and works with the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum, called the Russian statement “virtually unfounded.” She noted that her quote was “taken out of context, distorting the original meaning.” Dreyfuss said she had not been consulted before being quoted in Russia. Moreover, her name and reputation were used to “legitimize the false discourse on Nazism.”
“Attempting to blame Jews for their own deaths is a fundamental violation of historical truth and an anti-Semitic statement. I was alarmed and stunned by this attempt to use and abuse my comments in another context. But I am even more concerned about the false words of a high-ranking Russian official who accuses Jews of Hitler's crimes and spreads false information about Jews and the Holocaust, “Dreyfuss said.
Eduard Dolynsky, an activist and director of the Ukrainian Jewish Committee in Kyiv, criticized Ukraine's attempts to rehabilitate Nazi-era collaborators. But he stressed that Russia had fabricated its allegations about him. The Russian Foreign Ministry claims that Dolinsky “recently feared the liquidation of his organization.” The director of the Ukrainian Jewish Committee is now in northwestern Ukraine, where he left to flee the Russian invasion. In a telephone conversation, he told Haaretz reporters: “There were threats from nationalists, but not from the government.” Dolynsky called the statement of the Russian Foreign Ministry “disgusting”, adding that Lavrov's comments were “absolutely shameful and unfair.”
Read also: Pinchuk on Lavrov's anti-Semitic statement: “Manifestation of cowardice, lying and meanness”
The Russian Ministry also quoted the Israeli Ministry of Diaspora report for 2017. The document allegedly proved that Ukraine “became the leader among all the countries of the former Soviet Union in the number of anti-Semitic incidents.” The Minister for Diaspora Affairs, Dr. Nachman Shai, issued a statement in response stating that Russia should fully consider his ministry's reports in order to “fully realize anti-Semitism in the former Soviet Union, including Russia itself.”
This is the reality. does not make the leader of any particular country a Nazi and cannot be used to justify false allegations of Jewish crimes against Jews or to invade a sovereign country, “the Israeli minister said in a statement.
< p>Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February, both sides have compared each other to the Nazis and accused them of genocide. Vladimir Putin said in February that his goal was to “demilitarize and denazify” Ukraine. Russian allegations were strongly denied by leaders of the Ukrainian Jewish community. Instead, they were outraged by Russian strikes on important Jewish sites, including the synagogue, yeshiva, and Holocaust memorial. Putin has long used accusations of “Nazism” to justify his actions against Ukraine. In 2014, after the annexation of Crimea, he spoke of the “spread” of reactionary, nationalist and anti-Semitic forces across the country.
Read also: Ukraine accused Lavrov of anti-Semitism
Last week, the European Commission's coordinator in the fight with anti-Semitism, Katarina von Schnurbein told Haaretz that Moscow's self-proclaimed mission to “denazify” the neighboring country was itself “linked to anti-Semitism” and was an attempt to “instrumentalize the Holocaust.” In turn, Dreyfuss said that both Russia and Ukraine are trying to identify their enemy with Nazism, abusing the Holocaust and World War II. And this is also a serious problem.
