By Vestnik Kavkaza
On New Year's Eve a delegation of the North Caucasus Jewish Congress (NCJC) arrived in Grozny. The head of the NCJCD, Zhambolat Melikov, said that the purpose of their visit was an expression of solidarity with the Chechen people regarding recent anti-Caucasian statements by LDPR leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky. "We want to stand next to you, because the statements by Zhirinovsky insulted us no less than you", Melikov said .
At the meeting with the NCJC delegation the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly of Chechnya, Dukuvakha Abdurakhmanov, said: "During our deportation, the Jews, in contrast to the other nations, did not occupy our homes... In Grozny, the foundation for the construction of a synagogue was recently laid, and one of Grozny's streets was renamed in honor of the former rector of the Chechen- Ingush State University Victor Kan-Kalik, who was a Jew by birth".
A trustee of NCJC, Pavel Feldblum, said that the Caucasians during the Great Patriotic War saved entire Jewish families: "There is much evidence of these facts. And I want to responsibly say that there can be no contradiction between Chechens and Jews”. Speaking about the need for joint opposition to anti-Caucasian sentiments in Russia, Feldblum suggested creating a kind of Transnational Anti-Fascist Committee, which would suppress in the bud any Nazi manifestations.
Meanwhile, in Moscow Berel Lazar, Chief Rabbi of Russia, said: "Our responsibility as religious leaders is to think not only about ourselves, but in general, about the situation in society; we have proposed, and we still think it's very important, that in the big cities tolerance centers should be opened, similar to the one that was opened here in Moscow, so that there is a platform where young people can communicate, can talk, where we can have an open dialogue where we can think together about what we can do to improve the situation in society. It is really disturbing that we see all the time this misunderstanding and disrespect . Tolerance is not even a very good option, it is at least what we hope to see in today's Russia, which suffered so much during the Second World War from Nazism. It is very scary when we see that there are still marches, especially on the Day of Unity, where they still have slogans, posters with fascist slogans, fascist ideology. And it really bothers us. We must do something".
However, according to him, there is an improvement in the situation as a whole in relation to Jews: "The level of anti-Semitism is falling every year. We see fewer and fewer instances, more and more understanding. Despite the fact that there is still anti-Semitism somewhere at household level, we understand that these are the cases that are not the norm, not the accepted approach, and this pleases us. We are also pleased that, today, and other international organizations emphasize this, despite the fact that in Europe, in other countries, in America, anti-Semitism, unfortunately, sometimes even finds new trends, in today's Russia, thank God, we see how the situation is improving. We are not pleased with the fact that, unfortunately, at the international level, in international relations, unfortunately, we see that this year again there have been different cases that bother us. The most unhappy one is the incident that occurred in the Caucasus, in Derbent involving our Rabbi Ovadiy Isaakov. Probably all of you know that he was shot and miraculously survived. We managed to bring him to Israel, he was operated there and, thank God, now he has already come back. He was here for Chanukah, visited the city of Derbent. Despite the fact that this story ended for us, thank God, let's say, not in such a terrible way, we understand that, unfortunately, is not a unique case for the Caucasus and that many deplorable incidents occurred, many Muftis were killed. For us, every human life is important, and when it is the leader of a religious community even more so, because we understand that he became a victim simply because he was engaged in this activity, because he was not ready to put up with the terrorists and cooperate with them. It is very sad that, unfortunately, such incidents happen every month, this year there were several of them. We appeal to the authorities, do everything possible to resolve this issue so that religious leaders could feel themselves confident, so that safety was ensured and that they could work and do the right thing".
