Chief Rabbi Complains to Medvedev about Anti-Semitism in United Russia Party
Daniil Alexandrov
Medialeaks.ru
April 15, 2016

The Jewish community believes a speech made by United Russia member Vladislav Vikhorev during intra-party pre-primary debates has not been properly condemned. The candidate stated that ethnic Russians are being killed because they are standing “in the way of the Yids.”

According to Interfax, Russia’s Chief Rabbi Shalom Dovber Pinchas Lazar has appealed to Dmitry Medvedev, leader of the United Russia party and Russian prime minister. Rabbi Berel Lazar is outraged by the outburst by a party member taking part in the primaries in Chelyabinsk Region, Vladislav Vikhorev, who made an anti-Semitic speech. Even more than the speech itself, Lazar was dismayed by the lack of an adequate reaction to it.

“The Russian Jewish community is shocked by the anti-Semitic outburst by Vladislav Vikhorev, a participant in the United Russia primaries in Chelyabinsk Region who spoke of a ‘conspiracy of the Jews against the Russian people.’ But we are even more shocked by the fact that the primaries organizing committee limited itself to issuing a formal ‘warning’ to the anti-Semite and left him among the contenders for a place on the electoral list of the party you lead,” Rabbi Lazar wrote to the prime minister.

Vikhorev was speaking during primaries debates on Sunday, April 10. The gist of his speech was that Russia’s main problem and security threat were the Jews. A “Jewish coup” had occurred in Russian under President Boris Yeltsin, said Vikhorev, and since then the Jews had been systematically destroying ethnic Russian culture, the state, and the financial system.

“We Russians are being killed for standing in the way of the Yids,” said Vikhorev.

Members of the Jewish community believe that law enforcement, not party bodies, should assess Vikhorev’s statement. Yuri Kanner, president of the Russian Jewish Congress, told Lenta.ru that the prosecutor’s office and the courts should be involved in the case.

“It is not clear why the prosecutor’s office and the courts are not examining this, because this must be assessed by the state, not the party,” said Kanner.

Vikhorev was born in 1948 in the village of Rozhdestvenka in the Uvelsky District of Chelyabinsk Region. He graduated from High School No. 10 at Poletayevo Station on the First South Urals Railroad. Vikhorev is an old-age pensioner.

His speech has been posted on YouTube.

In January 2016, while meeting with members of the European Jewish Congress in Moscow, Vladimir Putin responded to a complaint that Jews in Europe did not always feel safe because of the influx of migrants by inviting them to return to Russia.

“In a crisis, we cannot do with you,” joked the president.

Yesterday, the first part of Russian Jews, a documentary trilogy by journalist and producer Leonid Parfyonov dealing with the history of the Jewish people in Russia from the eleventh century to the post-war Soviet Union, premiered in movie theaters.

Translated by Your Local Kiwanis Club