Russia probing Jewish law as "incitement"

Monday, June 27, 2005 

The Moscow District Prosecutor's Office has dropped its investigation of Russian Jewry on charges of racist incitement and distribution of anti-Russian material for having published an abridged translation of a 16th Century Hebrew text on Jewish law. Jewish leaders were summoned for questioning about the Kitzur Shulkhan Arukh as the apparent first step of a probe into whether all Jewish organizations should be banned in Russia.

Disbanding all Jewish organizations in Russia was requested in a January 13, 2005 letter to the State Prosecutor General signed by 20 members of the Russian State Duma. The letter was expanded into a petition signed by 500 well-known public figures, church officials and army generals in March. After being published in a St. Petersburg newspaper, the petition gleaned 5,000 signatures. It called the Jewish religion anti-Christian and inhumane, and even practicing ritual murder of Christian children [1] Excerpts in English].

Although the Russian Foreign Ministry had condemned the letter, the St. Petersburg District Prosecutor's Office declared that it was not anti-Semitic and declined to file incitement charges against Rus Pravoslavnaya, the newspaper that published it.

Sources

• Amiram Barkat. "Russia ends probe into claims of incitement in Jewish text" — Haaretz, June 29, 2005
• Amiram Barkat. "Russia probing whether Jewish law constitutes incitement" — Haaretz, June 27, 2005
• "Jewish Organizations to Demand Visa Ban for Russia’s Anti-Semitic MPs" — MosNews, June 27, 2005
• "Russian Prosecutors Say Call for Ban on Jewish Groups Not Anti-Semitic" — MosNews, April 29, 2005
• "Russian Foreign Ministry Condemns Letter Demanding to Ban Jewish Organizations" — MosNews, April 5, 2005
• Steve Gutterman. "'Outlaw all Jewish organizations in Russia'. Jews foment ethnic discord and provoke anti-Semitism, Russian lawmakers claim" — Jerusalem Post, January 25, 2005
• Lev Krichevsky. "Seems like old times? Prosecutors looking into Russian Jewish group" — JTA, June 23, 2005
• "Russia Examines Jewish Religious Texts" — New York Times, June 27, 2005
  

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