Crimean foray

The leaders of Russian Jewry flex their muscles in Crimea, recently occupied by Moscow.

By AVI HOFMANN
David Osherovich Barulya, a 102-year-old resident of Sevastopol, is interviewed at a memorial service held July 10 in the Crimean city. (photo credit: COURTESY FEDERATION OF JEWISH COMMUNITIES OF RUSSIA)
David Osherovich Barulya, a 102-year-old resident of Sevastopol, is interviewed at a memorial service held July 10 in the Crimean city.
(photo credit: COURTESY FEDERATION OF JEWISH COMMUNITIES OF RUSSIA)
A 102-year-old Red Army veteran lights a candle to commemorate the massacre of thousands of Jews in Sevastopol during the Holocaust as official representatives of Russian Jewry use the occasion to demonstrate that their alliance with the all-powerful ruler in the Kremlin is of benefit to a million co-religionists. How did this come about? On March 18, the Crimean Peninsula was welcomed back into the warm embrace of Mother Russia. Moscow had been upset at the shift toward Europe by its western neighbor and sent in troops to occupy its former territory at the southern tip of Ukraine. This example of Russian high-handedness has not been recognized by the vast majority of UN member states.
The commemoration was an ideal opportunity for Russian President Vladimir Putin to project an image of a protector of minority rights.
Crimea had seen a number of widely publicized anti-Semitic incidents in the months prior to the Russian takeover, including the placing of two pig heads at a synagogue in Sevastopol in November, just days before the outbreak of the revolution that ultimately drove former Ukrainian pres - ident Viktor Yanukovych from power. In late February, unknown individuals spray-paint - ed “Death to Jews” on the entrance to Ner Tamid, a Reform synagogue in the Crimean capital of Simferopol.
At an early June meeting with Jewish leaders in Moscow, Putin went to great lengths to proclaim Moscow’s determination to fight against any new manifestations of Nazism.
“We consider you, in this regard, our closest allies and ask you to consider us as such,” the Russian strongman asserted in a high-profile confab with a group of European and Israeli rabbis, including the Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Israel, Yitzhak Yosef.
Leading the delegation of Russian rabbis was Chief Rabbi Berel Lazar, head of the Chabad Hassidic sect, who is known to be very close to Putin. Lazar’s rapport with the Russian ruler has certainly not hampered the revival of Jewish life, which hit rock bottom when the Soviet Union collapsed and Jews streamed out of the country to Israel and the US in the ’90s. Lazar noted in a recent interview in The Jerusalem Post that there is full government support for anything related to traditional religious practice and rituals, such as kosher slaughter and circumcision.
Lazar has estimated that there are about a million Jews in Russia, many with only a tenuous connection to Judaism, so he needs all the help he can get to bring them back into the fold – a major concern of Chabad Hassidism.
Sensitive to international condemnation of the unilateral Russian takeover of Crimea and the ongoing clashes between Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian militias on the Ukrainian-Russian border, Putin utilized his meeting with the visiting rabbis to put a positive face on the situation in Crimea. He noted that the meeting took place on the eve of the anniversary of the tragic events of July 1942, when thousands of Jews were murdered in Sevastopol by the Nazis and their allies. “In Russia we will not only never forget these tragedies; furthermore, we will always cherish the memory of the dead, and we will do everything we can to prevent a recurrence of similar tragedies in the future,” he assured the rabbis.
THE UKRAINIAN Jewish community angrily rejected this narrative. According to Eduard Dolinsky, executive director of the Ukrainian Jewish Committee, the event in Sevastopol and the ballyhooed “summit meeting” between Putin and the rabbis (which earned the main front page photo in the Moscow Times the following day) was just a propaganda exercise. “We see this meeting as a cynical abuse of common sense, cynical use of the Holocaust in the Kremlin’s attempt to whitewash its aggression,” he asserts to The Jerusalem Report in an email response.
This was the first year since the annexation of Crimea that the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia (FJCR) has had control there and it took advantage of the Sevastopol memorial ceremony to flex its muscles in the peninsula. Inspired by Putin and fueled with funding from the Russian state, the FJCR, led by Lazar, pulled out all the stops to put on an impressive show.
So the rather modest memorial ceremony, which has taken place annually since Crimea became part of independent Ukraine in 1992, was upgraded this year. A high-level delegation of Russian Jewish leaders; leading European rabbis, all wearing the stereotypical Chabad fedora popularized by the late Lubavitcher Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson, deemed by many of his followers to be the messiah; and a host of foreign and Russian media attended the July 10 ceremony. The federation chartered a 190-seat Airbus and flew in the VIPs from Moscow to the Crimean capital Simferopol.
After the two-hour flight, the day-trippers were loaded on four buses and, escorted by police cars at front and back, were driven to the strategic Black Sea port of Sevastopol.
The police stopped traffic along the way to allow the entourage unimpeded progress.
The Russian takeover of the memorial was termed a “provocation” by a senior Jewish communal leader in Kiev who declined to be named. However, the Chabad Chief Rabbi of [recently Ukrainian] Sevastopol Binyam - in Wolf refuses to be drawn into the dispute.
“We welcome this development, which can only benefit our community,” he tells The Report at the commemoration of the 1942 massacre during which 4,200 Jews were murdered by the Nazi German invaders and their local allies. The ceremony took place at a spruced-up monument to the massacred Jews – the faint marks of anti-Semitic graffiti, daubed in April, were, however, still evident.
Adjacent to the memorial is the uncompleted shell of a large synagogue, the first to be built since three local synagogues were destroyed by the Nazis. The Russian Federation promised to help finance the completion of the synagogue, which also would house community facilities and be a focal point for local Jews. The Chabad emissaries hold an impromptu Hassidic dance inside the syn - agogue-to-be in anticipation of its eventual completion.
Lazar explained the importance of the ceremony, attended by some 200 people, saying, “We must fight Holocaust denial and this is the reason for continuing to mark this kind of event. The completion of the syna - gogue is our answer to anti-Semitism.” His sentiments were endorsed by the Governor of Sevastopol Sergey Ivanovich Menyaylo, who pledged to ensure the safety of the Jews.
Among those who attended the ceremony were veterans, witnesses of the Crimean Ho - locaust and relatives of the victims.
INTERNATIONAL AND local media jostled with each other to interview the undoubted star of the event, Sevastopol-born David Osherovich Barulya. The spritely 102-year- old veteran of World War II, who survived European cataclysms for more than a centu - ry, starting with World War I and the Rus - sian revolution, related his personal take on the major events of the 20th century.
Barulya patiently answered reporters’ ques - tions and proudly recounted his part in the Red Army’s liberation of Warsaw from the Nazis. After lighting a memorial candle, he was persuaded by Lazar to don tefillin . The chief rabbi helped the centenarian with the placement of the phylacteries as Barulya laboriously recited the Hebrew blessing at the rabbi’s prompting.
On the drive from Simferopol to Sevastopol, the Crimea seems unruffled by Russian rule. The only evidence of the recent Ukrainian presence was the large number of vehicles that still carried Ukrainian license plates.
The strategic importance to Moscow of the warm water port of Sevastopol was high - lighted by elements of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, including submarines, seen anchored peacefully in the harbor. In fact, the fleet had never left Sevastopol under the agreement of handing Crimea over to Ukraine.
The scene of fierce battles 160 years ago, when Russia was defeated by French and British armies allied with the Turks, the flat and fertile land seems tranquil. Crimea is a major holiday destination for Russians and one of the main airlines serving the area, Transaero, boosted its flights five-fold this summer.
Some 65,000 Jews lived in Crimea before the German invasion of the Soviet Union.
More than 40,000 of them were murdered by the Nazis and their cohorts after the German Eleventh Army completed the occupation of Crimea by the end of 1942. In addition to the Germans, the peninsula was invaded by Romanian gendarmerie who were actively involved in the capture and annihilation of Jews in hiding.
According to the Joint Distribution Committee, there are now an estimated 17,000 Jews in Crimea out of a total population of more than two million. The Jews are mostly located in Simferopol, Sevastopol, Feodosia, and Yalta. Crimea has been home to Jews for some 2,000 years and a few remnants of the early Jews, known as Krymchaks (Krym is Russian for Crimea), still live there.
Jews settled in the peninsula in ancient times and were divided into two communities: the Tatar-speaking Krymchaks, who followed rabbinical Judaism; and the Karaites, who adhered solely to the written Torah.
Soon after Catherine the Great conquered the region from the Ottoman Empire in 1783, she opened it up to Jewish settlement, hoping the Jews would serve as a bulwark against the Turks.
Aharon (Arkady) Tsyruinikov, 33, a leader of the Simferopol Jewish community, is proud of his of Krymchak heritage and says that at least 500 Krymchaks remain in the peninsula. However, he ruefully admits that the community is shrinking partly due to “intermarriage” with non-Krymchak Jews – his wife for example. He is happy that his children retain their father’s Sephardi appearance, typical for Krymchaks.
The overall situation for the Jews in the peninsula is improving he tells The Report.
“Jews can walk about freely and we welcome the help offered by the Russian Federation of Jews to our community."