Russian-speaking immigrants to speak of Kassam hardships in Moscow, Kiev

Delegation sent for five days to try to balance reports on the violence in the South in the Russian press.

By HERB KEINON
purim sderot 224.88 (photo credit: AP)
purim sderot 224.88
(photo credit: AP)
Three Russian speakers - two Sderot residents and a student at Sapir Academic College - are currently visiting Russia and Ukraine in an effort to communicate the trials of life under the shadow of Kassam rockets to parliamentarians, the media and fellow Jews. While the Foreign Ministry has sent numerous delegations from Sderot on trips abroad - to North America and the European Union - this is the first delegation dispatched to the former Soviet Union. Eddie Shapira, the ministry's spokesman to the Russian media, said the delegation was sent for five days to try to balance reports on the violence in the South in the Russian press. "The coverage there often lacks context," Shapira said. Shapira said that while the picture of events in the South presented by the Russian media was often more balanced than that appearing in Western Europe, there was still a need to provide context for Israel's military actions, and that this essential context was how it was to live under constant missile threat. The delegation was made up of Oshrat Paniatov, a social worker from Sderot; Valantin Minkovich, a student of economics at Sapir College; and Alexander Rimon, a journalist from Sderot. They all immigrated from the former Soviet Union in the 1990s. In addition to reporters and lawmakers, the delegation would meet with members of the Jewish community to build solidarity with Israel, Shapira said. Shapira said that while in the US the Jewish community actively advocated on behalf of Israel, this was done much less in Russia, and that part of the purpose of this trip was to help build the type of solidarity that would motivate the Jewish community to take a more public stand on these types of issues.