Russian Muslims reach out to Jews
Grant Slater / jta , THE JERUSALEM POST
Mar. 31, 2008
Russia's chief rabbi and the chairman of the country's main Islamic
council are patching up a
relation****p severed two weeks ago after an Islamic community leader
called Zionism a cancer
and Israel a fascist state.
Ravil Gaynutdin, the chairman of Russia's Council of Muftis, reached out
to Rabbi Berel Lazar
during Purim celebrations and asked for a meeting as the Russian media
began to re****t that
Lazar's Chabad-led Federation of Jewish Communities was cutting ties with
the council.
In a joint statement released on the council's Web site, the two leaders
said they were "ready
to continue maintaining a respectful and trusting relation****p."
The statement made no mention of Nafigullah A****rov, a co-chairman of the
Islamic council,
whose comments this month drove a wedge between the two groups.
"Zionism is a cancerous tumor because Zionism is fascism," A****rov, the
council's director of
spiritual administration in the Asian part of Russia, said at a March 4
news conference when
asked how he felt about Israel.
After A****rov made similar comments at a rally last year, Jewish leaders
decried the remarks
and called on the Council of Muftis to repudiate them. The council
responded swiftly, saying
A****rov's beliefs did not represent its view.
This time, however, the council remained silent after the comments were
widely re****ted and the
Jewish federation again asked the council to denounce the statements.
"We took this silence as a sign of agreement with A****rov's opinion," the
federation's
spokesman, Boruch Gorin, told JTA.
Both Lazar and Gaynutdin are members of Russia's Public Chamber, a
consulting body to the
Russian Legislature comprised of prominent figures in Russian society. The
federation and
council participate in the Russian government's interreligious councils
and engage in
interfaith dialogues.
On March 20, the federation announced that it would not participate with
the Council of Muftis
in these forums. The same day, Gaynutdin reached out to Lazar for the
meeting, which Lazar
scheduled for March 27, Gorin said.
But the conflict continued to simmer, attracting the attention of the
Russian media, government
and religious groups.
It was the first such split between two groups from different religions in
Russia's post-Soviet
history, Gorin said.
Alexander Ignatenko, a member of the Public Chamber and the president of
the Institute of
Religion and Politics, said Na****rov's words were part of an attempt to
radicalize Russia's
Islamic population.
"With all his comments, A****rov was not expressing the opinion of Russian
Muslims but rather
broadcasting over Russian media slogans and statements that were formed
outside Russia,"
Ignatenko told the Russian-language Jewish News Agency.
Most of Russia's Muslims are more liberal and less susceptible to
anti-Western or anti-Israeli
rhetoric than those in the Arab world, Gorin said, adding that A****rov may
well represent the
minority as "the loud-mouth voice of the Arabic community of Russia."
Evgeny Satanovsky, the president of the Institute of Middle Eastern
Studies in Moscow and a
vice president of the Russian Jewish Congress, said A****rov embodied the
worst aspects of a
creeping influence from more strident anti-Zionist regimes in Iran, Syria
and the Palestinian
territories.
The disparity in ideology between Russian Islamic leaders and their
counterparts abroad
presents a problem.
"The major danger is the civil war inside the Muslim community,"
Satanovsky said.
The Council of Muftis reacted with surprise to the intensity of the furor
surrounding the
federation's announcement that it was suspending ties with the council.
In a statement on its Web site about the "alleged controversy" in the
Russian mass media, the
council said it had never received an official request from the federation
to denounce
A****rov's statements.
"The situation has all been played out for the sake of the press," the
statement said.
Gorin said the council promised the federation "that in the very near
future they would find
how to stop provocative announcements from getting out."
Leading up to the Muslim-Jewish meeting, other Islamic umbrella
organizations rushed to condemn
A****rov's statements.
Rastam Valeyev, an envoy for the Russian Central Muslim Spiritual
Administration, told the
Interfax news service that A****rov's comments had "endangered
interreligious peace in the country."
One day after the split, the Public Chamber's committee on religion
adopted a statement calling
on both sides to re-engage in dialogue.
Rabbi Zinovy Kogan, the chairman of the Congress of Jewish Religious
Organizations and
Associations, took a measured approach to A****rov's remarks.
"Before deciding to freeze the relations, meetings should be held to
discuss the disputable
aspects," Kogan said.
With the apparent denouement of the conflict last week, several leaders in
the Jewish community
said the events signaled a change in tone among their organizations in
Russia as they defend
against anti-Semitism and attacks on Israel.
Alexander Axelrod, the Anti-Defamation League's representative in Moscow,
said before last
week's reconciliation that no matter what steps are taken, an emboldened
Jewish stance has been
aired over the past two weeks.
Satanovsky of the Russian Jewish Congress noted that Russian Jews today
are free to speak out
against anti-Semitic or anti-Israel rhetoric without fear.
"In the year 2008, the Jewish community is strong enough, independent
enough and I think have
all the possibilities to tell these guys what we really think about them,"
he said.
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