JTA – Vladimir Putin clearly likes to talk about Jews and Israel.
This time he suggested that Israel offer a good model for their designs on Ukraine.
Looking back, in a panel on energy in 2017, the Russian president made a 90-second joke about a smart Israeli soldier who was questioned by his commander about engaging multiple enemies. Soldier’s advice: Send more soldiers.
In 2019, upon hearing of a rabbi’s financial challenges in Crimea, Putin joked: “So the Jews have a problem with finances!” Then he said to the rabbi “Toda Rabah,” Hebrew for “Thank you very much.”
But Putin’s latest take, which he made on television Tuesday, goes a long way, recording some rare insight into how he thinks about the Jewish people. Essentially he suggested that the Slavic peoples take a cue from Israel and unite as a people despite different races, origins and mother tongues.
In his annual live question-and-answer session cum news conference, Putin was asked why Russia has not formally classified Ukraine as a hostile country despite a low-intensity war between the two countries since 2014.
“Because I don’t think Ukrainians are a people unfriendly to us,” replied the Russian leader, adding that Ukrainians and Russians “are one people in common.”
Putin presented Israel as a model.
“Look, Jews come to Israel from Africa, from Europe, from other countries of the world. Africans are black, yes? People come from Europe – they speak Jewish, not Hebrew. They seem to contradict each other, but still, the Jewish people value their unity,” he said.
Putin has had strong emotional ties with Russian Jews which have been reflected in a series of favorable policies. Under Putin, authorities have cracked down on anti-Semitic hate crimes and Jewish communities have received millions of dollars for properties confiscated by communists, which have helped fuel a cultural and religious revival.
The first of those contacts was with a Jewish family who lived in their family’s apartment block in Leningrad, now St Petersburg. He helped care for Putin as a boy with his parents working long hours.
“They were observant Jews who did not work on Saturdays and the man studied the Bible and the Talmud all day long,” Putin wrote in one of his biography. “Once I even asked him what he was grumbling. He explained to me what this book was about and I was immediately interested.”
Another influential Jewish figure for Putin was his wrestling coach, Anatoly Rakhlin, who sparked young Putin’s interest in the sport and drove him to the rough streets of Leningrad, where Putin would get into fights while his parents worked. Used to do At Rakhlin’s funeral in 2013, Putin was reportedly overcome with emotion and dropped his security details to take a short, solitary walk.
In 2014, during a visit to Israel, he met his former German teacher, Mina Yuditskaya Berliner, who was another influential figure in his life as he gave him the language skills that later helped him climb the ranks of the KGB. They talked for two hours in her rented apartment; Later he bought a place for her.
Berliner left the apartment to Putin in his will, and was returned to him after his death in 2018.
Russia’s two main Jewish sectarian organizations see Putin as a friendly force for Russian Jews. Also, thousands of Russian Jews began to leave in recent years as Putin tightened his grip on the Russian media, the courts, LGBT people, other minorities, and little remnants of freedom of expression.
As for Israel’s comparison, Ukrainians do not agree that “Ukrainians and Russians are the same people,” as Putin said on Tuesday. A pro-democracy Kiev news site called Putin a “broken record” on the subject.
