Russian youth’s embrace of Nazism doesn’t just happen in Russia. It’s also happens where one might not initially expect: Israel. Haaretz reports that Israel’s Interior Ministry arrested eight members, all aged 16 to 21, of a Nazi gang in Petah Tikva, a suburb outside of Tel Aviv. The arrests are the result of a year long investigation into street attacks and vandalism of the suburb’s Great Synagogue. The group, who is responsible for attacks on religious Jews, immigrants, homosexuals, homeless, and drug addicts, which they filmed, was found in possession of Nazi literature and posters, five kilos of explosives, a pistol, and an M-16. The M-16 was acquired when one of the youths was drafted into the IDF. He has since fled Israel back to Russia, leaving the rifle with his comrades. The Israelis plan to seek his extradition. Six of the eight have confessed their crimes to police. One of the two holding out is the gang’s leader, Eli Boanitov, who told police, “I won’t ever give up, I was a Nazi and I will stay a Nazi, until we kill them all I will not rest.”
Reports on the story are quick to deny the perpetrators’ “Jewishness.” Haaretz states that all eight youths “have distant ties to Judaism and nonetheless immigrated to Israel from the former Soviet Union under the Law of Return.” Y-Net states that all but one are “are non-Jewish immigrants” from Russia. The Jerusalem Post also emphasized that the youths were “immigrants” and not bona fide Jews. Such assertions have led Israeli politicans to call for a tightening of the definition of the Law of Return. Some are considering to revoke the youths of their Israeli citizenship. Parliamentarian Effi Eitam, a member of the right wing National Religious Party, said that the Law of Return has allowed Israel to become “a haven for people who hate Israel, hate Jews, and exploit the Law of Return to act on this hatred.” Another deputy, Eli Yishai, the ultra-Orthodox Minister of Trade and Industry told reporters, “We have to rid ourselves of this Satan who lives in the heart of Israel.” This is despite statements from Prime Minister Olmert that the incident shouldn’t be used to “criminalize an entire population nor make generalizations.” Instead, he said, “Israel, as a society, failed in educating the youths discovered to be neo-Nazis.” Other commentators were quick to stress that the incidents were isolated and not indicative of a wider trend.
While this may be true, the uproar such an isolated incident has caused signifies the youths’ apostasy. And the fact that the gang’s leader, Eli Buanitov is in fact a Jew makes his sin all the more significant. Eli Buanitov told police “I won’t have kids. My grandfather is half yid, so that this piece of trash doesn’t have ancestors with even the smallest percent of Jewish blood.” In interview with Israel’s Channel 10, Buanitov’s mother denied that her son was a Nazi and that “he is simply a boy and maybe he didn’t fully understand what [Nazism] is and maybe for him it was like a game.” She also emphasized that her son was indeed Jewish. “He was born in a Jewish family and was raised in a Jewish family. And he knows a lot about the war.” In response to a question about whether her mother was a Holocaust survivor, she replied, “Yes. When he was young he heard a lot of stories about it. And he knows very well how terrible it was. And how many Jews were killed.” As far as his Nazi tattoos, Mrs. Buatinova explained that they read in Yiddish, “God is with us.” In addition to his mother’s statements, Buatinov’s lawyer attempted to boost his client’s patriotic credentials. He stressed that the Buatinov family immigrated eight years ago, his client even has a brother serving in IDF combat units, that Eli attended a yeshiva high school for a twelfth grade, and has been working in a “security office in a very sensitive position” for the last year.
What is interesting about this case is not whether the youths indeed committed the crimes or if they sincerly embraced neo-Nazism as an ideology. What is at issue is whether the perpetrators are Jewish or not. The fact almost all of the youths are Russian immigrants with dubious Jewish connections allows many Israelis to rest easy. They can reason: Neo-Nazism is not some homegrown phenomenon but a disease injected into the body politic by the infiltration of some outside Other. But Buatinov’s existence threatens to rock the conceptual foundation of Jewishness itself. The idea of a neo-Nazi Jew is such an anathama that Israel has no law against it. If a Jew can also be a neo-Nazi, and worse become one in Israel, then what does that say about the conceptual coherency of Jewishness itself? The fact that Israeli society could breed its very negation seems to call into question the stability of its justification for existence. Put simply, the gang’s existence posits the question: in a post-Holocaust world, can a Jew be a Nazi?
The question, it seems, is too horrifying to ask, let alone answer. And this is why the gang’s non-Jewishness and antisemitism is being emphasized and not the fact that non-Jewish immigrants were also their victims. After all, Israeli racism against immigrants, especially Asians, Africans, and Russians, is common. The idea that Nazism could be embraced as an expression of that racism toward reveals the fact that two absolute contradictions–Jew and Nazi–are perhaps not so absolutely contradictory after all.
But these questions are likely to be ignored. If reader responses are any indication, targeting Israel’s Russian immigrant population as the breeding ground for wayward youth seems to be the comfortable route. Somehow, however, I doubt explaining racism with racism will do much to alleviate the problem. It will only shroud it further with nationalist fetishisms that will only inflame calls to exact the Russian cancer from Israeli’s otherwise healthy body politic.
Maya Haber provided all Hebrew translations.
Hey, what happened to Sean’s blog?!! All I seem to be getting is an RSS feed for the Tiraspol Times!
I must have typed in the wrong address.
Hmmm?
Try again.
Oil is a much more interesting topic:
http://www.lukoilamericas.com/contacts.htm
They haven’t totally junked the Getty name they bought.
I think Lukoil should be its own, independent country.
With an ethnic Azeri as its head, who some would prefer presiding over Azerbaijan as well.
Lukoil has been oppressed by the Russian jackboot far too long. Arise, Lukoil brave and free! Rule Lukoilannia! Lukoilmen never shall be slaves!
Truth be told, “state giant” Gazprom is often a state unto itself, while not always being so subservient to the “diktator” (Polska) Putin.
Shhhh!!!!
I think Lukoil should be its own, independent country.
Not likely whilst the Republic of ConocoPhillips owns 7.6 percent of their land.
Not if the Reverse Newman is employed.
Nice sites for knowledge and enhancing one’s Russian:
http://www.tiras.ru/
http://www.nr2.ru/pmr/
“Imperialism!” (progressive)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ay2qjvr_hIw
As per the above quoted, to quote William Mandel:
“No! No! You’re wrong. You don’t know your history.”
Hey, Arshinova’s also a babe. That’s it, I am moving to Tiraspol.
Lyndon, I am actually thinking of visiting Transdniestr. Do I as a US citizen need a visa of some sort to do so?
Chris, you don’t need a visa to cross from Moldova into Transdniester. It takes between 1 and 2 hours to get from Chisinau to Tiraspol’ on a marshrutka. You could probably also come in from the direction of Odessa, although I have never tried that. There are probably more flights from Moscow to Chisinau than Odessa, though I’ve never checked – or maybe you’d rather take the train, which I think is either 24 or 36 hours to Chisinau, depending on the train. You don’t need a visa to go to Moldova or Ukraine anymore, so there shouldn’t be any need for any sort of visa at all.
The PMR’s rule as of last summer was that foreigners could be there for 24 hours without registering. There is a nominal fee at the border and they give you some kind of entry talonchik that I guess is like a migration card – keep it, you’ll need it to leave. I don’t know anything about registering there; my advice would be to contact someone in Transdniester (someone like this, although I can’t vouch for them personally) before you go, because they will know about registration. Or you could just stay in Chisinau and take a day-trip or two to Tiraspol’.
Against Odds, Tiraspol Reaches Out to Tourists
http://www.tiraspoltimes.com/news/tiraspol_reaches_out_to_tourists.html
A number of Russians from Russia and people from Ukraine regularly visit Pridnestrovie.
As per some other recent comments:
- Ms. Arshinova is a patriot, whose manner isn’t sympathetic of those who belittle Pridnestrovie’s cause.
- A not too distant eXile piece complained about how (in its view) many Moscow women have physically let themselves go to waste.
As for beautiful women, Ukraine is loaded.
Thanks Lyndon. I expected them to be less laissez-faire.
Perfectly understandable given how Pridnestrovie borders an unfriendly state (Moldova) which attacked it not so long ago; and Ukraine, whose Orange influenced government instituted a blockade against Prid. and recently set voting inhibitions on Prid’s Ukrainian citizenry vis-a-vis the upcoming Ukrainian election. This latter point was no doubt orchestrated in lieu of Prid’s Ukrainian citizenry having a generally Blue political outlook.
Mike, no offense, but do you know what laissez-faire means? Because it looks like you’ve assumed it means the opposite of its actual meaning.
Do you have a link on the Ukrainian restrictions on PMR residents voting in the coming elections? I’m not doubting your statement that they’ve been imposed, but I’m interested in reading more about it. Thanks in advance.
Oh, and at the risk of stating the obvious, some would say that Pridnestrovie doesn’t exactly so much “border” Moldova as exist inside of it. At least that is one thing that all of the states in the neighborhood (including Russia) and beyond agree on.
Chris, officially they make it quite easy to spend up to 24 hours in the PMR; after all, it does lie on some important transit routes, and I believe the 24-hour no-registration is considered to be a transit period (a great improvement from the 3 hours allowed a few years ago).
By way of a disclaimer, I probably don’t have to tell you this, but notwithstanding the official policy you should be prepared for the usual possibilities from border guards and other law enforcement officials that you’d expect in the post-Soviet space. I have had several interactions with the PMR’s finest, and they’ve been about evenly split between friendly and professional (one guy stamped me both in and out on a day trip last summer, and he was cordial, smiled and remembered me on the way out) and, well, rent-seeking, so будь готов. If you do take a trip to the left bank of the Dnestr, I’m sure we’d all love to hear about it.
By the way, did anyone else notice that this thread has now officially destroyed the previous record for most-commented-on SRB post? Call the folks at the Guinness Book of World Records…
Lyndon:
I don’t think so. He said “less laissez faire” to apparently mean a somewhat restrictive manner.
Someone from the area further confirmed this article’s contents:
http://www.tiraspoltimes.com/news/ukraine_voters_not_allowed_to_cast_their_ballots_in_pridnestrovie.html
Russia isn’t monolithic on the former Moldavian SSR. A Ukrainian OC (Kiev Patriarchate) friend with ties to Prid. says that Prid. is Ukrainian. He also sees Russia and Ukraine as being very close to each other to the point of existing almost as one, if not one. He periodically refers to himself as Russian. Among Ukrainians, he’s not alone in that regard.
http://us.f348.mail.yahoo.com/ym/ShowLetter?MsgId=6747_4958784_323910_1627_122780_0_18620_297226_2464924612&Idx=3&YY=75066&y5beta=yes&y5beta=yes&inc=25&order=down&sort=date&pos=0&view=a&head=b&box=Inbox#a10
The UOC Church (Kiev Patriarchate) near me has pro-Russian sympathies. Its congregation’s views on Prid. are on par with my own (at least among those having an opinion on the matter).
Among other Russians and Ukrainians, Ukrainian political figure Natalia Vitrenko and her Russian couinterpart Natalia Narochnitskaya are sympathetic to Pridnestrovian independence. The two of them are also very sympathetic to a Russo-Ukrainian reunification.
Keep in mind that many Pridnestrovian independence advocates aren’t hostile to a former Moldavian SSR confederation arrangement, where Tiraspol will have autonomy from Chisinau in a Russocentrically geared direction.
“He said “less laissez faire” to apparently mean a somewhat restrictive manner. ”
No, I meant the opposite.
“Laissez faire” relates non-interference. “Less laissez faire” indicates a certain restrictiveness.
The sentence was “I expected them to be less laissez-faire.” The meaning of this sentence, in context, is “They are more laissez-faire than I expected them to be.”
“Thanks Lyndon. I expected them to be less laissez-faire.”
*****
????
Whatever.
I am quite flattered to see my sentence analyzed for meaning as if it were a line from I Corinthians.
Don’t get carried away.
The SRB “On Language” segment. His political commentary aside, Bill Safire has at least one good point to him.