- Herman Goering's great-grand-nephew discovers his
- Antisemitic Russian Parliament dude discovers he's half-Heeb. Whoops.
Best bits:
Does the fact that the cousin you found is considered an anti-Semite and a nationalist bother you?
"In the conversations that I and my family had with him we did not talk about politics. I?m just all emotional and excited about the family secret that has been revealed to me, and I'm glad that I now have a new relative whose existence I hadn't known about. I know that in the past, he denied that his father was Jewish and he said harsh things. But I also know that now he is truly interested in discovering his Judaism, turning over a new leaf and helping Israel's relations with Russia. I believe him and I intend to help him."
Yutz.
In the first years of his political career he denied his Jewish origins, flying into a fury and vehemently rejecting occasional insinuations to this effect in the Russian media. In April 1996, I asked him in an interview that was held at his dacha outside Moscow whether he was not actually a half-Jew. After angrily attacking the hostile Jewish press, he replied nonchalantly, "Me? No way. That is just a slander. My mother was Russian and so was my father. You people cannot deal with my worldview, so you pry and search my past and my private life. I pose a challenge to everyone: Find documents in your archives and show me."
...Zhirinovsky has often assailed the supposed influence of the Jews. He identified with the remarks of Pat Buchanan, the American arch-conservative, during his run for the presidency in 1996, when he called the United States a "Zionist-occupied territory." "We in Russia have the same problem," he said.
Now that he's a MOT, though, how things have changed:
"Everyone who alleges that I am anti-Semitic is a liar," he tells Haaretz in an interview, in his room on the 11th floor of a Tel Aviv seaside hotel, between visits to the cemetery. "I have a high regard for the Jewish people, and in the past three years, in several Duma speeches, I praised the experience and intelligence of the Jews. I say only good and positive things about the Jews."
...What do you say to the opinion that anti-Semitism is deeply rooted in the heart of the Russian people?
"It is true that there is a certain problem with anti-Semitism in Russia. But that is only a matter of 100, 120 years, because of the Bolshevik Revolution. Many ministers and aides of Lenin and Stalin were Jews. So it is no wonder that there are people in the nation who hate then, because they hate Communism."
But there was anti-Semitism in Russia under the tsar, too.
"Fine. So write that there was anti-Semitism in Russia for 200 years, not 120."
Not only that, he's found a way to use it for his electioneering!
"What difference does it make whether you are Russian or Israeli or American or black or white?" he says in a conciliatory tone, as though he had never outrageously said the opposite. "What we need in Russia is someone with Jewish intelligence, a Russian heart, German precision, an American entrepreneurial spirit and Asian fanaticism - and do you know who has all that"? he asks rhetorically. "I do. I have Russian heart. Jewish intelligence. And because of the father I discovered here in Israel, Wolf, who has a German name, I can say that I also have German precision and a sense of entrepreneurship. After all, he was a rich man. Having been born in Kazakhstan, I also have Asian fanaticism."
Warms the cockles of the heart, doesn't it?
And he owes it all to Chabad's Chief Russia-dude, Berl Lazar. Thanks, Laz.
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