Blog : Philosémitisme

Antisemitism-Europe blog: A delegation from the World Zionist Organization toured Odessa recently. According to the tour guide there is still a lot of antisemitism in Odessa and it has not disappeared. The tour guide showed the group various antisemitic graffiti around the city.

Le Daily Mail rapporte: Leader of 30,000-strong Jewish community in Odessa says they may have to flee over fears of persecution - City saw appalling massacres by Nazis in World War II and was also scene of pogroms in Tsarist Russia. Extraits:

'Flee Odessa' warning by leader of embattled city's Jewish community over violence which could turn to anti-Semitism

The leader of the Jewish community in the Ukranian city of Odessa has spoken on plans for a mass evacuation amid mounting fears of violence and anti-Semitism.  Rabbi Refael Kruskal told the Jerusalem Post he was concerned about 'provocations' against the Jewish community and was ready to move children first, and possibly more people, if the 30,000-strong community was targeted.  He and other Jewish community leaders said there had not been any evidence of anti-Semitism so far but said next weekend could be a flashpoint, as it marks 8 May, the day of victory over Nazi Germany. [...]

ODESSA: THE JEWISH CITY WHERE ANTI-SEMITISM CASTS A LONG AND VERY DARK SHADOW

There was a time when Odessa was the epitome of the Jewish city: a rich culture where Yiddish and Russian mixed, a city of intellectual brilliance, politics, music and religious learning.

But the reason that 19th century Odessa was a centre of Jewish culture and learning was in fact rooted in anti-Semitism, as Jews were only allowed to live in certain parts of the Russian empire - those which were beyond the Pale, the limit of settlement.  At its height the city was up to 40 per cent Jewish but there was the constant threat of persecution. Pogroms were recorded in 1821, 1859, 1871, 1881 and - possibly the worst of all - 1905.  In four nights of violence hundreds died, businesses were destroyed and the police and soldiers did not just stand aside; they took part in the violence.

The city's famous steps became a passport to freedom from persecution, often in the United States, and in other parts of Western Europe, and - from the 1880s - Ottoman Palestine.

As the 19th century ended Odessa became a centre of the growing Zionism movement, with the bloody persecutions of 1905 confirming for many Jews the need for a Jewish home territory.

If the Jews of Odessa had thought the end of the Tsarist regime in 1917 meant they could live in peace, however, there was much worse to come. The Soviet Union was hardly a panacea and low-level anti-Semitism was a feature of official life.

In 1941, as Nazi forces invaded the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa, their Romanian allies took control of Odessa and the Germans moved in too.

Bloodshed was swift and appalling: in the first six months of occupation an estimate of as many 170,000 Jews, 80 per cent of the community in Odessa and its surroundings, were estimated to have been killed.  The worst violence was on three nights, October 22, 23 and 24 1941, when up to 34,000 people were shot or burned to dead for their religion. In one morning 19,000 alone were shot, while in the immediate aftermath up to 40,000 Jews were forced into a ghetto.

The city today has a Jewish population of 30,000, a shadow of its former self, but still large by the standards of other parts of Eastern Europe in the aftermath of the Holocaust.