Let me state categorically: I don't know about Poland, but the idea that Russia is noticeably more anti-Semitic than your average Western European country is a lot of garbage. I have seen so sign of it; I don't hear it, I don't see it. It is bullshit. The clearest example of this is people's attitudes toward the privatization of the '90s, the high-profile beneficiaries of which were overwhelmingly Jewish and which hurt everybody else. Nobody outside of a few nutcases blames it on "the Jews," despite the fact that Berezovsky is a walking anti-Semitic stereotype out of the pages of Der volkischer Beobachter; they blame it on dishonest people stealing. As a matter of fact, when asked why they think so many of the oligarchs are Jewish, your average person will say that it is because Jews help each other, whereas Russians do not. My girlfriend wasn't even aware of the ethnic makeup of the oligarchs until I told her.
I interviewed the head of the Global Jewish Assistance and Relief Network in Russia (http://www.thecitizen.ru/index.shtml?razd=1&article=13), and he said the only "anti-Semitism" he had encountered was surprise on the part of recipients of aid from his charity that Jews were helping Russians.
Are Jews viewed as "different"? Yes. Are they feared? No. Hated? No. Resented? No. Targeted? No. Ostracized? No.
Russian Jewish leaders have said clearly, again and again and again, that anti-Semitism is not a problem in Russia. Yet this bogus stereotype persists. The desire to have a Dark Continent upon which one's fantasies can be projected seems to be a strong one in the West. Someone much abler than I should really do an Orientalism about this.
So I stand by Woj's vampire statement. The idea that anti-Semitism is a big problem in Russia, and probably Eastern Europe as a whole, is a whole lot of crap.
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