> Bryan, in the phenomenon in Israel, are these neo-Nazi or pan-Slavic
groups.
> Most Russian extremist nationalist or anti-Semitic groups would never use
a
> swastika.
>
> I note also they seem to have grafed Israeli hatreds onto their Russian
> ones. Muslims are not a big target of nationalist hatred in Russia.
Chris,
According to the article's author, they do use the swastika in some cases:
"The range of incidents is wide: non-Jewish immigrants calling Jewish immigrants Zhid, an elderly Jewish immigrant woman in Jerusalem being beaten by a non-Jewish caregiver who calls her "Zhidovka," comments like "Hitler didn't finish the job," swastika graffiti found all the time in predominantly Russian-speaking neighborhoods, vandalism in synagogues and cemeteries. "
-
> From what I take from the article and surmise from what I know about the
Russian immigrants, the groups followers come mostly from young, army aged
(18-21) Russian immigrants who have been in the country since at least
high-school:
"The low literary level of Russian, which is full of mistakes, shows that these are people with little education, in whose poor language Yardeni identifies a marked Hebrew influence. That is, these are young people who came to Israel with their families under the Law of Return and have grown up here."
This deviance from the standard Russian Pan-Slavic groups avoidance of the swastika could stem from the fact that the members of these hate groups here were too young when they lived in Russia to fully understand the ideology of Pan-Slavism, and instead mix and match cliches freely from what they remember and see on the internet.
Plus if a group wants to have a shocking and rebellious impact in Israel, using the swastika and defending the Holocaust are about the best possible ways to go about it.
Plus, a sizable portion of the recent Russian immigrants have, at best, one parent or grandparent who is "jewish", and many who's family are not "jewish" at all, but had parents who paid for fake documentation in Russia in order to immigrate here. A portion of them go to the Russian Orthodox Churches here. And further, there is a large amount of poverty among the more recent immigrants.
In a society that spends so much energy in the school system, media and organized youth groups, creating identity around one's 'Jewishness', one can easily see how the resentment of these young immigrants' socio-economic position could translate into a complete rejection of the "Jewishness" that dragged them here.
Not that this doesn't stop them from hating Arabs, foreign workers and probably non-white tourists also.
Bryan