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. ---
Me: Members of such groups in Russia itself tend to be teenage male children of the former, now lumpenized, Soviet middle class. Their parents are doctors, teachers, scientists, etc., who would have had a priviliged life under the old system but lost everything during early 1990s hyperinflation.
Russia itself has actually surprised me by its lack of anti-Semitism, given its reputation. Maybe this is because so many Jews have left? Or because Russian anti-Semitism was exaggerated during the Cold War era? I dunno. But I have never heard anyone badmouth Jews, while people slam the chyorniye (blacks, i.e., Caucasians) all the time, and pretty openly too. Russia has a hell of a lot of racism, but there's just not very much anti-Semitism outside of a few fringe groups.
These groups have a pretty high turnover, by the way. I have the impression that a lot of teenage boys join to take advantage of the free martial arts lessons and leave 5 months later.
_________________________________________________________________ Protect your PC - get McAfee.com VirusScan Online http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963