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Friday April 16, 1999

Besieged Jews in Russia get support from Bay Area

LESLIE KATZ
Bulletin Staff

Local efforts to help besieged Jews in an isolated northwestern Russian town have produced dramatic results.

Targeted by the fast-growing ultra-nationalist Russian National Unity Party, the Jews of Borovichi cried out to the Bay Area Council of Jewish Rescue and Renewal for help. Most of the town's Jewish families had received hate mail. Anti-Semitic posters were plastered throughout the city of 80,000, located halfway between Moscow and St. Petersburg.

On learning of those threats, the S.F-based BACJRR sent an alert to the local Jewish community and leaders in Congress. The word went out in public meetings, by mail and over the Internet. Immediately, hundreds of letters and e-mails of concern poured into Borovichi authorities from the Bay Area and as far away as Spain, Germany and Argentina.

Six months later, the 500-member Borovichi Jewish community was granted a space in the center of town for a Jewish human rights center and synagogue. And the local Duma, or legislature, passed four laws prohibiting the ultra-nationalist RNU from inciteful activities.

"To tell you the truth, even I am amazed at how progressive our mayor and governor have been since receiving sacks and sacks of letters from all over the world in defense of Jews," Edward Alekseev, president of the Borovichi Jewish community, said by e-mail last month.

This week, Alekseev helped lead a two-day seminar on countering extremist messages among youth. Among those slated to attend were human rights workers, the American consul general in Russia and Borovichi's mayor, who helped plan the event.

The mayor's participation marks the first time a city administration has initiated such a program, according to Alekseev.

Pnina Levermore, executive director of the BACJRR, a human rights organization promoting freedom and survival in the former Soviet Union, said she never expected such an overwhelming response to the campaign.

"This is all because of the fact that we wouldn't just leave this alone. We targeted it with a kind of surgical persistence."

The strategy, Levermore said, was to pressure local authorities in the Novgorod region.

"Obviously there is a serious problem on the federal level in Russia," she said. "But beyond that, there are localities where local authorities have total control over what happens in their own region."

What happened in Borovichi was chilling.

Members of the RNU, or so-called Barkashov Party, opened an office, recruiting members at local schools and on local television. They marched through the streets dressed in signature black uniforms and swastikas. Jews received letters at their homes saying they had better leave or the streets would run with Jewish blood. Jewish graves were desecrated.

Among posters appearing on town walls was one showing a stick figure tossing a Jewish star into a garbage can. "Jews - garbage," the caption read.

At Temple Beth Torah in Fremont -- Borovichi's partner city -- congregants heeded the call, sending letters to the town's mayor and governor. The Reform congregation also sent funds for the High Holy Days and Passover. And members chatted with Alekseev by phone with the help of a bilingual congregant.

Before the international pressure hit, the authorities did little to allay the anxiety of Borovichi's Jews, Alekseev told Levermore during a September meeting in St. Petersburg.

He asked that American Jews send e-mails of support directly to Borovichi's Jewish residents. The BACJRR has maintained almost daily contact with the community leader. The town's Jews "need to feel they're not forgotten, that there is concern about their fate," Levermore said.

Laws passed in recent months ban the RNU from meeting, wearing swastikas and distributing fascist leaflets, books and posters. Shortly after the laws passed, several RNU members were arrested, though they were released pending an investigation.

"Apparently the RNU has gone underground," Levermore said.

Observers call the progress in Borovichi dramatic, though the threat from extremists is far from over. Levermore predicts progress in stemming the RNU in Borovichi may extend to other parts of the Novgorod region but is unlikely to fan out to the entire country.

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