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Friday December 14, 2007

Little hope for Jews in Putin’s succession plan

by matt siegel
jta

moscow | By uttering a single sentence on national television this week endorsing Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev for Russia’s next president, President Vladimir Putin appeared to have decided the race for president in March.

But the answer to the real question on everyone’s mind — how Putin will maintain control of the country after the presidential elections — came the next day when Medvedev returned the favor and announced that he will name Putin as prime minister following his anticipated electoral victory.

Praising “the course of economic and social stability, the course that avoided civil war, the course of Putin,” Medvedev asked Putin to stay on after March.

In an instant, the questions the Jewish community had been asking since Monday — about Medvedev’s relationship to Israel, his position on Iran and the potential influence of a Medvedev-controlled Kremlin — were overshadowed by questions about presidential succession in Russia.

Even before Medvedev’s announcement, Jewish community leaders quietly were expressing concerns over the succession process. The announcement reinforced those concerns and cast a shadow over Medvedev’s anticipated presidency.

“I don’t believe that there are any differences,” said one Jewish community member, Maria Altschuler, 24. “I don’t believe there are any alternatives. And I don’t believe that anything will change.”

There is a sense of unease among Jews in Russia about politics in their country, as community members weigh the gains in Jewish life made under Putin against the climate of political fear the president has cultivated.

Reflecting this sentiment, community leaders declined to speak on the record about this week’s developments.

Privately, Jewish community leaders had predicted Putin would retain control despite the supposed ascension of a new president in March.

Whether to hedge their bets or not, some Jewish leaders paid homage this week to the man they heard would likely be Russia’s new leader.

Berel Lazar, the Russian chief rabbi of the Chabad-led Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia, who is close to Putin, told the Russian state news agency Interfax that it is not “a matter of religious figures to agitate for any candidate.”

Yet he was effusive in his praise for Medvedev, whom Lazar met only last week, when Medvedev made a Chanukah visit to a Chabad Jewish community center in Moscow.

“We have had more meetings with this statesman than with any other, except for President Putin,” Lazar said. “We can say that he has always been a clever and experienced interlocutor capable of reaching mutual understanding.”

The visit by Medvedev to the Marina Roscha community center appears to have been a calculated message from the Kremlin to the Jewish community intended to reassure the community at large and Lazar in particular.

Medvedev has been one of Putin’s closest political allies.

Born in then-Leningrad in 1965, Medvedev charted a course like many in Putin’s coterie. He studied law at Leningrad State University, where he completed his doctorate in 1990. Then, like Putin and other Kremlin insiders, he cut his political teeth working for Anatoly Sobchak, who became the first democratically elected mayor of Leningrad, now known as St. Petersburg.

But Medvedev differs from other members of the so-called Siloviki — those with power who surround the president — in one key aspect: Unlike Putin and his closest confidantes, Medvedev did not enter the state security services.

Jewish community leaders and members say they don’t expect either the endorsement of Medvedev or the news of Putin’s future to have any direct impact on the community, since a Putin-Medvedev government likely would continue current policies.

Under the current government, anti-Semitism mostly has disappeared from the political arena, but groups like Hamas have been welcomed to Moscow for state visits.

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