Haaretz
Adar1 19, 5765
The annual delegation of the
members of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish
Organizations visited Israel last week, and among them the unfamiliar face
of Vladimir Yosipov Sloutsker stood out. He is the brand new president of
the Russian Jewish Congress, who was invited to join the delegation. His
roly-poly figure and his bellowing laughter clearly differentiated him
from his restrained American colleagues.
Three months ago Sloutsker
was elected president of the Congress, the organization that presumes to
represent all the Jewish organizations in Russia, in a way similar to the
function of the Conference of Presidents in the United States. Sloutsker
is an extraordinarily colorful figure in the landscape of Jewish
functionaries. In addition to being a well-connected politician and a
successful businessman, he is a researcher and lecturer in kabbala and a
grand master in karate.
Sloutsker has taken up his position during
a low period in Israeli-Russian relations. Last month Russia decided to
sell Syria advanced missiles, and last month it announced that it would
provide Iran with fuel for operating the nuclear reactor at Bushehr.
Sloutsker attributes this to "certain bodies and centers of power in the
country, where thinking from the past prevails to the effect that the Arab
countries are part of `our' camp, and Israel and the Zionists are part of
the other side's camp."
He explains the anti-Semitism in Russia,
which in recent months has reached new heights, as part of a worldwide
trend: "Human civilization is in the midst of a process of a change in
values, and it is not yet clear what the new values will be. In conditions
of instability there is a tendency to blame the instability on the Jews.
This can already be seen today in Europe, when Israel is accused of
fanning international terror."
Sloutsker's attitude toward Israel
has undergone something of a change in recent months. At a press
conference that he called upon his election, he did not mention the
connection between the Congress and Israel as one of his goals, and also
evaded an answer when he was asked about this. In an interview in
Jerusalem last week, he was already saying that without the State of
Israel there is no meaning to the existence of Diaspora Jewry. During his
visit here he was granted a private meeting with Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon, at which he called upon him to embark on an aggressive public
relations campaign to improve the standing of Israel and Jews in the
world. He also suggested the establishment in Russia of a body to deal
with the conversion of immigrants to Israel and promised to help bring
Jewish youngsters to study in Israel. But Sloutsker's enthusiasm ended
when Sharon started talking about mass immigration. As far as he is
concerned, immigration like that should be left for the end of
days.
Clinical death
The Russian Jewish Congress,
which was founded in 1996 with huge fanfare, has in recent years reached
the brink of clinical death. Its founders, a group of Jewish oligarchs
headed by Vladimir Gusinsky, who also served as its first president, tried
to shape it on the model of the very prestigious and influential
Conference of Presidents. But the promising start was cut short by
Vladimir Putin's rise to power. Gusinsky, who was among the oligarchs who
did not hesitate to enter into confrontation with the Kremlin, criticized
Putin in the media that he owns. The persecution by the authorities forced
Gusinsky to flee from Russia in 2000, and the Congress became one of the
main casualties of the affair.
Three years later, the same path was
followed by the second president of the Congress, Leonid Nevzlin, one of
the owners of the Yukos oil company, who was forced to flee to Israel. He
was replaced by Yevgeny Stanovsky, who did not enjoy the personal wealth
and the status of his predecessors. The budget for the activity of the
Congress, which initially had stood at $10 million a year, also plummeted
during Stanovsky's day to a few hundred thousand dollars a
year.
Now the position is once again in the hands of a Jewish
oligarch, though of a different sort than his predecessors, as Sloutsker
in fact declares his enthusiasm for Putin and it appears to be his
intention to make like easy for the Kremlin. Sloutsker, who brought with
him to the position both wealth and connections in the government, donated
immediately upon his election a quarter of a million dollars to the scant
coffers of the Congress. The extent of his personal wealth is unknown and
of his business affairs he is prepared to say only that they are in the
banking field. He says that he learned the fine English he speaks during
his 20 years of international business management.
Sloutsker's wife
Olga is also a successful businesswoman who owns a chain of fashionable
fitness clubs. Her husband makes it a point to stay fit: He practices
karate four times a week and this year successfully passed all the tests
for the fourth dan.
Pride and joy
Sloutsker's pride
and joy is his knowledge of kabbala, which he says he discovered at the
age of 31 after reading an article in a popular scientific journal. "At
first I thought kabbala would enable me to develop supernatural powers,"
he says. "That didn't happen, but thanks to kabbala I got closer to
Judaism and I became a believer." The huge popularity of kabbala in the
Western world has also come to Moscow. There Sloutsker operates a center
for kabbala study that, according to him, enjoys unprecedented demand. He
himself teaches a group of about 30 students, most of them non-Jews, some
of whom are in advanced stages of conversion proceedings, he
says.
The Sloutskers are at the very heart of the business and
political elite of Moscow. Their circle of acquaintances includes many
Jews, businesspeople and senior members of the government. Sloutsker's
favorite arena for meetings is the Congressman, the business club of the
Russian Jewish Congress. "People of my generation have taken all the
`right' positions in business and politics," says Sloutsker, "and I have
many friends." One of his friends, the governor of a district in the Volga
area, appointed Sloutsker as a representative of the district in the upper
house of the Russian parliament. The upper house does not play an
important role in Russian politics, but membership in it is considered a
status symbol for businesspeople with connections. According to reports,
the match between Sloutsker and the Russian Jewish Congress was made by
Vladimir Rissen, the Jewish deputy mayor of Moscow who is considered to be
Sloutsker's patron in public life.
In the Jewish organizations in
Russia, Sloutsker's election was interpreted as a sign of an expected
tightening of the connection between the Congress and the authorities.
Evidence of this is the fact that the Kremlin publicly offered its
congratulations on the appointment - an unprecedented step. Sloutsker does
not try to conceal his admiration for Russia's leader. He speaks
emotionally about Putin the youth, who once shared lodgings with a Jewish
family. "Putin is the source of my optimism about the Jewish future in
Russia," he says.
Sloutsker's loyalty to Putin was put to the test
a short while after he took up his position. Last month there was a public
storm following the publication of a crude anti-Semitic petition in an
extreme nationalist media outlet. The petition, which was inspired by the
Beiliss trial and the doctors' plot, was signed by several hundred people,
among them members of the media, intellectuals and about 20 members of the
Duma, the lower house of the Russian Parliament. The Jews of Russia, who
usually are not paid much attention by the Russian media, were suddenly at
the center of public interest. "I was shocked," says Sloutsker. "The
people who signed the petition called upon the prosecutor general of
Russia to outlaw the Jewish religion - this reminded me of statements by
Hitler and Goebbels in the 1930s." Some liberal Jewish commentators
assessed that the Kremlin had something to do with it. They noted Putin's
silence during the first days after the publication of the petition and
argued that the petition indirectly served his aims. Sloutsker came out in
public in defense of the president. "This petition was a political act and
its clear aim was to embarrass the president, who was supposed to deliver
a speech that week at a memorial ceremony for the liberation of the camp
at Auschwitz."
In Sloutsker's favor it must be said that Putin
eventually apologized in public for the affair and said in his speech at
Auschwitz that he felt shame at the manifestations of anti-Semitism in his
country.