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August 13, 1999/1 Elul 5759, Vol. 51, No.45
Russian Jews feeling nervous about government shake-up
LEV KRICHEVSKY
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
MOSCOW - Russian President Boris Yeltsin's latest Cabinet reshuffling could hinder the government's ability to crack down on anti-Semitism, according to Russian Jewish leaders.
"There is little grounds for optimism when we call on the government to ensure stability but there is no stability with the government itself," said Pavel Feldblum, the executive vice president of the Moscow Jewish Community. Feldblum's comments came after Yeltsin sacked his entire Cabinet, including Prime Minister Sergei Stepashin, in a surprise move this week. Yeltsin replaced Stepashin, the fourth prime minister he has fired in the last 17 months, with security chief Vladimir Putin, a former KGB spy.
During a trip to Washington last month, Stepashin condemned anti-Semitism in Russia and vowed to "eradicate" it.
Like Stepashin, the 47-year-old Putin is a native of St. Petersburg. A former aide to St. Petersburg's liberal ex-Mayor Anatoly Sobchak who was virtually unknown until last year, Putin has enjoyed a meteoric rise in the Kremlin. Recently he has been the director of the Federal Security Service, the Russian domestic intelligence agency that is the successor to the Soviet-era KGB, as well as the secretary of Yeltsin's Security Council.
As the former head of the security service, Security Council and a presidential commission to combat extremism, Putin dealt with the issues of anti-Semitism, neo-Nazism and racism in Russian society. But Putin has never made any direct public comments concerning anti-Semitism.
Putin has had several meetings with Jewish officials, according to Moscow's chief rabbi, Pinchas Goldschmidt. Last year Goldschmidt was among a group of Jewish leaders who met with Putin, then head of the security service, to discuss security-related issues.
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