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Archives of News Articles about the Jewish Community in Belarus:

• Recent articles (2008)

• January through December, 2007

• January through December, 2000

• January through December, 1999

  Note: In the following, the most recent news articles are listed at the top.

News Article: Intellectuals Condemn State Antisemitism in Belarus

"Politician Alexey Karol, filmmaker Uladzimer Kolas, and artist Aliaxey Marachkin, organizers of the Congress of Belarusian Intellectuals, claim that 'the years that have passed since Alexander Lukashenka was elected [President], are unfortunately full of numerous examples of fostering ethnic and religious enmity.' "

" 'We are protesting against vandalism of Belarusian talibs who destroy relics of Jewish and Belarusian people,' the statement reads. According to Karol, the facts of antisemitism in Belarus would be discussed at the Congress of Belarusian Intellectuals, due in Minsk in a month."

Source: Radio Racyja, 24 December 2002

News Article: Vandals Smash Jewish Gravestones in Belarus Cemetery

"Vandals have smashed dozens of Jewish gravestones at a cemetery in Belarus in what Jewish leaders said was an anti-Semitic attack prompted by the ex-Soviet state's lax controls over extremist groups. Yakov Basin, head of a group which defends Jewish rights, said the destruction of the gravestones last weekend in Borisov, about 100 km (60 miles) north of the capital Minsk, was part of a long list of crimes committed against Jews.

"These skinheads have set fire to the Jewish centre in Borisov, they attack Jewish girls and boys... The government has not got involved in the conflict," Basin told Reuters. He said in Minsk, neo-fascists had daubed a picture of a gallows on the statue honouring Jews who were brought to a ghetto in Minsk from Hamburg during World War Two.

Attacks on Jews, synagogues, Jewish cemeteries and other Jewish sites increased across Europe in April after Israel launched a military offensive in the West Bank aimed at rooting out Palestinian militants blamed for suicide attacks.

Before the war, there were 400,000 Jews in Belarus, many having settled there because they were banned from living in much of tsarist Russia. Yiddish was declared one of four state languages in a 1920s Soviet-era constitution, but tens of thousands left due to the anti-Semitism of Soviet authorities.

Now about 100,000 remain among the 10 million population of Belarus, sandwiched between Russia, ex-Soviet Ukraine, Poland and Latvia. President Alexander Lukashenko, who promotes a post-Soviet union with Russia, is accused by Western countries of crushing opposition, running roughshod over the independent press, and failing to protect human rights."

Source: News Belarus, July 12, 2002 (republished from Reuters)

News Article: Belarus Officials Incite Anti-Jewish Hatred

"'The Department for Humanitarian Aid of the president's administration applies double-standard policy against the Jewish religious association. Levying customs duties on religious items will provoke strong public scrutiny and will be considered by the Jewish believers as an attempt to hamper the religious practice during our great feast,' - stressed chair of the board of directors of the charity mission of the Jewish religious association Vladimir Teplitsky after the customs officers levied taxes on a five-ton cargo of matzoth, delivered on the eve of the great Jewish religious feast Pesakh. The authorities considered it humanitarian load."

"Vladimir Teplitsky declared that the analogous cargo, shipped to a few other Jewish communities, was called religious, rather than humanitarian, and therefore believed tax-exempt."

"At present, there are 28 thousand Jews living on the territory of Belarus, members of 16 religious and 21 non-religious Jewish communities."

Source: Charter 97, April 6, 2001, citing NTV