Jakaŭ Hutman: Today's Regime in Belarus Pursues a Policy of State Antisemitism
Jakaŭ Hutman: Today's Regime in Belarus Pursues a Policy of State Antisemitism 2007-03-14 00:15
for Third Way by Michael Timokhov
Third Way (3W): Why did the Jewish people leave Palestine and settle all over the world? Jakaŭ Hutman (JH): The Jews were banned from their land after an uprising in 69 AD that was brutally stifled by Rome. Since that time and practically till 1948, when the state of Israel was created, they lived in many different places of the world. Some part of the Jewish nation still lived in Israel, but most of them were a diaspora spread worldwide.
3W: When did the first Jewish settlers come to Belarus? What was their occupation, how did they integrate into Belarus?
JH: Until 1917 the assimilation did a small progress and the Jews stayed a relatively closed group of population of the Russian Empire. There were only few cases of Jewish people leaving the community by adopting Christianity.
The official historiography says that Jews came to Belarus around 600 years ago. But still there is evidence of a much earlier Jewish presence in the Belarusian lands. According to a 850 years old legend, the town of Mazyr in central Polesia was found by a Jewish merchant named Mazyr who travelled down the river Prypiać to Kyiv. Suddenly there was a storm on the river, Mazyr's boat turned over and the merchant's 18 years old daughter drawned. The Jewish tradition says that the funeral must take place immediately after the death, and the merchant settled at his daughter's grave.
As to the number of the Jewish population of Belarus, so in 1919-1920 Jews made up 70-80% of the population of cities like Pinsk, Minsk and Babrujsk. In 1896 48-50% of the population of Minsk was Jewish. Right before the World War 2 Jews made up 10% of the population of Belarus. A fact that is not widely remembered now is that the Soviet motto "Workers of All Countries, Unite!" was written on the emblem of the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic in Belarusian, Russian, Polish - and Yiddish. There were rural administrative units where all documents were kept and trials were held in Yiddish. Besides that there were numerous Jewish doctors. As Jews were the best educated part of the population, many of them started working for the Bolshevik administration, for the NKVD and Cheka
3W: What are the roots of antisemitism? What was antisemitism like in Belarus in the course of history?( Read more... ) 
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