page_title: History of the Jews in Russia
section_title: Russia today
hierarchical_section_title: History of the Jews in Russia / Russia today
caption_attribution_description: English: MOSCOW. President Putin with Russia's Chief Rabbi Berl Lazar during the Jewish Hanukkah holiday at the Jewish Community Centre.Русский: МОСКВА. На еврейском празднике Ханука в Еврейском общинном центре. С главным раввином Федерации еврейских общин Берлом Лазаром.
context_page_description: The history of the Jews in Russia and areas historically connected with it goes back at least 1,500 years. Jews in Russia have historically constituted a large religious diaspora; the vast territories of the Russian Empire at one time hosted the largest population of Jews in the world.
  Within these territories the primarily Ashkenazi Jewish communities of many different areas flourished and developed many of modern Judaism's most distinctive theological and cultural traditions, while also facing periods of anti-Semitic discriminatory policies and persecutions. The largest group among Russian Jews are Ashkenazi Jews, but the community also includes a significant proportion of other non-Ashkenazi from other Jewish diaspora including Mountain Jews, Sephardi Jews, Crimean Karaites, Krymchaks, Bukharan Jews, and Georgian Jews.
  The presence of Jewish people in the European part of Russia can be traced to the 7th–14th centuries CE. In the 11th and 12th centuries, the Jewish population in Kiev, in present-day Ukraine, was restricted to a separate quarter. Evidence of the presence of Jewish people in Muscovite Russia is first documented in the chronicles of 1471.
context_section_description: Judaism today is officially designated as one of Russia's four state-religions, alongside Orthodox Christianity, Islam and Buddhism. Jews make up about 0.16% of the total population of Russia, according to the 2002 census. Most Russian Jews are secular and identify themselves as Jews via ethnicity rather than religion, although interest about Jewish identity as well as practice of Jewish tradition amongst Russian Jews is growing. The Lubavitcher Jewish Movement has been active in this sector, setting up synagogues and Jewish kindergartens in Russian cities with Jewish populations. In addition, most Russian Jews have relatives who live in Israel.
  There are several major Jewish organizations in the territories of the former USSR. The central Jewish organization is the Federation of Jewish Communities of the CIS under the leadership of Chief Rabbi Berel Lazar.
  A linguistic distinction remains to this day in the Russian language where there are two distinct terms that correspond to the word Jew in English. The word еврей ("yevrey" – Hebrew) typically denotes a Jewish ethnicity, as "Hebrew" did in English up until the early 20th century. The word иудей ("iudey" – Judean, etymologically related to the English Jew) is reserved for denoting a follower of the Jewish religion, whether he or she is ethnically Jewish or ethnically Gentile; this term has largely fallen out of use in favor of the equivalent term иудаист ("iudaist"-Judaist). For example, according to a 2012 Russian survey, евреи account for only 32.2% of иудаисты in Russia, with nearly half (49.8%) being Ethnic Russians (русские),. An ethnic slur, жид (borrowed from the Polish Żyd, Jew), also remains in widespread use in Russia.
  Antisemitism is one of the most common expressions of xenophobia in post-Soviet Russia, even among some groups of politicians. Despite stipulations against fomenting hatred based on ethnic or religious grounds (Article 282 of Russian Federation Penal Code), In 2002, the number of anti-Semitic neo-Nazi groups in the republics of the former Soviet Union, lead Pravda to declare in 2002 that "Anti-Semitism is booming in Russia". In January 2005, a group of 15 Duma members demanded that Judaism and Jewish organizations be banned from Russia. In 2005, 500 prominent Russians, including some 20 members of the nationalist Rodina party, demanded that the state prosecutor investigate ancient Jewish texts as "anti-Russian" and ban Judaism. An investigation was in fact launched, but halted after an international outcry.
  Overall, in recent years, particularly since the early 2000s, levels of anti-semitism in Russia have been low, and steadily decreasing. The government of Vladimir Putin takes a stand against antisemitism, although some political movements and groups in Russia are antisemitic.
  In Russia, both historical and contemporary antisemitic materials are frequently published. For example, a set (called Library of a Russian Patriot) consisting of twenty five antisemitic titles was recently published, including Mein Kampf translated to Russian (2002), which although was banned in 2010, The Myth of Holocaust by Jürgen Graf, a title by Douglas Reed, Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and others.
  Antisemitic incidents are mostly conducted extremist, nationalist, and Islamist groups. Most of the antisemitic incidents are against Jewish cemeteries and building (community centers and synagogues) such as the assault against the Jewish community's center in Perm in March 2013 and the attack on Jewish nursery school in Volgograd in August 2013. Nevertheless, there were several violent attacks against Jews in Moscow in 2006 when a neo-Nazi stabbed 9 people at the Bolshaya Bronnaya Synagogue, the failed bomb attack on the same synagogue in 1999.
   
  Attacks against Jews made by extremist Islamic groups are rare in Russia although there has been increase in the scope of the attacks mainly in Muslim populated areas. On July 25, 2013 the rabbi of Derbent was attacked and badly injured by an unknown person near his home, most likely by a terrorist. The incident sparked co
caption: President Putin lighting a Hannukah Menorah with Russia's Chief Rabbi Berel Lazar. Judaism is officially designated as one of Russia's four state-religions.[104]
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