Petr
01-06-2006, 12:00 PM
Well, isn't this qute development - a Jewish crook spending money stolen from Gentiles to celebrate Judaic ethnocentrism!
"Raised in a secular Moscow household, Nevzlin began studying Jewish tradition during the waning years of communism, under Russian Chief Rabbi Adolf Shayevich and Talmud scholar Rabbi Adin Steinsalz. Around the same time, he befriended Khodorkovsky, an enterprising former Young Communists leader with whom he founded Bank Menatep, Russia's first publicly traded company. "
Notice how Nevzlin's Talmudic studies and his forming of shady connections occurred simultaneously - Talmudic Judaism really does look like an organized crime syndicate masquerading as a religion, as Michael Hoffman put it!
http://www.forward.com/articles/7116
Exiled Russian Mogul Heads Museum, Seeks To Lift Israeli Respect For Diaspora
By FORWARD STAFF
January 6, 2006
TEL AVIV — Moscow-born business tycoon Leonid Nevzlin settled in Israel two years ago to avoid Russian criminal charges that he said were partly motivated by antisemitism. But he doesn't see much irony in his decision to use his new position as chairman of Tel Aviv's Diaspora Museum to honor the contribution of host cultures like Russia's to Jewish life outside of Israel.
"I don't want to squander the experience gained over there," said Nevzlin, 46, during an interview at the Diaspora Museum, located on the campus of Tel Aviv University. Although he said he views himself "a returned person" since coming to Israel, he doesn't "want us to forget the contribution of the world's cultures to Jewish life. Einstein — a Zionist who almost became president of Israel — was Germany's achievement, too. We have much to be thankful for toward the world."
Nevzlin's vision of Diaspora life stands in stark contrast to his feelings about the country he left behind. He described his travails at the hands of Russian authorities — who have charged him with tax evasion and ordering the murder of business rivals — as a "betrayal." He views the Russian government crackdown against him, his partners and other business tycoons, the so-called oligarchs, as an anti-Jewish campaign that exploits Russia's longstanding antisemitic bias.
And yet he has spent millions celebrating the cultural legacy of Jews in Russia. He founded institutes in Moscow, Vilnius and Jerusalem to study the influence of Russian Jews around the world since 1917. He remains a primary supporter of Jewish communal life in Russia today, even though he won't return.
Nevzlin is one of a small group of Russian business tycoons who made fortunes in the early 1990s, after the collapse of communism, by winning control of the country's main media and industrial firms during the privatization effort of then-President Boris Yeltsin.
President Vladimir Putin, who succeeded Yeltsin in 1999, has waged a campaign against many of the oligarchs. Several of the best-known oligarchs, including Vladimir Gusinsky and Boris Berezovsky, have fled the country. Another, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Nevzlin's partner and ally, was sentenced last June to nine years in prison on charges of tax evasion and fraud. The sentence was widely seen as politically motivated.
Putin's campaign has proved unsettling to many Russia-watchers around the world, who see it as part of a broader campaign to restore the Kremlin's once-autocratic powers and regain state control of the economy. Most observers downplay the role of antisemitism, even though more than half the oligarchs are Jewish or partly Jewish.
But Nevzlin has no doubt that antisemitism is at least part of the motive.
"Under Yeltsin, Jews were once again able to break into the top ranks of business and politics," he said. "But with so many Jews everywhere, an antisemitic electoral base was formed. People sit in their village, heating their furnaces, and they see these Jewish mugs on TV, the handsome life in Moscow, the gold and diamonds."
Blaming Jews for post-communist economic dislocation was a natural next step, Nevzlin said. "No one ever taught the Russian people that to make money, you have to hustle." With a cynical eye on Russian voters, therefore, Kremlin leaders decided that "to come down on oligarchs who are Jews is much easier than to come down on oligarchs who are not. The mood around Putin is: 'The kikes have grabbed it all up.' Is this antisemitism? You tell me."
Raised in a secular Moscow household, Nevzlin began studying Jewish tradition during the waning years of communism, under Russian Chief Rabbi Adolf Shayevich and Talmud scholar Rabbi Adin Steinsalz. Around the same time, he befriended Khodorkovsky, an enterprising former Young Communists leader with whom he founded Bank Menatep, Russia's first publicly traded company. The bank acquired other properties, including the Russian oil giant Yukos.
By 2003, Forbes magazine ranked Nevzlin 386th on its list of the world's wealthiest people, with a net worth of $1.1 billion. Khodorkovsky was ranked 26th, with a wealth of $8 billion.
Nevzlin moved to Israel in July 2003, intending, he said, to work on a doctoral dissertation in German philosophy. A few months earlier, looking to focus his energies on humanitarian rather than business endeavors, he had given a generous gift to the Russian State University for the Humanities, which rewarded him with the position of rector, although he lacked a Ph.D.
A few weeks after he left, the Russian government began investigating the tax records of Yukos. It was the opening move in what many Russia-watchers saw as a deliberate campaign to neutralize Khodorkovsky's growing political influence. A third Menatep partner, Platon Lebedev, had been arrested at the beginning of July. Khodorkovsky would be arrested in October. Nevzlin, fearing for his own safety, decided to stay in Israel.
He was not universally welcomed. Labor Party lawmaker Colette Avital, who chaired the Knesset's Immigration and Absorption Committee, was one of several to charge that Israel was granting asylum to a suspected criminal because of his money.
But some welcomed him warmly, including Israel's best-known Russian immigrant, Natan Sharansky. Then minister of Diaspora affairs, Sharansky had been charged by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon with reviving the financially moribund Diaspora Museum. Nevzlin offered an immediate gift that he describes as close to $1 million. A year later he was named chairman of the museum's board.
Nevzlin's plans for the museum represent a sharp departure from its founding orientation. The museum has a distinctly Zionist perspective, presenting Diaspora life as a continuing struggle amid often unfriendly host cultures, relieved only by the rise of modern Israel. (Tellingly, the museum's chronicle of Diaspora life ends in 1948.) Nevzlin wants to build a new wing that will focus on post-1948 Diaspora life. His aim is to revise the Israeli view of the Diaspora and celebrate the cultures that have nurtured Jewish life.
"I want us to move on to a more positive note," Nevzlin said. "In many Jewish institutes and Holocaust museums, it's all tragedy and pessimism. Then we made Israel, and everything was fine."
In reality, he said, "there was mutual enrichment. There's more to these countries than the Holocaust and antisemitism, and besides, you can't build a future on tragedy and pessimism. The Holocaust has been thoroughly worked over, both in Israel and abroad. Let's focus on something else."
Nevzlin envisions the Diaspora Museum as a "house of tolerance," not only between Israel and other countries, but also between Israeli and Diaspora Jews. "Israel doesn't really worry about the future of the Jewish people," he said. "Here, Jewish people become citizens of a state called Israel who are mainly concerned with life in this country, and are not much interested in the Jewish people who have remained in the Diaspora. It isn't right for Israel to remain so isolated."
On the other hand, he added, "it isn't right that young people in the Diaspora not only don't think about Israel but aren't even sure where it is on the map. I believe the Jewish people here and there are one. The question is: How do you bring them together?"
Israel's traditional answer, immigration, is not adequate, Nevzlin said. Asked about the uproar in 2004 when Prime Minister Ariel Sharon scandalized French Jews by urging that they move to Israel to escape anti-Jewish violence, Nevzlin said it's time for Israeli officials to realize that many Jews are quite fulfilled — as Jews — in the Diaspora. "Essentially, Israel is finished growing," he said. "We have to start dealing with what we have."
In the Diaspora Museum, Nevzlin inherits a struggling institution that has seen its public funding and visitors dwindle. The museum, in turn, acquires a chairman whose commitments sometimes have been strikingly brief. He was elected president of the Russian Jewish Congress in 2001 but served less than half a year. His funding of Moscow's International Center for Russian and Eastern European Jewish Studies lasted some three months.
Nevzlin insists his commitment to the Diaspora Museum will last at least a decade. Unlike fellow Russian Israeli billionaire Arkadi Gaidamak, he claims to have no interest in politics. He has delegated his business responsibilities to colleagues at Bank Menatep. And he intends to remain in Israel even if a more liberal, accountable regime assumes power in Russia.
"As a Jew," he said, "I could return only once, and I already have."
"Raised in a secular Moscow household, Nevzlin began studying Jewish tradition during the waning years of communism, under Russian Chief Rabbi Adolf Shayevich and Talmud scholar Rabbi Adin Steinsalz. Around the same time, he befriended Khodorkovsky, an enterprising former Young Communists leader with whom he founded Bank Menatep, Russia's first publicly traded company. "
Notice how Nevzlin's Talmudic studies and his forming of shady connections occurred simultaneously - Talmudic Judaism really does look like an organized crime syndicate masquerading as a religion, as Michael Hoffman put it!
http://www.forward.com/articles/7116
Exiled Russian Mogul Heads Museum, Seeks To Lift Israeli Respect For Diaspora
By FORWARD STAFF
January 6, 2006
TEL AVIV — Moscow-born business tycoon Leonid Nevzlin settled in Israel two years ago to avoid Russian criminal charges that he said were partly motivated by antisemitism. But he doesn't see much irony in his decision to use his new position as chairman of Tel Aviv's Diaspora Museum to honor the contribution of host cultures like Russia's to Jewish life outside of Israel.
"I don't want to squander the experience gained over there," said Nevzlin, 46, during an interview at the Diaspora Museum, located on the campus of Tel Aviv University. Although he said he views himself "a returned person" since coming to Israel, he doesn't "want us to forget the contribution of the world's cultures to Jewish life. Einstein — a Zionist who almost became president of Israel — was Germany's achievement, too. We have much to be thankful for toward the world."
Nevzlin's vision of Diaspora life stands in stark contrast to his feelings about the country he left behind. He described his travails at the hands of Russian authorities — who have charged him with tax evasion and ordering the murder of business rivals — as a "betrayal." He views the Russian government crackdown against him, his partners and other business tycoons, the so-called oligarchs, as an anti-Jewish campaign that exploits Russia's longstanding antisemitic bias.
And yet he has spent millions celebrating the cultural legacy of Jews in Russia. He founded institutes in Moscow, Vilnius and Jerusalem to study the influence of Russian Jews around the world since 1917. He remains a primary supporter of Jewish communal life in Russia today, even though he won't return.
Nevzlin is one of a small group of Russian business tycoons who made fortunes in the early 1990s, after the collapse of communism, by winning control of the country's main media and industrial firms during the privatization effort of then-President Boris Yeltsin.
President Vladimir Putin, who succeeded Yeltsin in 1999, has waged a campaign against many of the oligarchs. Several of the best-known oligarchs, including Vladimir Gusinsky and Boris Berezovsky, have fled the country. Another, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Nevzlin's partner and ally, was sentenced last June to nine years in prison on charges of tax evasion and fraud. The sentence was widely seen as politically motivated.
Putin's campaign has proved unsettling to many Russia-watchers around the world, who see it as part of a broader campaign to restore the Kremlin's once-autocratic powers and regain state control of the economy. Most observers downplay the role of antisemitism, even though more than half the oligarchs are Jewish or partly Jewish.
But Nevzlin has no doubt that antisemitism is at least part of the motive.
"Under Yeltsin, Jews were once again able to break into the top ranks of business and politics," he said. "But with so many Jews everywhere, an antisemitic electoral base was formed. People sit in their village, heating their furnaces, and they see these Jewish mugs on TV, the handsome life in Moscow, the gold and diamonds."
Blaming Jews for post-communist economic dislocation was a natural next step, Nevzlin said. "No one ever taught the Russian people that to make money, you have to hustle." With a cynical eye on Russian voters, therefore, Kremlin leaders decided that "to come down on oligarchs who are Jews is much easier than to come down on oligarchs who are not. The mood around Putin is: 'The kikes have grabbed it all up.' Is this antisemitism? You tell me."
Raised in a secular Moscow household, Nevzlin began studying Jewish tradition during the waning years of communism, under Russian Chief Rabbi Adolf Shayevich and Talmud scholar Rabbi Adin Steinsalz. Around the same time, he befriended Khodorkovsky, an enterprising former Young Communists leader with whom he founded Bank Menatep, Russia's first publicly traded company. The bank acquired other properties, including the Russian oil giant Yukos.
By 2003, Forbes magazine ranked Nevzlin 386th on its list of the world's wealthiest people, with a net worth of $1.1 billion. Khodorkovsky was ranked 26th, with a wealth of $8 billion.
Nevzlin moved to Israel in July 2003, intending, he said, to work on a doctoral dissertation in German philosophy. A few months earlier, looking to focus his energies on humanitarian rather than business endeavors, he had given a generous gift to the Russian State University for the Humanities, which rewarded him with the position of rector, although he lacked a Ph.D.
A few weeks after he left, the Russian government began investigating the tax records of Yukos. It was the opening move in what many Russia-watchers saw as a deliberate campaign to neutralize Khodorkovsky's growing political influence. A third Menatep partner, Platon Lebedev, had been arrested at the beginning of July. Khodorkovsky would be arrested in October. Nevzlin, fearing for his own safety, decided to stay in Israel.
He was not universally welcomed. Labor Party lawmaker Colette Avital, who chaired the Knesset's Immigration and Absorption Committee, was one of several to charge that Israel was granting asylum to a suspected criminal because of his money.
But some welcomed him warmly, including Israel's best-known Russian immigrant, Natan Sharansky. Then minister of Diaspora affairs, Sharansky had been charged by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon with reviving the financially moribund Diaspora Museum. Nevzlin offered an immediate gift that he describes as close to $1 million. A year later he was named chairman of the museum's board.
Nevzlin's plans for the museum represent a sharp departure from its founding orientation. The museum has a distinctly Zionist perspective, presenting Diaspora life as a continuing struggle amid often unfriendly host cultures, relieved only by the rise of modern Israel. (Tellingly, the museum's chronicle of Diaspora life ends in 1948.) Nevzlin wants to build a new wing that will focus on post-1948 Diaspora life. His aim is to revise the Israeli view of the Diaspora and celebrate the cultures that have nurtured Jewish life.
"I want us to move on to a more positive note," Nevzlin said. "In many Jewish institutes and Holocaust museums, it's all tragedy and pessimism. Then we made Israel, and everything was fine."
In reality, he said, "there was mutual enrichment. There's more to these countries than the Holocaust and antisemitism, and besides, you can't build a future on tragedy and pessimism. The Holocaust has been thoroughly worked over, both in Israel and abroad. Let's focus on something else."
Nevzlin envisions the Diaspora Museum as a "house of tolerance," not only between Israel and other countries, but also between Israeli and Diaspora Jews. "Israel doesn't really worry about the future of the Jewish people," he said. "Here, Jewish people become citizens of a state called Israel who are mainly concerned with life in this country, and are not much interested in the Jewish people who have remained in the Diaspora. It isn't right for Israel to remain so isolated."
On the other hand, he added, "it isn't right that young people in the Diaspora not only don't think about Israel but aren't even sure where it is on the map. I believe the Jewish people here and there are one. The question is: How do you bring them together?"
Israel's traditional answer, immigration, is not adequate, Nevzlin said. Asked about the uproar in 2004 when Prime Minister Ariel Sharon scandalized French Jews by urging that they move to Israel to escape anti-Jewish violence, Nevzlin said it's time for Israeli officials to realize that many Jews are quite fulfilled — as Jews — in the Diaspora. "Essentially, Israel is finished growing," he said. "We have to start dealing with what we have."
In the Diaspora Museum, Nevzlin inherits a struggling institution that has seen its public funding and visitors dwindle. The museum, in turn, acquires a chairman whose commitments sometimes have been strikingly brief. He was elected president of the Russian Jewish Congress in 2001 but served less than half a year. His funding of Moscow's International Center for Russian and Eastern European Jewish Studies lasted some three months.
Nevzlin insists his commitment to the Diaspora Museum will last at least a decade. Unlike fellow Russian Israeli billionaire Arkadi Gaidamak, he claims to have no interest in politics. He has delegated his business responsibilities to colleagues at Bank Menatep. And he intends to remain in Israel even if a more liberal, accountable regime assumes power in Russia.
"As a Jew," he said, "I could return only once, and I already have."