Although election-eve polls show President Boris Yeltsin leading, the Jews of Russia’s province nonetheless say they fear the prospect of a Communist victory in Sunday’s ballot.
“A Communist victory would have immediate consequences in all spheres of Russian life,” says Alexander Sakov, leader of the 15,000-member Jewish community in Omsk, located in western Siberia.
Those consequences would include immediate restrictions on the activities of the Jewish community, he adds.
If Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov defeats Yeltsin, says Sakov, his followers would “certainly close down the [Jewish Agency for Israel] offices in Russia, especially in the provinces.”
“Since an opportunity for Jews to leave will be narrowed, I wouldn’t say Jewish emigration is likely to increase under the Communists,” Sakov says.
Public opinion polls published Sunday show Yeltsin having a comfortable lead.
He is expected to garner 35 percent to 37 percent of the vote, while Zyuganov, according to the polls, would win 23 percent to 26 percent in a race that includes eight other presidential contenders.
If none of the candidates scores more than 50 percent of the vote Sunday, a runoff between the two leading vote-getters will be held July 7.
Despite the polling data, Russian Jews in the provinces, mirroring business and religious leaders in Moscow, are fearful of a Zyuganov victory and the adverse repercussions it would have on Jewish life.
The Communist candidate’s thinly veiled appeals to anti-Semitism have gone a long way toward stoking those fears, as have Communist plans to roll back the economic reforms achieved under Yeltsin.
“What disturbs me most of all is the Communists’ desire to redistribute property in Russian society,” says Svetlana Danilova, leader of the Jewish community in Nalchik, located in the northern Caucasus.
Zyuganov has been courting the support of pensioners and others who were hurt most by Yeltsin’s reformist social policies.
Those policies hit hard at the pocketbooks of many segments of the population and have come under intense criticism from Yeltsin’s opponents during the campaign.
Danilova says the provision of social services has been an especially important and complicated issue in the northern Caucasus, which was strongly affected by the war in the nearby breakaway region of Chechnya.
Danilova, whose family settled in Nalchik more than 200 years ago, says that during the last five years some 8,000 Jews have left Nalchik.
“Most of those 4,000 Jews that live in Nalchik today are elderly and needy people,” she says.
Economic hardships have driven some local Jewish families to the verge of extreme poverty, she adds.
“Today, our communal activities mostly depend on the sympathies of local authorities,” she says, leaving the clear impression that a Zyuganov victory would do little to improve the conditions of local Jews.
Susanna Turayeva, a leading figure in the 14,000-members Jewish community if Nizhya Novgorod, located in central Russia, agrees.
If Zyuganov wins, “the Jewish situation will worsen, at least on the local level,” says Turayeva, adding, “I’m very hopeful that Yeltsin will remain in office after June 16.”
Turayeva, who serves as director of charity programs in her community, also fears that if the Communists regain power, Jewish communal activities would immediately be threatened.
She points to the case of the local Jewish charity center, which serves the needs of some 1,200 people with the assistances of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.
“I can hardly imagine that the Communist regime would allow the Joint to operate in Russia,” she says.
On a more personal note, she adds, “I’m afraid also that I would have no chance to visit my son in Israel.”
“In the 1991 presidential elections, I voted for Yeltsin just because I liked him. Today I will do so because I’m in fear of physical destruction,” she says.
Mikhail Oshtrakh, a leader of the Jewish community in Yekaterinburg, a city in the Ural mountains that is Yeltsin’s hometown, refuses to speculate about the election’s outcome.
But it is clear that he supports the city’s favorite son.
“I hope common sense will prevail over demagogy,” he says.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
