Israeli immigrants divided on Russia, Ukraine
Israelis of Russian-Ukrainian-Belarus origins are divided between those who support Russian President Vladimir Putin, those opting for the democratic Ukrainian revolt and those claiming that the new Ukrainian forces are anti-Semites.
On March 17, the public relations professional Tanya Weintraub published a routine status on her Facebook page. Tanya, who immigrated to Israel from Moldova, has been closely following the events in the Crimean Peninsula, like many other immigrants from the former USSR to Israel. The status she chose to publish was actually a quote from Lev Solodkin, the son of late Knesset member Marina Solodkin, supporting Russian President Vladimir Putin for his invasion of Ukraine.
“Thank you Putin,” Weintraub quoted Solodkin, “I don’t see any problem with Putin’s actions … From the standpoint of the treatment of Jews, the Ukrainians are the worst of all … I hope that this country will never know peace and prosperity.”
Although Weintraub is active on Facebook, most of her posts get little attention. Thus she didn’t expect the uproar that ensued following her post. Her friends reposted it, provoking 115 inflamed comments, and the post continued to function as an arena for an angry debate two days later. “The son shames the memory of his mother,” someone wrote about Lev, and harsher responses called him an “idiot.”
“No other post of mine got so popular,” says Weintraub, “but the debate got out of proportion. People crossed the line of civility and humanity. There were curses, and it was very heated. There’s a civil war in the Russian-speaking sector in Israel.”
