thanks to Martin Horwitz and Anonymous for thoughtful comments

Just a brief note to express appreciation for the comments by Martin Horwitz and Anonymous to my last posting and Martin's previous one as well.I have long admired Martin's work with American Jewish World Service reaching out to the residents of small villages and shtetlach in Ukraine and helping them to rekindle the spark of Jewish life. So Martin is a kindred spirit of mine, who shares my love for Russian Jewry on one hand but speaks fluent Russian (unlike my half-ass pigeon Russian), and has really toiled in the vinyards of the FSU for many years in a quiet and heroic way. Yet he also shares my liberal politics and is clearly struggling with the same political divide vis a vis much of Russian Jewry as I am. Martin, I may be reaching only a relatively small number of people with this blog at present, but dye Bog, I'll have enough strength to continue this effort for a long time to come and have some impact. The discussion is needed and it is up to people of good will on both sides of the divide to get it started and keep it going. Many thanks for your kindness and support.

As for Anonymous, I liked your unsemtimental, tackhlis oriented analysis a lot. Its true that Russian Jews are far from right-wing fanatics, in fact, as you say, they are social liberals on some issues like abortion, they value professional expertise over ideology in their politics as in daily life. I concur with everything you write here based on my coverage of South Brooklyn politics over the past five years. What you didnt mention is that there is a strong internal tension between support of Bush on one hand and the need of many in the Russian community, especially the elderly, for social benefits. Indeed, the community swung sharply into the Democratic camp in the mid-1990's after Gingrich and company began cutting social benefits and engaging in squalid anti-immigrant politics (for example taking SSI benefits away from elderly immigrants who are unable to pass the citizenship test because their English isnt good enough. Despite voting 77 percent for Bush in 2004, mainly out of gratitude for his hard-line Israel and Middle East policies, most Russians in NY have remained Democrats and of course, the hard fought Brook-Krasny--Kagan electoral battle of 2006 took place within the Democratic Party.

As for your percpetion that Russians oppose liberal politics in Israel and America because they dont want to give in to terrorists, suicide bombers and other evil doers, that is certainly an understandable reaction. But that is not what is going on. It is NOT about liberals foolishly embracing an undefeated enemy, as you put it; it is about trying to end conflicts that are consuming our own children as well as that of the 'enemy.' And, yes, the leaders of the military wing of Hamas and Islamic Jihad are our enemies, but that doesnt mean every Palestinian is. Yet the policies of the Israeli/Jewish right, the policies of silnaya ruka, have gone a long way to turning almost every Palestinian who cares for his own people into supporters of Hamas, Jihad, etc. because in the face of Israeli recalcitrance, in the face of 40 years of settlement building, land grabbing and repression of basic Palestinian human rights, they literally see no alternative to their own extremists. To be sure, their extremists and their murderous behaviour have the same effect of stimulating extrmism on our side. Eto naziviyitze "vicious circle" and there has never been a circle as vicious and as lacking a way out than the 100 year plus Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It will continue to be that way; consuming the young on both sides for another 100 years, unless we figure out a way out of the vicio0us circle. The right wing does not offer a credible way out. Cracking down harder has bee tried and it doesnt work. What about trying another approach? Nu, davai...