Anti-Semitic Pamyat group resurfaces with a vengeance

MOSCOW, Nov. 30 (JTA) — A Russian anti-Semitic organization is again publicly lashing out at Jews. Russian police clashed with members of the anti-Semitic group Pamyat when they staged two protests last week outside branches of the Moscow-based Alfa Bank. Pamyat members dressed in black military uniforms shouted anti- Semitic slogans against the bank, which is headed by two Jews. Police arrested two members of the group at both the Nov. 24 and Nov. 25 protests outside the bank’s branches in Moscow. At the second protest, Pamyat leader Dmitri Vasilyev told a crowd that Alfa has “sold off all our assets” and that the “Zionists are strangling” Russia. Protesters carried banners proclaiming, “Don’t Believe in the Zionists — Withdraw Your Deposits” and “Zionist Bank — Out of Russia.” Pamyat spokesman Alexander Potkin asserted that Alfa, which is headed by Pyotr Aven and Mikhail Fridman, have used “Jewish contacts in the government” to further the bank’s interests “at the expense of the Russian people.” Fridman, who also serves as vice president of the Russian Jewish Congress, has been accused by Pamyat of using his “Jewish contacts” in the Kremlin to get privileges for his bank. Bank officials declined to respond to the allegations. Alfa Bank is one of Russia’s leading privately owned banks. It has been reportedly granted the right to manage $1.5 billion on the Russian government’s behalf as part of a proposed deal to build a nuclear power plant in China. Pamyat — which means “memory” — emerged in the early 1980s as a far-right nationalist movement, registering itself at the time with the Justice Ministry as a national patriotic movement. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, the group was known as one of the most active and rabidly anti-Semitic organizations in Russia with branches all across the country. The group has subsequently split up into several nationalist organizations. The influence of the largest group, which retained the original name, has declined in recent years. The group now claims 1,000 members. One recent study of political extremism in Russia labeled Pamyat leader Vasilyev the “most well-known anti-Semite” in Russia.