Loading ...Vladimir Putin had progressed from a 15-year-old schoolboy who played hooky to go to wrestling practice to become president of his country. But he had not forgotten his Jewish teacher from High School #281 in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg). During the visit, Berliner, a widow, mentioned that she lived in a run-down apartment in Tel Aviv’s Florentine district. By the time Putin departed Israel, she was in possession of a new apartment in the heart of pricey downtown Tel Aviv, courtesy of her former student.
I heard this story often when I visited Moscow this fall. It was one of many anecdotes people told me to illustrate the Russian president’s benevolence toward individual Jews and toward the Jewish community as a whole during his first term as prime minister (1999 to 2000), two consecutive terms as president (2000 to 2008), a second term as prime minister (2008 to 2012) and his current term as president (2012 to 2018). Other anecdotes featured Putin weeping at last year’s funeral of his Jewish wrestling coach, Anatoly Rakhlin, whom he has called a father figure, and his affection for the family of poor religious Jews who lived in his Leningrad apartment block and took care of him in the humble years of his youth. In his 2000 autobiography, First Person, the Russian leader mentions this family, describing them as “observant Jews who did not work on Saturdays and the man would study the Bible and Talmud all day long. Once I even asked him what he was muttering. He explained to me what this book was and I was immediately interested.”
And of course, Muscovites reminded me repeatedly of Putin’s lifelong Jewish friends, more than a few of them now billionaire “oligarchs.” Arkadi and Boris Rotenberg, brothers worth about $2 billion each, were Putin’s judo sparring partners in their youth, when all three were streetwise toughs training under Coach Rakhlin. (The brothers made their fortunes by sticking close to their judo buddy: construction connected to the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics alone gave them 20 contracts worth $5.5 billion.)
I was also regaled with tales of Putin‘s Jewish circle today, which encompasses prominent community leaders such as Chabad Rabbi Berel Lazar, who is commonly referred to as “Putin’s rabbi.” The long list also includes oligarch Moshe Kantor (personal net worth $2.3 billion), whose Acron Group is a world leader in fertilizers, and diamond mogul Lev Leviev (personal net worth $1.5 billion). Both hold powerful positions in the international Jewish community. Kantor has twice been reelected president of the European Jewish Congress (EJC), an umbrella organization of European Jewry, and Leviev is chairman of the Federation of the Jewish Communities of the Confederation of Independent States (CIS)—a Russia-dominated loose conglomeration of Jewish communities in most of the former Soviet republics. Oil and aluminum czar Roman Abramovich (worth $9.1 billion and known for his ownership of the Chelsea soccer team and a 533-foot “superyacht”) along with industrial tycoon Victor Vekselberg (worth $13.6 billion) are trusted confidants. Abramovich has served as governor of Chukotka, a province in the Russian Far East, and is very active in Jewish organizations. Vekselberg collects Fabergé eggs, the fabulous tsarist-era Russian heirlooms worth millions each and scattered around the world since the Russian Revolution. His attempts to return them to their homeland have endeared him to Putin.