Members of ethnographic expedition meet Jews-founders of Volzhsky city

40 members of the Jewish community of the city of Volzhsky attended the meeting with participants of the Jewish ethnographic expedition, which on August 12 visited in the city of Volzhsky of the Volgograd Region. The representatives of the expedition, the sons of the Rabbis, also visited the elderly Jews, who earlier founded the city.

Earlier, the participants of the Jewish ethnographic expedition visited Jewish communities in Novocherkassk, Rostov-on-Don, and Taganrog. Their work has included mini-lectures, answers to questions, and discussions of the community problems at "the roundtable". In Kuban, the participants of the expedition visited Krasnodar and Novorossiysk, Sochi and Armavir. The expedition has also visited Stavropol, from where it went to the Volgograd Region.

The city of Volzhsky was visited by the sons of the Rabbis Dan Zlatopolsky, the son of the Rabbi of Almaty, Khezi Lazar, the son of the Chief Rabbi of Russia, and Sholom Pevzner, the son of the Chief Rabbi of Saint Petersburg.

"The Jewish community of Volzhsky includes about 180 persons. I would like to note that Volgograd and Volzhsky has rather developed communities, both of which have Rabbis; therefore, the state of things is good," the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent was told by Dan Zlatopolsky.

The community was founded in 2001, and, at present, there are already only several persons, who were its founders. This was reported by Gennady Guzman, a member of the community since 2005 and it's Secretary. According to him, the purpose of the community was to show that the Jews had their history and religion.

Gennady Guzman has emphasized that he had to deal only with domestic anti-Semitism. "Sometimes, a person in a state of alcoholic intoxication can say something like that to representatives of our nationality," he said. He has added that the representatives of the Jewish community do not wear their traditional clothes, although the Jews wore their clothes for centuries in all circumstances. "Somebody is afraid, someone feels ashamed, but mostly because it is inconvenient. At present, in conditions of the heat, it is difficult to walk in 3-4 clothes and a black hat. We wear T-shirts and shorts. And, besides, it is hard to work in the national Jewish clothes," Gennady Guzman has explained.

According to the representatives of the community, Volzhsky faced the cases of anti-Semitism. On February 6, 2007, unidentified persons covered the frontage of the building, occupied by the Jewish community of the city, with signs of Nazi symbols. In connection with the incident, the leaders of the community appealed to the administration of the city district with a request to "destroy the images and to protect the community from such anti-Semitic attacks in future." According to Garry Tarlovsky, Chairman of the community, that anti-Semitic attack once again confirms the need to equip every community with alarms and surveillance cameras.

Earlier, in the beginning of November 2006, Semitic leaflets were posted on bulletin boards in the city of Volzhsky. "Later, a swastika was painted over, and the story had no continuation," emphasized Gennady Guzman, Secretary of the Jewish community of the city of Volzhsky.