You have commented 339 times on Rantburg.

Your Name
Your e-mail (optional)
Website (optional)
My Original Nic        Pic-a-Nic        Sorry. Comments have been closed on this article.
Bold Italic Underline Strike Bullet Blockquote Small Big Link Squish Foto Photo
Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
Nationalist Latvian lawmaker says Russian is 'language of Zionism'
2018-01-06
[Jpost] A senior politician in Latvia labeled Russian "the language of international Zionism."

Alexander Kirshtejns, Deputy Speaker of the Latvian parliament, or Saeima, from the bloc of the National Association, made the statement, which at least one anti-racism activist in Latvia called antisemitic, on Thursday, the BaltNews service reported. He said Russian in this regard was the same as Yiddish and Hebrew.

Kirshtejns, a nationalist who has lobbied for the removal of street signs and monuments for Russian-speakers, said this during a debate on opposition to a government plan to switch all schools and educational institutions in Latvia to Latvian. Approximately a quarter of Latvia’s population of 2 million people are ethnically Russian, according to estimates.

To prove his point about Zionism, he cited Jewish-sounding last names of people he said were involved in protests against the plan to phase out the instruction in Russian in the country’s schools: Zhdanok, Gilman and Pliner.
Latvians are very nice people
Posted by:g(r)omgoru

#4  Russians are bad and anything Jewish is bad to the Latvians, g(r)omgoru, so the two are tied together in an emotional truth — the reality of Russian antisemitism does not enter the equation.
Posted by: trailing wife   2018-01-06 16:35  

#3  Yes, Scooter, but accusing Russians (that's Russians) of Zionism?!
Posted by: g(r)omgoru   2018-01-06 10:26  

#2  My dear ol' dad told me that Latvians were probably the most actively Jew-hating nation in Europe. That Latvians under German rule would eagerly volunteer to be death camp guards, because they just really enjoyed the work.

So this kind of base anti-Semitism in modern Latvia does not surprise me.
Posted by: Scooter McGruder   2018-01-06 09:48  

#1  Latvians are very nice people

My father left Latvia with his mother for British Mandate Palestine in 1934 because the trend was obvious.
Posted by: trailing wife   2018-01-06 09:46  

00:00