At
inauguration of Russian Jewish museum in Moscow alongside Russian FM, Peres
thanks Russia for defeating Nazis in WWII.
Photo:
Mark Bayman / GPO
President Shimon Peres joined
Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow on Thursday to inaugurate the
city's brand new Russian Jewish museum and tolerance center, the worlds largest
Jewish museum.
In a moving speech, Peres said the
museum evoked memories of his childhood home in Poland, and thanked the Russian
people for their role in helping defeat the Nazis in World War II. "The Nazis murdered about a
third of our people. They murdered 6 million Jews, among them 1.5 million
children, in concentration camps and gas chambers," the president said.
"Such a tragedy must never happen again." Turning to the issue of Iran's
nuclear program, Peres said Tehran threatened the Jewish people with another
Shoah.
"The Iranian regime claims that
its religion prevents it from creating a nuclear bomb. And the regime is
developing a nuclear bomb," Peres said, calling on Russia to stand with
Israel in preventing a nuclear Iran.
The new center is housed in the
former Bakhmetevsky bus garage, an avaunt-garde landmark designed in 1926 by
Konstantin Melnikov, the leading figure of Russia's Constructivist movement
The Jewish Museum, which brings
together different cultural traditions through the prism of Jewish culture, is the
brainchild of Russia's Chief Rabbi Berl Lazar and Alexander Boroda, the
president of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia, who came up with
the idea back in 2007.
Lazar discussed the idea for the
museum with Putin and the Russian premier lent his support saying it would help
normalize interfaith relations.
Nikolai Patrushev, the then-Director
of the Russian FSB, the successor organization to the KGB, also supported the
museum. In September 2007, Patrushev gave Lazar 16 documents relating to Raoul
Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat who helped save tens of thousands of Hungarian
Jews from the Nazis in World War II.
"For a long time the story of
Russian Jewry was very hard and even tragic. Now things have changed,"
Lazar said,adding that Russia's Jewish community should not forget the hardest
parts of their history.
Lazar praised Putin for his support
of the venture.
The museum includes a section on the
persecution experienced by Jews in the former USSR. Russian businessman Viktor
Vekselberg, who donated to the museum, also praised the venture for not shying
away from what he called sensitive questions about Russian Jewish history. "It's very important especially
now to show the real story about the Jewish nationality and religion in Russia,
and particularly to young people," he told The Jerusalem Post.
Joanna Paraszczuk,
Jerusalem Post
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