Russian Jews remember Israeli athletes murdered at 1972 Munich Olympic Games

[Jefferson23]

Jews rejoice that they can raise prayerful voices in Russia, once the land of the pogrom.

By Reuters | Feb. 10, 2014 |

They gathered Sunday in sorrow and celebration, Jews saying a prayer for the 11 Israeli athletes killed by terrorists at the 1972 Munich Olympics, Jews rejoicing that they could raise prayerful voices in Russia, once the land of the pogrom.

The Munich massacre visited the specter of terror on the Olympics, introducing a fear felt intensely even today. A band of Palestinians scaled an Olympic Village fence and took members of the Israeli Summer Olympics team hostage. Before the attack was over, 11 Israelis and a German policeman were dead.

In the Soviet Union at the time, Russian Jews were desperately trying to emigrate, despondent over the official anti-Semitism that kept them out of universities, turned them away from good jobs, insisted on their impoverishment. When freed by the collapse of the empire in 1991, they left in great droves for Israel, the United States and elsewhere.

“If once Jews were afraid to show their Jewishness,” said Berel Lazar, the chief rabbi of Russia, “today they are proud.”

http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/jewish-world-features/1.573402