What Putin’s Treatment of Jews Reveals About Russia

that Russian President Vladimir Putin was threatening to shut down the offices of the Jewish Agency for Israel in Russia. For those unfamiliar with it, the agency is a nonprofit that for nearly a century has been tasked with figuring out the nuts and bolts of Zionism—that is, how to get Jews to a Jewish state. It was banned from the Soviet Union, but began operating in the region in the late 1980s and helped about a million Jews get to Israel through the 1990s. Since this mass exodus, the agency’s role there has been to maintain Jewish communal life for the roughly who remained, as well as supporting any who want to emigrate to Israel. This it has done, largely without incident. Putin’s move has to be seen as an act of aggression, intended to make it harder for Jews to leave.