Jewish teacher killed in 'ethnic' attack
Pastor Dale Morgan
*Jewish teacher killed in 'ethnic' attack*
From correspondents in Russia
May 14, 2007 02:24am
Article from: Reuters
A JEWISH teacher in the Russian city of St Petersburg has been stabbed
to death and a leading rabbi said he suspected the attack was ethnically
motivated.
Rabbi Berel Lazar said the teacher had been killed at the door of his
apartment on Saturday.
He had been stabbed several times on the face and the chest.
Russia has witnessed a rise in racist attacks in recent years.
Observers say resurgent Russian national pride and the collapse of
communist order have fuelled this increase.
“The information available for now leads to serious suspicion that the
crime was ethnically motivated,” Mr Lazar said.
“The victim sustained more than a dozen stab wounds and nothing was stolen.”
President Vladimir Putin has described the rise in racist attacks as a
threat to national security and called for the courts and police to step
up their efforts to stamp them out.
Anti-Semitism tinges Russian society.
Last year a man shouting “Heil Hitler” burst into a synagogue and
stabbed nine people, and Jewish graves have been desecrated with swastikas.
In 2005 five teenagers beat a Jewish man to death with a metal bar.
During the Soviet Union passports carried a note if the owner was Jewish
and Jews often found it harder to win places at top universities and in
the top companies.
Mr Lazar said the authorities needed to punish racist attacks and
behaviour harder in order to cut them out.