Having grown up in the Soviet Union, Yevgenia Albats became a journalist and pro-democracy activist after the fall of Communism, and has also been involved in Jewish communal affairs. She is currently editor-in-chief of the New Times, one of Russia’s major opposition magazines. In an interview with Cathy Young, she recalls the anti-Semitism she faced as a child:

[E]veryday anti-Semitism was incredibly widespread in the Soviet Union. In Moscow, and anywhere [else], it was very easy to [hear the slur] zhidovskaya morda, [ “kikeface”] thrown at you. When we rode the tram or bus to school—my sister and I and another Jewish friend—we had a habit of looking around and finding the Jews. . . . They were people from whom we could expect protection. Why? Because one day when I was about nine, my sister and I were coming home from school and several girls in the yard of our building, who had been our playmates, jumped us and ripped off our Young Pioneer scarves, [symbolizing membership in the Communist-party youth movement], shouting, “You Yids have no right to wear Pioneer scarves.”

Years later, . . . I realized that it was the year of the Six-Day War. The Soviet Union had severed diplomatic relations with Israel, and the newspapers were full of talk about those evil Zionists. And there was, of course, a massive tide of anti-Semitism.

Nowadays, Albats comments, Jews seem safer in Moscow than in much of Western Europe. But she is concerned by the prominence of former KGB officers (whom she refers to as chekists, after the organization’s precursor) in the current government:

Of course, anti-Semitism was a very strong component of the KGB’s ideology. For the KGB, the Jews were a fifth column because they were people who finished Soviet universities and then took off for their “historical home,” always ready to sell out the Motherland. But today, until such time as the state signs off on it, this is going to be fairly muted.

Putin is not an anti-Semite; this is a known fact. But [some of his top allies] are. [T]he chekists devoutly believe in a global Jewish conspiracy and a world Jewish government. When they searched the offices of our magazine [in 2007 or 2008], the colonel who was in charge said to me, “I realize, Yevgenia Markovna, that you’re going to get the entire Jewish world on its feet. We know [Edgar] Bronfman is a friend of yours.” I may have met Bronfman twice in my life. But I never try to disabuse them of this notion. I tell them, “Yes, we run the world.” Let them believe it.

Unless there is a major change in the nature of the Russian regime, Albats believes that a resurgence of state-sponsored anti-Semitism is inevitable.

Analyzing the recent direct Iranian attack on Israel, and Israel’s security situation more generally, Michael Oren looks to the 2015 agreement to restrain Iran’s nuclear program. That, and President Biden’s efforts to resurrect the deal after Donald Trump left it, are in his view the source of the current crisis:

Of the original motivations for the deal—blocking Iran’s path to the bomb and transforming Iran into a peaceful nation—neither remained. All Biden was left with was the ability to kick the can down the road and to uphold Barack Obama’s singular foreign-policy achievement.

In order to achieve that result, the administration has repeatedly refused to punish Iran for its malign actions:

Historians will survey this inexplicable record and wonder how the United States not only allowed Iran repeatedly to assault its citizens, soldiers, and allies but consistently rewarded it for doing so. They may well conclude that in a desperate effort to avoid getting dragged into a regional Middle Eastern war, the U.S. might well have precipitated one.

While America’s friends in the Middle East, especially Israel, have every reason to feel grateful for the vital assistance they received in intercepting Iran’s missile and drone onslaught, they might also ask what the U.S. can now do differently to deter Iran from further aggression. . . . Tehran will see this weekend’s direct attack on Israel as a victory—their own—for their ability to continue threatening Israel and destabilizing the Middle East with impunity.

Israel, of course, must respond differently. Our target cannot simply be the Iranian proxies that surround our country and that have waged war on us since October 7, but, as the Saudis call it, “the head of the snake.”