Last week, the United Kingdom sanctioned eight Russian billionaires, including Moshe (Vyacheslav) Kantor, a Jewish fertilizer magnate who maintains close ties to Vladimir Putin. Kantor has also given generously to Jewish causes, leaving them in what is now an awkward position. Ben Cohen comments:
Among those [Russian] oligarchs of Jewish origin, Kantor is the one most closely associated with Jewish causes, although Roman Abramovich—the best-known oligarch of all—is also a significant player in the Jewish world. Kantor is, among other honorifics, the head of the European Jewish Congress (EJC), a position from which he resigned on April 8; the founder of the Kantor Center for the Study of Contemporary Jewry at Tel Aviv University; and a significant donor to the Jewish Leadership Council (JLC) and Community Security Trust (CST) in the United Kingdom, his main residence. His philanthropy has transformed the Jewish world in the fifteen years since he was elected as the EJC’s president.
Jewish organizations should play no part in pushing the narrative of oligarch benevolence. It’s certainly true that our community has benefited from their largesse, but that would not have been possible had Western governments, banks, and investment funds not fallen over themselves to attract the oligarchs’ investments in property, media, marquee sports teams, and other valuable assets in the first place. Moreover, in accepting their hefty donations, Jewish organizations provided oligarchs with an equally valuable service, allowing their names to be associated primarily with philanthropic and charitable works, rather than their murky relations with the dictator in the Kremlin.
That cozy exchange cannot—and should not—survive the war in Ukraine. Jewish organizations exist to serve their communities, not the individuals who fund them.
Read more on JNS: https://www.jns.org/opinion/say-goodbye-to-russian-oligarchs