When the Soviet Union collapsed, the world lost one of its most anti-Semitic regimes. But although there is very little official hostility toward Jews in today’s Russia, that doesn’t mean its Jews can rest easy, argues Colin Shindler:

One hundred years ago, Communists allied themselves with the intelligentsia to oppose the capitalists. Today in Putin’s Russia, their spiritual heirs ally themselves with the capitalists to oppose the intelligentsia.

Putin, however, has kept the beast of traditional Russian anti-Semitism chained in its lair. He may well be genuine in his opposition to anti-Semitism, but he has also learned from the Soviet experience that it had a corrosive effect on the regime’s standing. He also knows that Israel and Russia must cooperate in the Syrian skies to prevent an unexpected clash. Even so, it is the regime’s kneejerk reaction to crush anyone who proclaims the principle of being different that induces a profound historical resonance for many Jews.

Today there have been repeated Russian attempts to stir the fires of populism and racism through outreach to the European far right—to figures in the British National Party, the Hungarian Jobbik, and the French Front National, [all of whose ranks include no few anti-Semites].

And then there is the manufactured crisis of hapless refugees sandwiched between Belarus and Poland. For Jews, it brings to mind the time in 1938 when stateless Polish Jews, expelled from Nazi Germany, were located in the limbo of Zbąszyń on the Polish-German border. Close to 10,000 Jews were marooned in deteriorating, unsanitary conditions while both Poles and Germans refused to budge

This week, there have been numerous unconfirmed reports about the fate of Esmail Qaani, who is the head of the Quds Force, the expeditionary arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. Benny Avni writes:

On Thursday, Sky News Arabic reported that Mr. Qaani was rushed to a hospital after suffering a heart attack. He became [the Quds Force] commander in 2020, after an American drone strike killed his predecessor, Qassem Suleimani. The unit oversees the Islamic Republic’s various Mideast proxies, as well as the exporting of the Iranian revolution to the region and beyond.

The Sky News report attempts to put to rest earlier claims that Mr. Qaani was killed at Beirut. It follows several reports asserting he has been arrested and interrogated at Tehran over suspicion that he, or a top lieutenant, leaked information to Israel. Five days ago, the Arabic-language al-Arabiya network reported that Mr. Qaani “is under surveillance and isolation, following the Israeli assassinations of prominent Iranian leaders.”

Iranians are desperately scrambling to plug possible leaks that gave Israel precise intelligence to conduct pinpoint strikes against Hizballah commanders. . . . “I find it hard to believe that Qaani was compromised,” an Iran watcher at Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies, Beni Sabti, tells the Sun. Perhaps one or more of [Qaani’s] top aides have been recruited by Israel, he says, adding that “psychological warfare” could well be stoking the rumor mill.

If so, prominent Iranians seem to be exacerbating the internal turmoil by alleging that the country’s security apparatus has been infiltrated.