Volograd, Russia – This week, Volgograd hosted an informative seminar on the topical issue of anti-Semitism. Hosted in the grand conference hall of the Volgograd Hotel, this event was co-organized by the Jewish community of Volgograd, the Moscow Human Rights Bureau and the Moscow Anti-Fascist Center. The seminar was designed as a legal School for journalists, state officials, and law enforcement officers in aims of curbing the existence of xenophobia and anti-Semitism in society. One of the outcomes of the event was a discussion about a possible mechanism for fighting ethnic intolerance and xenophobic tendencies.

Numerous high-profile figures gave feature presentations, including Alexander Brod, the Director of the Moscow Human Rights Bureau, and Yevgeniy Proshechkin, the Chairman of the Moscow Anti-Fascist Center. Yael Yoffe, the Chairman of the Board for the Jewish Community Center in Volgograd, highlighted the Jewish perspective at the event, while numerous state officials and leaders of various non-governmental organizations also took their turn presenting on this hot issue.

About 30 people took part in the seminar. The majority of them essentially proved to be officials from different structures in the provincial and municipal administration, members of the regional branches of Russia?s leading political parties, deputies from the regional parliament, journalists from various different publications. All participants in the forum gained a solid foundation about these problems.

The Jewish community of Volgograd – a member of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia – is one of the most outspoken communities in Russia when it comes to issues of anti-Semitism, racism, and xenophobia. It has led several different campaigns to fight these tendencies and maintains an ongoing relationship with local law enforcement agencies and human rights agencies at the local, as well as national levels.

(Source: FJC)