Russian Jews and the Church: a Sociological View

In all the discussion on the situation of Russian Jews today one basic fact has not been mentioned: a fact that means that this situation is qualitatively different from that in pre-revolutionary Russia or in the countries of the West. The fact is that the majority of modem Russian Jews do not consider themselves to be even nominal Jewish believers. More of them are in fact Christians. Throughout the centuries, anti-semitism has been either rooted in religion or at least indirectly or genetically con-nected with it. Therefore, both the problem of antisemitism and the problem of the Russian Jews ' national selfconsciousness have to be formulated anew. How do Russian Jews view their religious affiliation? In order to answer this and other questions we are using the data we gathered for the Analytical Centre at th