Russia: Rabbi asks Kremlin to punish rioters who attacked Jews at airport

On Monday, a prominent Russian Rabbi pleaded with the Kremlin to make sure that rioters in the mostly Muslim Dagestan region, who stormed an airport in an attempt to “catch” Jewish passengers on a flight from Tel Aviv, faced severe consequences.

Social media videos showed the demonstrators, who were primarily young men, yelling “Allahu Akbar”, or “God is Greatest”, as they ran through the airport on Sunday night, waving Palestinian flags and smashing glass doors.

While rioters were seen on the tarmac surrounding a Red Wings aircraft that had arrived from Tel Aviv, another group was seen attempting to overturn a police patrol truck.

One placard brandished by rioters in an unverified social media post said: “There is no place for child killers in Dagestan.”

Another said: “We are against Jewish refugees.”

One of the passengers, Shmuel, 26, who is an Israeli citizen, told the Israeli newspaper Ynet that the police had forced people onto a bus, which rioters chased around the airport and at one point even got on.

“The bus kept turning around…and people were chasing it and throwing stones. I put my suitcase against the window,” he said.

“At one point, hundreds of people came and stopped the bus. They came inside, went from person to person, and asked if they were a Muslim or a Jew. I said I was a Muslim, because I was scared to death. Fortunately, they believed me and continued on,” he said.

The Federation of Jewish Communities in Russia is led by Rabbi Alexander Boroda, who called for a firm response.

Boroda said in a statement that the riot had “undermined the basic foundations of our multi-cultural and multi-national state” and that open aggression towards Russian Jews had developed from anti-Israeli sentiment stoked by Middle East events.

“Moreover, we see that local authorities were not prepared for such incidents and allowed large-scale violations of law and order and mass demonstrations with open threats to Jews and Israelis,” Boroda said.

“I call on the country’s leadership and law enforcement agencies to find and punish all the organisers and participants of these anti-Semitic actions in the strictest possible manner.”

The mob converged on the airport after a message on the Telegram messaging app urged Dagestanis to meet the “uninvited guests” in “adult fashion” and to get the plane and its passengers to turn around and fly somewhere else.

Instead of using the term “Jew,” the message on the “Utro Dagestan” Telegram channel called the people on the plane “unclean.”

“We need to wait for them on the street outside the airport and catch them before they go their separate ways,” the message said.

According to police, 150 of the most involved parties had been identified, and 60 people had been arrested in relation to the disturbances.

The RIA news agency quoted Isarel’s ambassador to Russia as saying that all Israeli citizens had been safely evacuated and that no injuries had been sustained during the unrest.

(With agency inputs)