Anti-semitism in Russia: A Growth Industry

From Ha'aretz, by way of Eugene Volokh:

The Moscow district prosecutor has ordered an examination into the Shulhan Arukh - a code of Jewish halakhic law compiled in the 16th century - to ascertain whether it constitutes racist incitement and anti-Russian material.

The prosecutor ordered the probe against a Jewish umbrella organization in Russia for distributing a Russian translation of an abbreviation of the Shulhan Arukh.

(SNIP)

The inquiry was launched following a letter signed by 500 public figures, including some 20 members of the nationalist Rodina party, urging the district prosecutor to outlaw the Jewish religion and all the Jewish organizations operating in Russia.

On a positive note:

Rodina's leader, Dimitri Rogozin, sent a letter to Moscow Chief Rabbi Pinhas Goldschmidt over the weekend, criticizing the anti-Semitic displays in his party. "Theological sources cannot be subjected to judiciary procedures," he wrote.

Goldschmidt told Haaretz that he welcomed Rogozin's statement, but called on Rogozin to take firm steps against his party members who signed the letter.

I would like to take this opportunity to remind anyone that cares that the most referenced anti-Semitic document still in use today, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, was created by the Czarist secret police as a method to incite pogroms against the potentially revolutionary Jews. This is not a positive for our friend the Russians.