Appreciating Putin

I congratulate Isi Leibler on his column about Russian President Vladimir Putin and antisemitism (“Accusing Putin of antisemitism,” Candidly Speaking, March 15), and you for giving it such prominence.

As someone whose entire career has been devoted to Russian and Soviet studies, I would like to endorse both Mr. Leibler’s sentiments on the totally unjustified reaction of the media and public to Putin’s statement on TV, and his defense of the Russian president’s unqualified support for the Jewish people.

He gives many fine examples of Putin’s generosity toward Jews and their communal institutions (unique among all Russian rulers in history), but I feel I ought to add another moving instance of his attitude, as narrated by him personally to Rabbi Berl Lazar, his friend and associate.

When he was deputy mayor of St. Petersburg after his meteoric climb to fame, Putin discovered that someone in the Education Ministry was preventing the establishment of a Jewish school in the city. He immediately turned up at the ministry asking to see the vice minister. “Why are you refusing permission to open a Jewish school in St. Petersburg?” he demanded to know. “Because I am a Jew,” came the response from the vice minister, who did not wish to be accused of favoritism.

Putin on the spot signed the necessary papers although he did not really have the authority to do so. Thus was created the first Jewish school in St. Petersburg.

Jews in Israel and the Diaspora sorely need someone of Putin’s stature in our daily struggle against antisemitism and anti-Israel propaganda. NEIL B. LANDSMAN Netanya