After Putin Called Zelensky ‘a Disgrace to the Jewish People,’ Jews Called the Kremlin Leader a Disgrace to the Russian One, Some Russians are Saying

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 20 – After Putin said his Jewish friends called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky “a disgrace to the Jewish people,” some Jews replied that their Russian friends have called Putin a disgrace to the Russian one, according to the latest anecdote circulating in Moscow.

            It is featured in the latest collection of such stories assembled by Russian journalist Tatyana Pushkaryova (publizist.ru/blogs/107374/46080/-). Among the best of the rest are the following:

·       Smart people not fools are Russia’s biggest problem. With fools, there are no problems as they quiet down when they are promised anything however outlandish and unrealizable. But smart people have to be repressed and put behind bars.

·       Now that Tereshkova has ben given the Order of Gagarin on the 60^th anniversary of her time in space, she needs to develop a special Order of Tereshkova for those who carried out the even greater feat of destroying the Russian constitution.

·       Putin says that everything is going well, and he has evidence: there are fewer people in prison, sales of Lada cars have increased, the funeral business is thriving, traffic jams are fewer and everyone has forgotten the pandemic.

·       Kremlin spokesman Peskov says Putin supports any idea that will lead to peace but for some reason, he hasn’t considered the simplest one: Russian withdrawal.

·       Everything is going according to plan but the plan is Hosea’s not Putin’s. 2800 years ago, the prophet declared that “he who sows the wind will reap the whirlwind.”

·       Vladimir Solovyev for the first time had differed with Putin. He says the Kremlin leader is wrong about Zelensky being “the shame of the Jewish people.” Their shame, Moscow TV personality says, is Solovyev.

·       The Kremlin says that demilitarizing Ukraine has largely been accomplished: Ukraine is using fewer of its own weapons and more weapons from the West. This is like a situation in which the police report that they’ve disarmed a bandit of his knife and now only have to deal with the machinegun someone has handed him.