Blaming Jews for Anglo-American Hostility to Russia Doesn’t Fit the Facts

A convenient scapegoat, but Anglo-Saxon anxieties about Russia, military-political confrontation, and the claim to civilizational superiority over it all long precede the entry of Jews into America's power elite

Charging semi-Asiatic barbarians — a realistic view of how West views Russia and has for the past 250 years when Jews were still fellow Eastern Europeans of the Russians in the shtetl and targets of the same Enlightenment contempt

Editor’s note: I wrote this in 2018 when my boss at Russia Insider said he wanted to explore the question if influence of Jewish Americans was what made the US so anti-Russian (in the way that Canada’s Catholic Ukrainians are a factor in that country’s Russia policies). Having explored the question of where Western hostility and contempt for Russia (and surrounding countries) comes from years prior, my answer was an empathic no. It wasn’t at all the case that Jewish immigrants had changed the US, but much more that the US had assimilated them. Early next year I left RI to found Checkpoint Asia as I tired of seeing a site which on a day-to-day and week-to-week basis was overwhelmingly the product of my hands, as it had been for four years (two of those with a fellow deputy editor), sprinkled with increasingly ludicrous fare, up and to rehabilitating the Nazi invasion of Russia. I had the full freedom and the encouragement to write rebuttals of anything I didn’t agree with and run them on RI — this was an assurance the boss stayed one hundred percent true to the whole time. However I discovered that rolling out a regular edition, while also penning rebuttals of everything it was now sprinkled with on top, simply wasn’t going to work out as the time necessary would have required of me I do nothing else in my life.


In 1788 John Ledyard, an American explorer who had sailed with James Cook and kept up a correspondence with Thomas Jefferson, returned to Germany from an extensive voyage spanning Siberia, European Russia and Poland. On crossing the Polish-German border he wrote down:

I have within the Space of 3 English Miles leapt the great barrier of Asiatic &. European manners; from Servility, Indolence, Filth, Vanity, Dishonesty, Suspicion,. Jealousy, Cowardice, Knavery, Reserve, Ignorance, Basses d’Esprit & I know not what, to everything opposite to it, busy Industry, Frankness, Neatness, well loaded tables, plain good manners, an obliging attention, Firmness, Intelligence, &, thank God, Cheerfulness & above all Honesty, which I solemnly swear I have not looked in full in the Face since I first passed to the Eastward & Northward of the Baltics. Once more welcome Europe to my warmest embraces.

In the late 18th century, when the US and Russia were perfect strangers to each other with no interest to unite or divide them, an American could visit what was then only began to be imagined as “Eastern Europe” and decide its Russians, Poles, Jews and Tartars were filthy Asiatics inferior in every way to Western Europeans and Americans.

Yet today, when a massive American trillion-dollar military-industrial complex desperately seeks out enemies to justify its existence in a world where Russia is still the only other nuclear and military technology superpower, American contempt for Russia might supposedly be explained by the influence of Jews?

The problem with that proposition is that American and Anglo-Saxon animosity against Russia—actually more accurately the desperate need to proclaim a civilization superiority over Russia—long precedes significant Jewish presence in the US and significant Jewish presence among American elites.

Are Anglo-American power elites today rabidly anti-Russian? Of course they are, as they have been for the past 200 years. Are the American elites in particular today disproportionately Jewish? Sure they are. Albeit derided by Ledyard as „ever the nuisance“ the Jews are studious, hard-working and courageous. Starting at the bottom of the ladder and, like other new immigrants, having to overcome strong prejudices against them, they gradually worked their way into the American power elite where they are today greatly over-represented even compared to the Anglo-Saxons.

The one thing they did unfortunately not do in this process is fundamentally change the ideology the American power elite subscribes to. To the contrary, the entrance of Jews into positions of real influence was possible only once they had been tamed, Americanized and dumbified so that they were ideologically indistinguishable from the elite Anglo-Saxons they were replacing.

In the 1930 and 1940s Jews in the US were heavily to the left of the American mainstream. Their Socialism often went hand in hand with a sympathetic view of Communist Russia. Into the 1960s the Jewish American lobby, much like the Jewish Americans voters, tended dovish on everything, except Israel — which is exactly what prevented it from integrating fully with the corridors of power. It was not until the Jewish lobby in the late 1960s struck its deal with the devil to support the military-industrial-congressional complex in every way that in return the national security state added Israel to the very top of its priorities.

The most immediate cause of US animosity towards Russia today is that the institutions the US built to pursue and fight the Cold War were not dismantled once Russians toppled Communism. Yet these institutions were built in the 1940s and 1950s completely without Jewish American input. In fact, had Jews been more influential at the time it is likely they would have never gotten off the ground.

As soon as WWII was over the US wasted no time in treating former allies, the Soviets, as an enemy, and Germany as a valuable instrument against the Russians. As a result NATO, which was always eventually meant to include Germany, was founded and de-Nazification was never seriously pursued. To the contrary, the renewed US-led anti-Russian effort found use for countless former German Nazi ideologues, officers, scientists, administrators and policemen. Meanwhile the anti-Communist hysteria whipped up at home took care of the often Jewish dissenters. It was easy for Anglo-Americans to forgive their Germanic cousins for racking up a tally of 20 million civilians and POWs murdered in Eastern Europe whose humanity and civilization was suspect anyways. It is likely the American Jews would not have been nearly as forgiving.

Without showing that historic entrance of Jews into corridors of power in the US corresponds with a hardening of US attitudes towards Russia, the observation that Jewish Americans are over-represented among the most vitriolic public Russia haters amounts to the trivial observation that Jewish Americans are over-represented in the American power elite. Sure they are, and what of it? They are, and for every professional Jewish Russia-basher there are a hundred slightly less hard-working Anglo-Saxons and others who would sell their mother to take his place and do the same.

In 1890 the ‘Society of Friends for Russian Freedom’ was founded in America. As you may have guessed the basic tenet this club subscribed to was the self-congratulating notion that unlike the US, Russia toiled under the weight of its own oppression, and that the common Russian was oppressed by his government far beyond the common American by his own. Until 1914 the Society published a monthly barbarism porn newsletter filled with lurid tales of oppression exported from Russia by political enemies of the tsar. It was prominent enough that it counted Mark Twain among its members. Its president, William Dudley Foulke, penned the pamphlet Slav or Saxon warning Americans to prepare for the future world showdown between the freedom-loving Saxon civilization and the onslaught of the semi-barbarous “Scythia” to the east.

Thus long before the US had any strategic interest in challenging Russia or any ability to project power against it, Americans were already fantasizing about regime-changing Russia. The need to lecture Russia, to transform it, to have it admit to its inferiority vis-a-vis the West, to check and humble it militarily (as well as to imagine it is poised to overrun the West any minute) — it is all already there at a time when Jewish Americans are still nothing more than ragged immigrants being processed at Ellis Island.

Of course, by that time the more prominent of the two Anglo-Saxon powers, Great Britain, had already been engaged in a cold war against Russia for almost a century. It continuously propped up the failing Ottoman Empire against Russia and to the detriment of its suffering Christian, largely Orthodox, subjects. In 1854-55 it invaded Russia and in 1878 it came close to doing so again. Partly the rivalry was underwritten by straightforward great power geopolitics: Britain feared expansion of Russian influence in Asia and the Near East for strategic reasons. Yet there was also a darker side to British animosity.

As Larry Wolff explains in his hugely important work — Inventing Eastern Europe, the notion of Western Europe, the West and Western civilization as forged by Enlightenment-era thinkers (French, German and British alike) required an anti-thesis. The notion of a highly civilized, progressive, enlightened West worked much better with an obviously inferior Other to point at. Enter the invention of Eastern Europe — an imagined place similar enough that it could be understood and judged, yet without all the accomplishments that made the West so great. A place which with its retrograde semi-barbarism and roguish anti-civilization allowed Westerners to pat themselves on the back for their supposed great refinement in comparison. (Ergo Ledyard’s racist diatribes — a widespread fad of the time as Wolff documents.)

This construct did not need to affect policies of Western states but of course it did. Being the bearer of a scary semi-civilization Russian power on the international stage was much more alarming than that of a ‘proper’ European power. Moreover, just the stubborn Russia’s refusal (aside from briefly in the 1990s) to prostrate itself before the West and to admit to its inferiority infuriates the West and insults its fragile identity. In other words, confronting Russia makes Westerners feel good about themselves in a way that confronting Western or properly oriental countries does not.

Should it be any wonder then that the politically dominant Westerners, the Anglo-Saxons, have been engaged in a cold war against Russia for 200 years now? Briefly, when the rise of Germany threatened their position, they swallowed their distaste for the eastern barbarians and allied Russian military power instead. But whenever they could afford it, the British and the Americans have preferred instead to reap the dubious honor and prestige of casting themselves as the preeminent Western shield against the Scythians to the east.

The great irony is that Jews who came to America were Eastern Europeans themselves, but rather than challenge the notion of Western superiority over barbarous east they embraced it. In truth the Askenazi newcomers were always an unlikely agent to attempt the former. Leaving Eastern Europe behind they were leaving behind authorities and systems which had treated them unjustly. Unlike say the Polish or the Czech immigrants they had always intended to leave for good, and had few fond memories of the place they were leaving.

And yet it can not be said that American Jews were ruled by their historic grudge against Eastern Europe and Russia. As said, for decades they were to the left of the Anglo-Saxon mainstream, initially pro-Soviet and relatively dovish on the Cold War into the 1960s. It wasn’t until they fully assimilated into the American mainstream that you see the preponderance of high-profile Jewish Americans who are rabidly anti-Russian.

Yet what do George Soros on the left and Paul Wolfowitz on the right have in common? Is it that they are Jewish? Well so are the millions of Askenazis who emigrated to Israel yet they have no interest in an anti-Russian moral crusade. The Israeli power elite likewise maintains a pragmatic relationship with Moscow, where their only concern are Russian policies in the Middle East which may affect Israel directly.

So maybe what Soros and Wolfowitz really have in common is that they are American? Yes, but not quite. More accurately – like John McCain and Hillary Clinton – Paul Wolfowitz and George Soros are Western supremacists. They are derided as “globalists” as if the ideas they are pushing had no connection to any particular place on the globe.

Theirs is the very simple idea that west has attained a higher level of civilization than the rest of the world. That the barbaric Mirror Universe brother of the West, Eastern Europe/Russia, in particular is an affront* to everything that is decent and good in the world (whenever it is not under West’s tutelage). That western military dominion over the world is for the latter’s own good. That spreading western institutions and ideas by force if necessary is a net benefit.

And that the rest of the world, but particularly the so-similar redneck Eastern Europeans would do themselves a world of favor if they just stopped resisting, and allowed the Westerners to transform them in their own image. (Or in the Hitlerian tree-worshipping version that western races physically replacing the eastern ones was a favor to nature.)

This is not a Jewish idea. Jews were still in the shtetl when Enlightenment-era intellectuals were laying down its foundation. Even today the Israeli Jews whose identification with the West at large is mild have little time for this nonsense. They are happy to let Russia be Russia. Nor is it a Jewish American idea. As American Jews are over-represented among the anti-Russian power elite, so they are over-represented among the anti-imperialist (anti-Western supremacist) elites. (And in every intellectual field there is).

Noam Chomsky, Norman Finkelstein, Stephen Cohen, Max Blumenthal, Philipp Weiss. For every Italian, Irish or Polish (to name the other similarly-sized ethnic backgrouns) high-profile critic of the American Empire, an honest and reasonably informed person can probably name five Jewish ones. The only reason why the list is not more extensive is because dissent is not a ticket to raising one’s profile, so high-profile critics of the American Empire are not very common with any ethnic background.

If there is a Jewish characteristic that makes Jews particularly anti-Russian it hasn’t been very effective. On Russia Insider’s own pages, between Golstein, Goncharoff, Doctorow and Shamir, Jews have been over-represented. And that is the glorious thing about this people. They’re bright enough that they’ll never agree on anything:

In the 20th century where Jews have gravitated far to the left of just about everyone, the three most effective and radical proponents of capitalism; Milton Friedman, Ayn Rand and Murray Rothbard, were likewise Jews. How grand!

Perhaps it is tempting for those Americans who see Russia in a positive light to entertain the though that the rest of their countrymen would have basically agreed with them if not for the influence of a small group of ethnic interlopers, but that is not the history of the problem. The deep American elite contempt for Russia is something Americans (and the Enlightenment), not Jews, have to answer for.

Source: Russia Insider


*The judgement the West casts on the rest of the world is tempered by the recognition these are different races and civilizations. However Eastern Europe which is not familiar enough to be considered a part of the West, yet similar enough that it is not recognized as a legitimate civilization in its own right, is not afforded this leniency. Neither here nor there, it gets imagined as a rogue anti-civilizational spinoff of Europe. A Europe gone wrong. A cautionary tale of how the West could have turned out if it hadn’t made the right decisions, had fallen under the wrong influences, or wasn’t peopled by gentler, more industrious races. In short, the role redneck Appalachia or the US South may serve a coastal liberal in the domestic American discourse, Eastern Europe plays in the international one.

11 Comments
  1. Garry Compton says

    The relationship between Israel and Russian Federation is very confusing to me at times. I have Russian/Ukraine friends in Israel and they like both worlds. When I read the US Neocons, Ukrainian politicians , which are Jews or Zionists { they seem to use these names/disguises etc. } they are shouting more sanctions, Russia is attacking us, or Russia is trying to take over East EU and the M. E. Yet , Israel’s dual Passporter’s, are right behind them – helping in the sanctioning, sending weapons to the West Ukies or in the IDF vs. Syria war, are sucker punching and killing Russian soldiers/airmen in Syria. So, it’s hard to know the players – without a scorecard. Spacibo Chpt Asia

  2. Trap Is Not Gay says

    Yet another disinfo fake blog.

    Who funds your blog? The CIA? Soros?

  3. LS says

    Good grief. Whoever controls the organs of public opinion is responsible. Just ask yourself this simple question–If Jewry wanted the masses to have a favorable opinion of Russia and/or Putin, wouldn’t they?

    You have to believe that the Jews are hands-off on this and that we have settled in this spot all on our own.

    And if Anglo-Saxons or Germans or whoever viewed themselves superior to Slavs, so f@cking what? Every GD group of people on this planet thinks itself ‘superior’. Everyday that goes by 1000s of violent, stupid, brown people show up in America uninvited, and every GD one of them thinks he is superior.

    I swear, if they were a race of midgets, those GD midgets would think they are superior.

    1. FilastinHuratan says

      Right, so you have not explained anything.

  4. Tom Jelinek says

    I think this approach looks too far back. Russia was popular in the post-Cold War west, so long as it was weak. Even Putin’s entry after the corruption of Yeltsin was welcomed at first. Weak but stable was the objective, and Putin brought some stability.

    But the overriding objective is world domination, as the article touches upon. Russia was expected to acquiesce to the agenda, or at least stay out of the way. But they didn’t play ball on South Ossetia, and increasingly stood in the way of the agenda. After what they felt was a betrayal in backing the Lybia operation, but which was seen by the west as simply the natural order of things, Russia has stood athwart the agenda all along. After the Ukraine revolution and Victoria Nuland’s infamy, they finally clued in that they needed to stand firm against the west. The first step was taking back Crimea, and that was the first major step where they announced they would no longer be weak. That marked the point at which the world-dominating elites decided Russia was again an enemy.

    The other factor is that world domination requires keeping a noose around China’s neck, to ensure their compliance now that they’ve achieved technological and economic superpower status. Enter Russia, who supplies China with everything they need, and that relationship is creating a Eurasian superpower that if it unified more, would replace the west as the world’s preeminent empire. The elites imagined the Russians and Chinese would always mistrust each other, and keep each other weak. But they pushed them into each other’s arms, and now they stand on the brink of losing their status. That infuriates them more than anything.

    1. Canosin says

      your comment is only a small slice off the cake of truth.. .. althogh not a bad one …
      the article goes far beyond the era of yeltsin…. and it’s about the Anglo-American hostility towards Russia….which is also not complete in the description of why there is hate towards Russia. . .which ends up again in the meddling and entanglements of the jewish connection in London, Amsterdam etc…. the Rothschilds were there established already since the napoleonic wars…. the east european jewish roots were already spreading their venom all over including over the pond…. therefore it’s a jewish thing all along… .

  5. Rowdy-Yates says

    the Jews are studious, hard-working and courageous. Starting at the bottom of the ladder and, like other new immigrants, having to overcome strong prejudices against them, they gradually worked their way into the American power elite where they are today greatly over-represented even compared to the Anglo-Saxons.

    They did not compete and work hard. There are hardly any Jewish farmers, construction workers, or are in any kind of job that requires truly hard work. that has been the case in America, Europe and Russia. They are good at money lending and usury practices.

    One of the common strengths they had was their tribal nature. A Jewish Director would make sure to give preferential treatment to other Jewish directors, actors, etc. leading to the belief that in America’s 330 million population only the Jewish community have the exceptional talent to be actors and directors. They don’t. Today Hollywood produces 85% of the world’s pornography and that industry is run by them.

    If one looks closer that is how they took over the Diamond trading business in New York. The business was only shared among other Jewish merchants. This pattern of Tribal affiliations goes back to Europe. A Jewish merchant would move into a town and give support to other Jewish merchants till they become a dominant force. They also work together against non Jewish merchants till the town is dominated by them.

    Another Jewish practice is Usury and the concept of Jubilee. Jewish bankers would forgive the debt of Jewish customers on a periodic basis . this is called Jubilee. It is not extended to non Jewish customers. that means a Jewish shop owner has an advantage over his rival because his loan was forgiven while his Christian rival takes up the cost by the bank applying higher interest rates to his loan.

  6. Jonny Aimless says

    Processed at Ellis Island:
    ” Don’t they know they are letting in the Plague!”
    Sigmund Freud

  7. Pablo Rivera says

    Don’t confuse magnesium with gymnasium, one thing is a jew, which is a religious denomination, and other thing is zionist, not different from fascist.

  8. John Lockett says

    Marko the article is a bit weak. Too many generalities and practically no base arguments. I do not know if you are playing smart or smart ass and leaving a door open just in case this the “antisemitic” accusations are getting punishable by law more and more.
    The real power of the jews is in their BANKERS. They control the West completely: The Banks, The Financial Institutions and how they operate, TV, Newspapers, Publishing Companies and now all the social Media. Just look at Google how is behaving now. Most of these so call Jewish Billionaires, especial in Eastern Europe including Ukraine are “Straw people” they are the once that give the face to the public, but we know where the power lies. In England there is no such thing as private Banks. Rothschild has the monopoly. By the way they have been running the UK and Kings and Queens for more than 300 years. They were the power lies and it is there where they concentrate. Look how they control the USA. A representative to the lower house needs 2 to 3 million dollars to get elected and a Senator about 5 millions, but their money comes with strings attached. Anyway this subject is too big summarize it in a few words.

  9. Rowdy-Yates says

    the Jews are studious, hard-working and courageous.
    In the Edict of Toleration in 1782 Emperor Joseph of the Habsburg Empire did 3 things for the Ashkenazi Jews:
    -He demanded that they get last names. Till then the Ashkenazi jews only had first names (as in the Torah where there are no last names). That is why today in America a good deal of Jews have Germanic sounding names.

    -He demanded that Jews get a formal education. until then they chose to study in the Synagogue basically memorizing the Torah and the Talmud. In that sense they were no different to Muslims who also studied religious texts in Mosques.

    -That they pay taxes. Due to not having last names the Ashkenazi Jews were adept at avoiding paying taxes. It was only after this edict that the Jewish community began to excel in every field and most of the European Jewish community who were leaders and learned men came from the German/Austrian region.

    Jews in Asia, India, Persia, Ethiopia etc were no different to the majority population, In fact they hardly excelled in anything. In places like India and China the banking system to commerce remained in the hands of the majority.

    In India the Hindus had a firm grip on banking to commerce and to the movie industry even though Indian Jews are one of the oldest Asian Jewish communities.

    Only in Europe and only after the 18th century did Jews begin to make immense strides. it was an Austrian Prince who gave the Rothschild a break in financing. The history of the Rothschild is a history of extreme greed, avarice and hoarding of wealth. It was so extreme that family members often wed other family members to keep the money within the family.

Reply To Rowdy-Yates
Cancel Reply

Your email address will not be published.

Anti-Empire