Israel demands apology after Russia said Hitler had Jewish roots

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov attends a joint press conference with Eritrean Foreign Minister Osman Saleh (not pictured) following their talks in Moscow, Russia, on April 27, 2022. Yuri Kochetkov/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo

JERUSALEM, May 2 (Reuters) – Israel on Monday criticized Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov for claiming Adolf Hitler had Jewish origins, saying it was an “unforgivable” falsehood that demeaned the horrors of the Nazi Holocaust.

In a sign of a sharp deterioration in relations with Moscow, the Israeli Foreign Ministry summoned the Russian ambassador and demanded an apology.

“Such lies are intended to accuse the Jews themselves of the most horrible crimes in history that were committed against them,” Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said in a statement.

“The use of the Jewish people’s Holocaust for political purposes must cease immediately,” he added.

Lavrov made the claim on Italian television on Sunday when asked why Russia said it needed to “de-Nazify” Ukraine if the country’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy himself was Jewish.

“When they say ‘What kind of Nazification is this if we are Jews’, well, I think Hitler also had Jewish origins, so it doesn’t mean anything,” Lavrov told Rete 4 channel, speaking through an Italian interpreter.

“For a long time we have been hearing Jewish scholars say that the biggest anti-Semites are the Jews themselves,” he added.

Dani Dayan, president of Yad Vashem, Israel’s memorial to the six million Jews killed in the Holocaust, said the Russian minister’s remarks were “an insult and a heavy blow to the victims of true Nazism.”

Speaking on Kan radio, Dayan said Lavrov was spreading “an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory with no basis in fact”.

The identity of one of Hitler’s grandfathers is unknown, but there has been some speculation, never supported by any evidence, that he might have been Jewish.

There was no immediate response for comments from the Russian embassy in Israel or from Lavrov in Moscow.

kyiv condemned Lavrov’s words, saying his “appalling comments” were offensive to Zelenskiy, Israel, Ukraine and Jews.

“More generally, they show that today’s Russia is full of hatred towards other nations,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on Twitter.

Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, whose grandfather died in the Holocaust, said accusing Jews of being anti-Semites was “the lowest level of racism.” He also dismissed Lavrov’s claim that pro-Nazi elements dominated the Ukrainian government and military.

“Ukrainians are not Nazis. Only the Nazis were Nazis and only they dealt with the systematic destruction of the Jewish people,” Lapid told the YNet news website.

A German government spokesman said the idea that Hitler had Jewish heritage was “absurd” propaganda. read more

Israel has repeatedly expressed support for Ukraine following the Russian invasion in February. But wary of straining relations with Russia, a powerhouse in neighboring Syria, he initially avoided direct criticism of Moscow and has not imposed formal sanctions on Russian oligarchs.

However, relations have become more tense, with Lapid last month accusing Russia of committing war crimes in Ukraine.

However, the Ukrainian president has also found criticism in Israel by drawing analogies between the conflict in his country and World War II. In a speech to the Israeli parliament in March, Zelenskiy compared the Russian offensive in Ukraine to Nazi Germany’s plan to murder every Jew within its reach during World War II. read more

Yad Vashem called his comments “irresponsible” and said they trivialized the historical facts of the Holocaust.

Additional reporting by Dan Williams in Jerusalem, Valentina Za in Milan, and Pavel Polityuk in Ukraine Written by Crispian Balmer Edited by Jeffrey Heller and Bernadette Baum

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