Move against Russian rabbi blasted

Russian Jewish leaders criticized a lawmaker's motion to check how one of Russia's chief rabbis received Russian citizenship.

The development concerns Berel Lazar, chief Lubavitch emissary in the former Soviet Union and head of the Chabad-led Federation of Jewish Communities, the region's largest Jewish group. Last Friday, the Duma, Russia's lower house of Parliament, authorized a committee to file an inquiry with the authorities to clarify why Lazar, an Italian-born U.S. citizen, was made a Russian citizen without undergoing required naturalization procedures.

The motion was proposed by Boris Vinogradov, a member of the nationalist Motherland Party.

On Monday, the party disassociated itself from the development by saying it never authorized Vinogradov to raise the issue in the Duma.

In a statement Monday, the Congress of Jewish Religious Organizations and Communities, often at odds with the federation, criticized what it called the "anti-Semitic motivation" behind the motion.