Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko rebuked a governor for not taking Jews "under control." Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

JNS.org – In an address to the nation, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko on Wednesday admonished a Jewish regional governor in Belarus for not taking the country’s Jewish population “under control.”

Expressing annoyance that the Jewish head of the online publication tut.by, Yuri Zisser, was “not behaving correctly,” Lukashenko directly spoke to the Minsk Region Governor Semyon Shapiro.

“I told you a year ago to take all the Jews of Belarus under control,” Lukashenko said, Reuters reported.

The president later made fun of Shapiro, saying that “Shapiro prayed in the synagogue. There was rain only in Minsk region. Semyon Borisovich (Shapiro) is a good guy.”

Continuing on the Jewish theme, Lukashenko then praised Belarus’s Jewish community – which is today made up of just 0.14 percent of Belarus’s 9.5 million population according to a 2009 census – for assisting Belarus in resisting the Nazi occupation during the Second World War. About 800,000 Belarusian Jews died at that time.

However, he called Jews “white boned,” implying that they do not like to engage in menial work. “They don’t like to get their hands dirty or fight, but they did get their hands dirty with us!” Lukashenko said.