Russian Teacher Investigated for Conducting Antisemitism Survey on 16-Year-Old Students
by Lea Speyer
A Jewish teacher in Moscow is being investigated by her employers for distributing a questionnaire to students that included queries about whether they feel Jews are responsible for the country’s ills, the Russian-language newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets reported earlier this week.
According to the report, the vice principal of the Moscow State Education College launched proceedings against the teacher, saying she deserved to be “punished” for conducting such an experiment on her 16-year-old students.
According to the Moscow Times, the teacher is said to have “decided to put her own ethnicity at the center of a classroom exercise.”
The questionnaire, which the report said featured six “increasingly bizarre questions” — particularly since the class she was teaching was on ecology — first asked respondents about their personal backgrounds and general attitudes “toward people of other ethnicities.”
The last three questions focused exclusively on Jews:
4) How do you feel about the Jews who live in Moscow?
A. Respect; B. dislike; C. Indifferent
5) How willing are you to interact with these people?
A. Conversation during the process of my education; B. Friendly relations; C. Dear friends; D. I’m ready for life-long ties; E. I don’t want to talk to them
6) Are Jews involved in the nation’s current crisis?
A. Yes; B. No; C. Don’t know
The Moscow Times said that the students’ responses remain unknown.