Reply #3: A bit about Dmitry Radyshevsky [View All]

MOSCOW - Dmitry Radyshevsky has watched how the Christian Right has turned churches in the United States into bastions of support for Israel. Then, he thought, why can't the same thing be done in Russia?Radyshevsky, executive director of the Tel Aviv-based Mikhail Chernoy Foundation has been making the rounds in Moscow and abroad to convert the Russian Orthodox Church into a pro-Israel and pro-Jewish force.

His message, novel for a country that for centuries has been characterized as anti-Semitic, is that Russian Orthodox Christians and their church have a religious duty to support Israel and end anti-Semitism."At first, they didn't understand what I was talking about," Radyshevsky said. "Our point is that a true Orthodox Christian cannot be anti-Semitic," Middle East Newsline reported."So, the union between Russia and Israel cannot be just that to fight terrorism. The church cannot be anti-Zionist either. Zionism is written in all the scriptures."The approach is similar to that used by pro-Israeli conservatives with the Christian right in the 1980s. Radyshevsky, a Russian native, is a former divinity student at Harvard University and has lived many years in the United States.

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http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Am-Yisrael/message/8296