Prior to the Passover of 2012, the Russian Jewish Congress organised a camel trek lasting three days through the Arava desert for a group of tycoons who wished to re-enact the Exodus of the Israelites from their Egyptian captors. Suitably attired in appropriate tribal costume (which may have been hired from the wardrobe for the epic film “Noah” then in production) they endured the hardships of their forebears although a support caravan of SUVs with necessities (such as portable air-conditioning with generators to cool the Bedouin style tents in which they slept) was never far behind. Refreshed and inspired by their peregrination, the billionaire oligarchs arrived at the Mamilla Hotel in Jerusalem there to enjoy the simple luxuries to which they were accustomed.
The leader of these intrepid travellers reported that the aridity of the desert was conducive to self-examination and a debate of philosophical subjects which may well have included the commercial opportunities then existent in the troubled Ukraine. Especially so because many of the participants (e.g. Yuri Kanner, Boris Metz, Andrei Rappoport, Mikhail Fridman and German Khan) were born in that country and had benefited immensely from the re-distribution of its wealth following the collapse of the USSR. Two years later saw the Maidan Revolution and the start of the Russian war of attrition which culminated in the invasion of 2022 and the ensuing imposition of largely unenforceable sanctions on the assets of all these penitents
For this year´s Passover, which started on April 12, it would be most interesting to hear the views of the surviving members of this travelling band of pious oligarchs concerning the morality of the contemporary Exodus forced upon the Ukrainians, five million of whom are living as refugees in western Europe and one million in Russia.
Additionally, the surviving two million Palestinians of Gaza have been threatened with national eviction from their unheated, tattered tents and deportation to an unpromised land thus enabling a “Riviera style” development of luxury real estate to rise like a phoenix from the ashes of their dwellings.
In 2012 Mr. Rappaport was the only pilgrim to hold dual Portuguese citizenship but he has since been joined by Roman Abramovich, Lev Leviev, God Nisanov and Gavril Yushvaev who have convinced the immigration commission that they, too, are direct descendants of Sephardic Judaists who were forced to make their Exodus in 1497 by King Manuel I and. later, by the Catholic Inquisition. Furthermore, there are at least twenty Russians of wealth who have invested in Portugal by means of the golden visa route and thus joined the Russian community numbering around five thousand.
In theory, all Russian nationals have been subject to sanctions since the “incursion” of the Ukraine but, in practice, only financial assets of around €25,000,000 have been detected and frozen. Considerable investments (often made through off-shore holding companies using crypto currency) in real estate and commercial enterprises such as the cultivation of cannabis for medicinal purposes remain unsanctioned and, often, untaxed.
At a time when international politics are nuancing drastically to policies of economic chaos and social discrimination, one might justifiably speculate as to how oligarchs of all nationalities could make a voyage of conscience similar to that of 2012 and then distribute their ill-gotten gains to poor and needy refugees.
