Avigdor Eskin

Avigdor Eskin (born April 26, 1960) is Russian-Israeli controversial conservative journalist and political activist. Born in the Soviet Union, Eskin emigrated to Israel where he became involved in radical right-wing politics. He currently splits time between Israel and Russia.

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Early life

Avigdor Eskin was raised in an assimilated Jewish family in Moscow, where he was first arrested at the age of 13 as a result of protesting the expulsion of Russian dissident writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn and the Soviet policies towards Israel. At the age of 15, Eskin became the youngest Hebrew teacher in Russia.. He studied piano at the Gnesin institute. He emigrated to Israel in January 1979 at the age of 18.

Political activities

Eskin was a founder of Israeli New Right movement together with the former MK Michael Kleiner and was behind the alliance between the Israeli right and American conservatives, led by the late senator Jesse Helms. Additionally, he was a mastermind behind the arms supply to the anti-communist guerrillas in Nicaragua. The most controversial of his activities was his support of the White regime in South Africa, until its collapse in the earl 1990s.

Eskin achieved notoriety in 1995 when he allegedly laid a Pulsa diNura death curse on Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin in response to the Oslo Accords.[1] The Pulsa deNura is generally believed to "work" within thirty days, and it was thirty-two days after Eskin’s curse that Rabin was assassinated by Yigal Amir. Eskin participated in defiling of the grave of a Palestinian resistance fighter: he placed a pig's head on the grave. For this crime, he was sentenced to 30 months in prison, until February 20, 2003.

Today, Eskin is a well-known lecturer in Russia on political science and theological matters. He is liked within the Russian nationalist circles, due to his staunch support of Vladimir Putin, and his anti-Ukrainian and anti-Georgian stance. He is frequently criticised by liberal media as a right-wing bigot and an anti-democrat. Eskin was accused by a [2] of fomenting antisemitism in Ukraine. In 2011, Eskin supported Anders Breivik, and tried to create a wave of support for Breivik among Russian nationalists.[3].

In May 2005, Eskin won a slander case that he filed against Barry Chamish.[4] He later described Chamish as "heavy drinking person, who sucked his theories from the bottle."

Recently, he led the campaign against the awarding of the title of Hero of Ukraine to Stepan Bandera and Roman Shukhevych. The campaign garnered protests by 36 Israeli Knesset members and 10 members of the US Senate and Congress.

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