Is There Any Proof That Putin’s Mother Is Jewish?
Don’t Know and Don’t Care. Why Would It Matter What Religion a Long-Deceased Woman Followed?
Oh yes, the “Putler is a Jew” theory… I have heard about it, and the source of the claim seems to be various neo-Nazi websites from which it spreads to internet forums, other neo-Nazi websites, and even to Quora. Putin’s mother, Maria Shelomova, was supposedly a Jew. And because the child of a Jewish mother is a Jew, as we all know, therefore Putin is a Jew.
Fine. But where is the evidence for this claim? A photograph of Putin’s Soviet passport that shows what his mother’s nationality is… What sort of “evidence” is this? A child could photoshop such an image.
But we have also images of Putin wearing a kippah when visiting a synagogue! These aren’t surely faked, how could they be?
But are these guys also crypto-Jews, or is it only because I don’t have the image of their passport that you don’t believe me?
Ok, jokes aside, is there any _real_ evidence? Well, no, there isn’t.
The Theory Is Quite Contradictory
The theory is also quite contradictory. “Maria” is a Christian name. Yes, it has Hebrew origins, but since the emergence of Christianity, no Jew has given names like “Jesus” or “Maria” to their children. And Shelomova is not a Jewish name. There is a theory that it originates from “Shmolov,” a Jewish name that supposedly comes from Salomon or directly from “Shalom,” meaning “peace” in Hebrew. However, “Shelom” is also a Russian word borrowed in some distant past from Hebrew that means “helmet”… Moreover, Maria Shelomova was born in 1911 to a peasant family. Russian Jews, as a rule, were not peasants.
In short, even if the family name were of Jewish origin, which is anything but certain, it is almost certainly from a convert to Christianity, a male who took a Christian wife and had Christian children somewhere in Maria’s family line, possibly in a distant past.
Origins of the Conspiracy Theory
To conclude, it very much looks like this “Putin is a Jew” theory is cooked up in some murky disinformation lab to promote Russophobia in antisemitic far-right circles of Eastern Europe. It is also in these circles, not known for their intelligence to put it mildly, that the belief in which this conspiracy theory is most widely spread. Speak to a banderista or other such bandit and sooner or later he will reveal to you the secret: “Did you know that Putin is a…”
Conclusion
Ultimately, the “Putin is a Jew” theory lacks credible evidence and is more of a disinformation campaign. Fact-checking and critical thinking are essential in navigating such claims.