A few months ago, Vladimir Zhirinovsky refused to stand for a moment of silence in the State Duma to honor Holocaust victims. He has also thrown flowerpots at Jewish protesters in Paris, ranted at "Zionists," demanded that Jews be segregated on reservations and bemoaned a future Russia in which a handful of Jews "seize power" over a country of 145 million.
At the same time, the flamboyant ultranationalist was denying his own reported Jewish roots: "It's crazy," he once told reporters. "It's got nothing to do with reality."
Now, Zhirinovsky, 55, has made a dramatic revision in his biography, acknowledging that his father was Jewish and saying that many of his relatives perished in the Holocaust.
In an interview and a new book, Zhirinovsky confirmed that his father, Volf Isaakovich Eidelshtein, was a Polish Jew who fled the Nazis in 1939 and ended up in Kazakhstan. His father's parents and youngest brother were killed by the Germans during World War II, Zhirinovsky now says, while his father and uncle disappeared in 1946 after returning to Poland. When he turned 18, Zhirinovsky said, he legally changed his name from Eidelshtein.
"My father's family was all killed," he said in an interview last week. "That's why I never talked about them."
He offered little by way of explanation for the abrupt change in his life story, except a complaint that he has always been "misunderstood" as anti-Jewish, and offered no apology for years of publicly lying.
Rather than revise his politics to take account of his rewritten heritage, Zhirinovsky still described Jews as the reason for much of what is wrong with Russia today.
Despite having made anti-Semitic statements a staple of his Russia-for-the-Russians political rhetoric, Zhirinovsky said: "I have never been anti-Semitic. It's all in the imagination of journalists."
Minutes later, he returned to his familiar lament about Jewish domination of the media, the banks, politics and just about every other institution of post-Soviet Russia.
The performance was vintage Zhirinovsky. At times clownish, at times vitriolic, invariably sensationalistic, he has used dark conspiracies about Jewish influence to help build a following in a country with a long history of violent anti-Semitism.
In 1993, his Liberal Democratic Party received more votes than any other party in parliamentary elections, and Zhirinovsky ran for president in 1996. Although he finished with a small percentage of the vote and his star has since waned, he still controls 17 deputies in the Duma, where he is a deputy speaker, and his trademark rants are a fixture on television.
Many prominent Jews suspect Zhirinovsky's newly acknowledged Jewish roots are a ploy for attention from a politician who craves the spotlight and hasn't had much of it lately. But they also say his willingness to admit his Jewish heritage is a sign of changing times here, a reflection of a recent drop-off of public anti-Semitism.
"I think it's a big turnaround by Zhirinovsky," said Berl Lazar, a prominent rabbi. "But the question is why, and how long will it last. This is just a first step; he has to make many more. In the same way, Russia is starting off 100 steps behind other countries. We have to change the whole mentality of people here, not just the Zhirinovskys."
At the same time, the flamboyant ultranationalist was denying his own reported Jewish roots: "It's crazy," he once told reporters. "It's got nothing to do with reality."
Now, Zhirinovsky, 55, has made a dramatic revision in his biography, acknowledging that his father was Jewish and saying that many of his relatives perished in the Holocaust.
In an interview and a new book, Zhirinovsky confirmed that his father, Volf Isaakovich Eidelshtein, was a Polish Jew who fled the Nazis in 1939 and ended up in Kazakhstan. His father's parents and youngest brother were killed by the Germans during World War II, Zhirinovsky now says, while his father and uncle disappeared in 1946 after returning to Poland. When he turned 18, Zhirinovsky said, he legally changed his name from Eidelshtein.
"My father's family was all killed," he said in an interview last week. "That's why I never talked about them."
He offered little by way of explanation for the abrupt change in his life story, except a complaint that he has always been "misunderstood" as anti-Jewish, and offered no apology for years of publicly lying.
Rather than revise his politics to take account of his rewritten heritage, Zhirinovsky still described Jews as the reason for much of what is wrong with Russia today.
Despite having made anti-Semitic statements a staple of his Russia-for-the-Russians political rhetoric, Zhirinovsky said: "I have never been anti-Semitic. It's all in the imagination of journalists."
Minutes later, he returned to his familiar lament about Jewish domination of the media, the banks, politics and just about every other institution of post-Soviet Russia.
The performance was vintage Zhirinovsky. At times clownish, at times vitriolic, invariably sensationalistic, he has used dark conspiracies about Jewish influence to help build a following in a country with a long history of violent anti-Semitism.
In 1993, his Liberal Democratic Party received more votes than any other party in parliamentary elections, and Zhirinovsky ran for president in 1996. Although he finished with a small percentage of the vote and his star has since waned, he still controls 17 deputies in the Duma, where he is a deputy speaker, and his trademark rants are a fixture on television.
Many prominent Jews suspect Zhirinovsky's newly acknowledged Jewish roots are a ploy for attention from a politician who craves the spotlight and hasn't had much of it lately. But they also say his willingness to admit his Jewish heritage is a sign of changing times here, a reflection of a recent drop-off of public anti-Semitism.
"I think it's a big turnaround by Zhirinovsky," said Berl Lazar, a prominent rabbi. "But the question is why, and how long will it last. This is just a first step; he has to make many more. In the same way, Russia is starting off 100 steps behind other countries. We have to change the whole mentality of people here, not just the Zhirinovskys."