MOSCOW - A maverick group of nationalist Russian lawmakers drew rebukes from Israel, Russia’s Jewish leadership, and the Kremlin yesterday for a shocking declaration that accused Jews of fomenting anti-Semitism and called for the banning of Jewish organizations.

The letter, dated January 13 and signed by some 20 members of the Russian Parliament, called on Russia’s top prosecutor to launch proceedings “on the prohibition in our country of all religious and ethnic Jewish organizations as extremist.”

Echoing traditional anti-Semitic rants, it said that “the whole democratic world is today under the financial and political control of international Jewry.”

It said Jews were “anti-Christian” and guilty of “the illegal appropriation of state property,” a clear reference to the fact that many of Russia’s rich oligarchs are of Jewish descent.

It also suggested that Jews engineered anti-Semitic attacks against themselves as “a provocation” against “patriots” trying to defend Russia.

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