NCSEJ WEEKLY TOP 10 Washington, D.C. October 26, 2018

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1 NCSEJ WEEKLY TOP 10 Washington, D.C. October 26, 2018 Minsk Marks 75th Anniversary Of Mass Killings Of Jews RFE/RL, October 22, MINSK Belarusian officials, foreign diplomats, and representatives of Jewish organizations have gathered in Minsk for three days of events commemorating the killing of thousands of Jews during World War II. The commemorations mark the 75th anniversary since an estimated 22,000 Jews brought by the Nazis from other European cities were executed between October 21-23, On October 22, an event was held at Minsk's Yama (the Pit) memorial to mourn the more than 5,000 people from the city's Jewish ghetto who were killed on March 2, The three-day commemorations also include concerts, conferences, and the screening of documentaries. Before World War II, some 900,000 Jews lived in Belarus. The Minsk ghetto, created soon after the 1941 German invasion of the Soviet Union, housed nearly 100,000 Jews. Most of them perished in the Holocaust. European parties urged to agree Israel boycott tactics are antisemitic Convention backed by Israeli government to propose red lines for prospective MEPs By Arthur Nelsen Guardian UK, October 24, A conference in Brussels backed by the Israeli government is to push for all European political parties to sign up to red lines that declare boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) tactics to be fundamentally antisemitic. The two-day convention, attended by Israel s minister of Jerusalem affairs, Ze ev Elkin, will propose a text for prospective MEPs and political parties to sign up to before European elections in May next year. The text urges EU member states to sign up to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance s working definition of antisemitism and exclude from government any politicians or parties that breach it. Most controversially, one of the red lines based on a resolution adopted by Angela Merkel s Christian Democratic Union in Germany in 2016 calls on all political parties to pass a binding resolution rejecting BDS activities as fundamentally antisemitic. Rabbi Menachem Margolin, the founder of the European Jewish Association, an umbrella group of organisations that is co-organising the conference with the Europe Israel Public Affairs (EIPA) group, said: These red lines when passed will represent not our line in the sand but our line in the concrete, and serve as a wake-up call to politicians that the very future of Jewish Europe is on the line here.

2 The EJA says in its promotional material for the 6-7 November conference that invitations are being coordinated with Israel s ministries for Jerusalem affairs and foreign affairs, the logos of both of which are displayed. Neither ministry immediately responded to requests for comment. The Israeli government has changed tack in recent years, from ignoring the BDS movement against Israel in the years after it was founded in 2005, to launching an international campaign against it, arguing the campaign aims to delegitimise the Jewish state. Israel passed a law barring the entry of foreigners who publicly support a boycott of Israel, and has set up groups in other countries to counter BDS activities and arguments. Israel s ministry of strategic affairs, which has reportedly set aside a $72m ( 56m) budget to counter the global BDS movement, says it is not involved in the conference. However, its civil servants and others from Israel s foreign ministry have been in regular contact with at least one figure involved in organising the event, the Guardian understands. Last year, the strategic affairs minister, Gilad Erdan, visited EIPA to give advocacy and briefing sessions that partly dealt with countering the BDS narrative, according to the group s website. As an official stance, the ministry does view BDS as antisemitic for its double standards and demonisation of Israel, said a source close to Erdan s office. Margrete Auken, the vice-chair of the European parliament s delegation for relations with Palestine, said she did not support BDS. Nonetheless, I reject the unceasing attempts to amalgamate this Palestinian-led movement with antisemitism, she said. There is an evident wish to silence BDS advocates in order to protect the illegal policies of annexation and dispossession of the Netanyahu government. Criminalising and repressing the legitimate expression of free speech cannot be accepted in our societies. Issues around the conflation of antisemitism with anti-zionism divided the UK Labour party over the summer. One conference organiser said the red lines could make it difficult for the Labour party s fellow travellers in the European elections who hold up Jeremy Corbyn as somehow the saviour of social democracy. He added: We need to lay down these lines and get people to sign up to them before these elections, so we can hold them to account afterwards. In another sign that a renewed battle over the issue may be brewing, the Israeli ambassador to the EU, Aharon Leshno-Yaar, accused the vice-chair of the Socialist group in the European parliament, Elena Valenciano, of having an odd obsession with the Jewish state, after she criticised Israeli policies. I m alarmed by the growing number of antisemitic incidents in Europe recently, Yaar said, citing reports of Iranian spying on Jewish centres. Your silence on these matters is deafening. You are adopting a narrative that has only one aim to smear the democratic state of the Jewish people. Claims by Erdan s ministry that the EU was funding NGOs that backed BDS and terror backfired this year, when the bloc s foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, described the charge as disinformation. Polish museum commemorates 1,500 towns where Jews were saved from the Nazis JTA, October 22, WARSAW, Poland The Museum of Poles Saving Jews opened a memorial orchard commemorating 1,500 towns and villages where Poles saved Jews during World War II.

3 The orchard, which was dedicated Friday in Markowa, in southeastern Poland, includes only towns where a resident was designated Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem, Israel s Holocaust authority. Between trees, on glass illuminated boards, nearly 1,500 names of villages, towns and cities are listed where Polish gentiles saved Jews during the German occupation. Yad Vashem has awarded nearly 7,000 Poles with the Righteous designation. According to Mateusz Szpytma, vice president of the Institute of National Remembrance, Poles saved tens of thousands of Jews during the war. Just as these trees bear fruit, your commitment and attitude will bear fruit each year because the descendants of those you have saved come into the world each year, Szpytma said at the ceremony. The orchard is another Polish initiative emphasizing the involvement of Poles in helping Jews during the war. Poland wants to honor them with two more monuments in Warsaw and a museum built in Torun. A diplomatic crisis erupted between Poland and Israel earlier this year after the Polish government passed legislation that criminalizes blaming Poles for Nazi crimes. Poland hands over site of future Warsaw Ghetto Museum Involvement of the government has made some critics and Jews fear officials may try to distort history By Vanessa Gera Associated Press, October 19, WARSAW, Poland A museum dedicated to the Jews who suffered in the Warsaw Ghetto during Nazi Germany s wartime occupation of Poland came closer to reality Friday with a key handover ceremony. Plans call for the Warsaw Ghetto Museum to be housed in a former children s hospital that was within the ghetto s walls. It is scheduled to open in 2023 on the 80th anniversary of the uprising by Jews in the ghetto. Museum director Albert Stankowski received a key to the property from a government official and signed a long-term lease Friday during a ceremony at the future museum site. Jewish philanthropists established the hospital in the late 19th century and treated both Jewish and Christian children, among them tuberculosis patients. During World War II, the hospital was encircled within the crowded ghetto that the Germans erected to imprison Warsaw s Jewish residents before sending them to their deaths in the Treblinka death camp. One of the stories the future museum will tell is of the harrowing decision that some Jewish doctors made to give many children fatal overdoses of morphine to spare them worse deaths in Treblinka. This museum will be very important for all Jews because it s a symbol of the Shoah and the extermination of the Jewish people, Stankowski told The Associated Press. But even more importantly, it has a universal message important for the whole world. It shows what can happen when people are dehumanized. The museum site operated as children s hospital until The building is among the few structures to have mostly survived stages of the nearly six-year war, including massive German bombings of the ghetto and then greater Warsaw following a 1944 uprising led by the Polish resistance. The idea to transform it into the museum came from Pawel Spiewak, the head of the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw.

4 The involvement of the nationalistic government currently running Poland has made some critics and Jews fear that officials might try to distort the ghetto s history. The Polish government has been accused of overstating the role that Poles had in helping Jews and playing down their participation in destroying one of the largest Jewish communities in Europe. Members of the Jewish community in Poland say they are giving the government the benefit of the doubt and want to have a role in developing the new institution. Stankowski, a Polish Jewish historian, said scholars from the United States and Israel are also being tapped to shape the exhibition. The project is likely saving the two buildings. They are in the Polish capital s main business district, where many skyscrapers have been built since communism fell nearly 30 years ago. Israel holds symbolic opening of embassy in Warsaw to mark 70 years of relations JTA, October 24, WARSAW, Poland Israel s ambassador to Poland held a symbolic re-creation of the establishment of the Israeli Embassy in Warsaw, the first Israeli mission established abroad. In September 1948, the State of Israel opened the post at the Bristol Hotel. At the time of its inauguration, the Israeli flag was seen hanging on the hotel balcony. On Tuesday, Ambassador Anna Azari greeted the invited guests to the same balcony. Before I came to Poland, I did not know that it was here that the first embassy of Israel was opened, Azari said. This year is special for both countries, she said, because Poland celebrates 100 years of independence, and we are 70. The Israeli ambassador said that both countries have done a lot together and I hope that we will do even more over the next 30 years. Polish President Andrzej Duda offered his congratulations in a letter read by a government minister, Wojciech Kolarski is an opportunity to recall that Poland was one of the first countries to recognize the State of Israel, Duda wrote. Many citizens of the State of Israel came from the country of Poland, or Polin in Hebrew, and the Polish language often resounded in Israeli houses and public institutions. Marian Kalwary took part in the original dedication 70 years ago, when she was 18. I came here thanks to my mother, who really wanted to see it, Kalwary recalled. It was a period when people were embarrassed about their Jewish origin. My mother began to cry when the Israeli flag was hung. And this emotion of my mother is what I remember most of that day. Poland and Israel became embroiled in a row earlier this year over the former s law making it illegal to blame the Polish nation of crimes that were committed by the Nazis. Several months later the parliament made it a civil offense rather than a criminal one.

5 Hungary's new Holocaust museum divides Jews, faces 'whitewash' accusations By Krisztina Than Reuters, October 19, html BUDAPEST A planned new Holocaust museum in Budapest has divided Hungary's Jewish community and triggered international concerns that it will downplay the wartime role of Hungarians in the persecution and deportation of Jews. Prime Minister Viktor Orban's right-wing government plans to open the museum next year to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the deportation of Hungarian Jews to death camps in German-occupied Poland. More than half a million Hungarian Jews were among six million Jews killed in Europe during the Holocaust. In a Sept. 7 decree the government granted ownership of the new museum, called the House of Fates, to the Unified Hungarian Jewish Congregation (EMIH), one of the three registered Jewish groups in Hungary. The permanent exhibition, to be set up by the EMIH with government help and housed in a former railway station, will be based on the concept of historian Maria Schmidt, who is an ally of Orban and owns a progovernment weekly. It will use personal histories to explore the period in Hungary, with particular focus on children, and will also feature temporary exhibitions and education programs. But the project, first announced in 2014, has drawn criticism from Israel's Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center. "The museum concept clearly avoids addressing the role and responsibility of... Hungarian leaders of that era for the plight of the nation's Jews, and their eventual abandonment to the hands of Nazi Germany," Robert Rozett, Director of the Yad Vashem Libraries, said in a statement last month. It also seeks to gloss over the role of ordinary Hungarian citizens, he said. "It is implied that Hungary was actually a nation of rescuers. This is a grave falsification of history." BLOODY HISTORY The head of EMIH, Rabbi Slomo Koves, said the museum remained open to suggestions from others, including Yad Vashem, adding that only about half of the concept was so far ready. Koves said he wanted to give young visitors "an emotional relation to the story" along with all relevant context. Hungary began ostracizing and discriminating against Jews under its right-wing ruler Miklos Horthy long before World War Two, when it was an ally of Nazi Germany. In 1944 the Germans invaded Hungary to stop it switching sides and in just eight weeks, with the collaboration of the authorities, some 437,000 Hungarian Jews were deported to the Auschwitz death camp. Tens of thousands of others were herded into ghettos in Budapest and killed, mostly by Hungarians. The World Jewish Congress has suggested that Hungary put the museum under the supervision of an international body such as Yad Vashem, the U.S. Holocaust Museum and the Federation of Hungarian Jewish Communities (MAZSIHISZ). The chairman of MAZSIHISZ, Andras Heisler, echoed that call, adding: "We've received much support from the government but this... dividing of the Jewish community affects us very negatively."

6 Orban told parliament this month the opening of the museum could wait until the disputes surrounding it "die down". Budapest already has a Holocaust Memorial Center in a former synagogue that was opened in Orban has repeatedly declared a policy of zero tolerance on anti-semitism but has also risked angering Jews with remarks about "ethnic homogeneity" apparently aimed at right-wing voters and has been accused of trying to whitewash Hungary's past. In 2014 Orban's government erected a monument to victims of the Nazi occupation that critics said depicted Hungarians only as passive victims, absolving them of guilt. But Orban has also spoken of "the very many Hungarians who chose evil over good". Gergely Gulyas, Orban's cabinet chief, said the government would bear responsibility for the content of the new museum. "We bow our heads before the victims of the Holocaust who became victims because the Hungarian state was unable to protect its own citizens and collaborated in the deportations," he said. (Editing by Gareth Jones) The Anti-Anti-Semites Are On the Rise Amid growing hate across Europe, a quiet resistance seen taking hold. By Steve Lipman New York Jewish Week, October 9, For the embattled Jews of Europe, it has been the year of the counterpunch. As far-right, anti-immigrant parties make gains throughout Europe and anti-semitism spikes in a number of European countries, observers are taking note of a new phenomenon. Anti-Semitism is much more visible than it used to be, said Agnieszka Markiewicz, the American Jewish Committee s Warsaw-based Central Europe director, but the group of anti-anti-semites is also becoming larger and more vocal. From Gdansk, the large port city on the Baltic Sea in Poland, to Berlin, to gritty Manchester, England, public support for the Jewish community appears to be growing, prompted in part by the latest attacks, both physical and verbal, against Jews, as well as by attacks on Jewish buildings and Israel s legitimacy. It s a phenomenon, observers say, that has flown under the radar and been largely overshadowed by highvisibility attacks on Jewish interests. And it has given hope to European Jewry at a time when political currents on the Continent from the actions of authoritarian governments to growing anti-israel sentiment are leading people to wonder if there is a future for the Jews of Europe. The recent situation in Gdansk, which played out on the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, is illustrative of what is taking place in pockets across Europe. Just before the start of the Mincha afternoon prayer service last month on Yom Kippur, someone threw a rock through a window of the New Synagogue, which serves as the base of the Jewish community in the city. No one was injured in the attack, but the rock and broken glass fell just a few inches from a group of women and children. The counterpunch came swiftly and sharply. The mayor of the city, saying he was appalled, immediately condemned the attack and called for the perpetrator s capture. The country s president made a similar

7 statement, and some 100 people most of them non-jewish Poles gathered at the synagogue the day after the attack to show solidarity with the Jewish community. In a country that many Jews abroad associate with anti-semitism just last week Poland s prime minister was heard in a secret recording complaining to friends about greedy and rich American Jews, Germans, Englishmen and Swiss that run hedge funds the response of the government and the general population is giving hope to Poland s small Jewish community, said Rabbi Michael Schudrich, Poland s Long Island-born chief rabbi. The police came within two minutes of the rock throwing, the rabbi said. It was taken very seriously, and a suspect was taken into custody two days after the attack. The pushback in support of the Jewish community is part of phenomena, which started some years ago a vivid interest in Jewish culture and history, among non-jewish Poles, Markiewicz said via . There are Jewish festivals in the big cities, but small towns as well every major Polish university has a Jewish studies department. The number of books published each year on Jewish-related topics is remarkable. There are local activists in rural Poland, trying to preserve Jewish heritage in their community sometimes against all odds. It has to do with Poland catching up after years of Communism, when topics related to Jewish presence in Poland were banned from the public discourse, Markiewicz continued. It is as if Poland is discovering the huge vacuum that is left after the long presence of Jews here. That discovery, welcome as it is, hasn t slowed expressions of hatred. From swastikas scrawled on the childhood home of Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel in Sighet, Romania, to political campaigns in Hungary that feature Jewish financier George Soros as an enemy of the state, to anti-semitic taunts using the image of Anne Frank at Italian soccer games, the last year has seen a rise in anti-semitic incidents in many countries, both in Eastern and Western Europe. But there has also been a concurrent rejection of anti-semitism by many non-jewish residents and government leaders. In Berlin, Jewish leaders have recently advised members of the community not to wear visible signs of their Jewish identity, like yarmulkes, in public. The warning followed a series of attacks on kipa-wearers, including one on an Israeli-Arab student who had donned a kipa to prove that it was safe to walk on the streets of the capital as an identified Jew. The counterpunch throughout Germany resembled the poignant reaction of the citizens of Billings, Mont., in 1993, who put Chanukah menorahs in their windows after an attack on a Jewish home displaying the ritual object. In German cities large and small from Berlin, Cologne and Potsdam to Erfurt and Magdeburg Jews and many non-jews took to the streets donning yarmulkes in so-called kipa marches. In a vivid display, they were showing their support for the Jewish community and sending a message to anti-semites. The rally in Berlin alone drew more than 2,000 people. Germany s foreign minister, Heiko Maas, calling every attack on a Jewish life an attack on all of us, declared, We must never allow anti-semitism to become commonplace in Germany again. It is clear that anti-semitic attacks are on the rise, said Moshe Kantor, president of the European Jewish Congress, in an interview. There is talk of emigration in places like the U.K., France and Sweden, and we have actually seen signs of it. In France, many are moving internally in the country to places they will be more safe. But, Kantor stressed, The European Jewish Congress is grateful for the response by European governments to try and ensure security for our communities and we know that they are committed to fighting anti-semitism. Yet, he added, There needs to be more work proactively to combat anti-semitism, as well as other forms of racism, xenophobia and intolerance.

8 While the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, which runs an aliyah campaign, reports that since 2014 it has brought more than 12,000 Jews to Israel from 26 countries (mostly in Europe) where anti-semitism is rising, in the short term, a widespread Jewish emigration from Europe is not likely. Most people who are afraid of physical attacks have [already] moved, said Andrew Srulevitch, the Anti-Defamation League s director of European affairs. That includes more than 50,000 French Jews who have moved to Israel since 2000, compared to 25,000 who left between 1982 and Srulevitch said that his sense is that government and other elites have been more supportive of the fight against anti-semitism than the grassroots. Indeed, in the wake of the 2015 terrorist attack at the Hyper Cacher kosher market in Paris, the French government tightened security around Jewish schools, synagogues and places of business. In some cases, the grassroots have responded: In March of this year, after the brazen murder of 85-year-old Holocaust survivor Mireille Knoll in Paris, thousands of French citizens filled the streets in a silent demonstration to honor her. The people held responsible for the rise in anti-semitism vary from country to country. In some countries, Muslim immigrants are blamed. (Some German Jews, feeling threatened by their country s growing immigrant Muslim population, recently announced their support for the right-wing, anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany party.) In other countries, the increased anti-semitism is linked to members of nationalist or neo-nazi groups. The historic circumstances are different, Kantor said. In parts of Eastern Europe there are strong neo-nazi movements, which still see Jews as the apex of their hate. In Western Europe, Jew-haters have learned to be more subtle and use terms like Zionism as a substitute for Jews. In recent years many feel it is permissible to say anything against Israel and Zionists when it is a mere cover for their hatred of Jews. According to a recent study conducted by the Berlin-based EVZ foundation, there is no significant connection between the arrival of Muslim immigrants in Europe and the rise in anti-semitism. The study stated that people from Muslim societies may be likelier than Europeans to hold anti-semitic views, but that does not necessarily translate into action. In England, the number of anti-semitic attacks have increased over the last few years, according to the Community Security Trust (CST), which coordinates security matters in the U.K. While figures for this year are incomplete, the number in 2017 reached a record level of 1,382 incidents, a 3 percent increase over the previous year; it was the highest total since CST began compiling such statistics in The rise comes as a growing number of Jews, alarmed by the increasingly strident statements by Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn that are critical of Israel and supportive of Palestinian rights, have recently expressed uncertainty about their future in the country. While the Labour Party recently adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance s definition of anti- Semitism, which is seen as an important first step in determining what statements or actions are a threat to Jewish interests, Corbyn, who would lead the next British government should Labour come to power, is widely regarded as hostile to Jewish sensitivities. And yet, opponents of anti-semitism are also becoming more outspoken. Last month, more than 2,500 people, including many non-jews and political leaders, took part in a rally against anti-semitism in Manchester, home of England s second-largest Jewish community. Much of the gathering focused on Corbyn, with speakers stating that he treat[s] Jews with contempt and tolerate[s] vicious attitudes towards those who challenge racism. The rally was punctuated by protestors interrupting a Labour speaker with shouts of Corbyn out. The AJC s Markiewicz sought to underscore the complexities of anti-semitism on the Continent and the pushback against it, especially at a time when the far right and authoritarianism seem to be on the march in Europe.

9 Asked if the support of non-jewish Poles gives optimism to the country s small Jewish community, she cautioned, That s a hard question. Poland, like many other countries, is becoming more and more socially divided, and attitudes to topics related to Polish-Jewish history start to be part of those divisions. Anti-Semitic graffiti appears in Ukraine By Edward Doks YNetNews, October 19, Anti-Semitic graffiti appearing in several locations across Ukraine has aroused concern among the local Jewish community. David Roitman, a Jew who was born in Ukraine and immigrated to Israel, detected such a writing calling to "Kill the Jews," while visiting Odessa, one of the prominent cities in the east European country. Roitman immediately posted a photo of the racist graffiti on his Facebook page that gained thousands of shares. The writing was deleted the next day, and replaced by graffiti of three red hearts. "My goal was for people to start talking about the ant-semitic writings appearing across Ukraine, without fearing their neighbors will kill them, "Roitman told Ynet. "We know what happens when people are silent. We've experienced it in 1933 and 1939," he added. "Odessa is considered a main touristic location. Dozens of Israelis arrive here every year and dozens of Jews still reside in the city," Roitman elaborated. Graffiti calling to kill Jews began popping out in Kiev, Ukraine's capital, as well as in other cities throughout the country. Eduard Dolinsky, executive director of Ukrainian Jewish Committee, also shared several of the racist writings on his Facebook page. Roitman stressed that in the past most of the writings said, "Clean Ukraine of Jews," and "Throw the Jews out of Ukraine." He explained that Ukraine and its Jewish citizens remained silenced, leading to a rise in anti-semitism, with graffiti now calling to "kill the Jews." According to Roitman, those who deleted the writing were the ones responsible for it, claiming there is to other way for someone to find it without prior knowledge of its location. He called on the Jews of Ukraine to publish every hateful writing they come across on social media, and not to look the other way in order to eradicate the phenomenon. Ukrainian politician celebrates Cossack pogroms on Facebook JTA, October 23, A regional leader of the Svoboda far-right party in Ukraine posted on Facebook a picture of a Cossack beating a Jew with a bloody flail, along with a poem celebrating the threshing.

10 Yuri Gorbinko, head of the party in Fastiv, a municipality near Kiev, posted the picture earlier this month, Eduard Dolinsky, the head of Ukrainian Jewish Committee, wrote on the same social network. It shows a man dressed in traditional garb of the Cossacks, a Slavic group that lived in Eastern Ukraine and some parts of Russia that was responsible for countless pogroms against Jews and other minority groups well into the 20th century. The picture came with a short poem extolling agricultural work, including threshing. The Jewish figure, dressed in Hasidic style, is on his knees looking up in horror at the Cossack. A second figure, a disfigured blond-haired man, possibly representing Polish people, is seen lying in a pool of blood. A third individual, possibly Russian, is holding up his arms defensibly. Gorbinko in the summer of 2017 wrote that he regretted that Adolf Hitler did not finish the job, Dolinsky wrote. His statement was reported to police but went unprocessed, according to Dolinsky. These are the results of impunity, passivity and irresponsibility of law enforcement, he wrote. Azerbaijani Military Chief Visits Israel, Meets With IDF Counterpart Algemeiner, October 24, The head of the Azerbaijani military, Col. Gen. Najmeddin Sadikhov, met at the IDF headquarters in Tel Aviv on Wednesday with his Israeli counterpart, Lt. Gen. Gadi Eizenkot. During the meeting, the two generals emphasized the importance of strengthening military cooperation between Azerbaijan and Israel, as well as the contributions of the two states to regional security, an Azerbaijani Defense Ministry statement said. On Tuesday, Sadikhov met with Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman. In an interview with The Algemeiner earlier this year, Azerbaijani Ambassador to the US Elin Suleymanov called his country a pioneer regarding its relationship with Israel. Azerbaijan led by President Ilham Aliyev prides itself on being one of Israel s closest allies in the Muslim world. Diplomatic ties were established in 1992, after Azerbaijan regained independence with the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the two countries now enjoy an extensive partnership, particularly in the economic and military realms. A secular, Shiite Muslim-majority nation, Azerbaijan is strategically sandwiched in the Caucasus region between Russia, Iran, Georgia and Armenia, with the Caspian Sea to the east.