Dina Rubina is a well-known Russian-Israeli author. In March, as a predicate to speaking at an intellectual hub in London dedicated to looking at Russian culture and identity, Rubina was asked to state her position on the Israel-Hamas war. She stated it with the double-barreled middle finger, with a brutal and glorious exposition of moral decency.

Dina Ilyinichna Rubina was born in Uzbekistan when it was still part of the Soviet Union. When she was 37, she made “Aliyah” (“ascended” or immigrated) to Israel. She has since become one of Israel’s most prominent Russian novelists, with her novels focusing on Jewish and Israeli issues, from a Russian perspective.

It was this Russian focus that saw her invited to the Pushkin House in London. That organization describes itself as “an arts, cultural and social space that explores, challenges and debates Russian culture and identity today.” More specifically, using a flood of academic gibberish, it explains,

In dialogue with other regions, we focus on the contested legacies, tumultuous present and possible futures of Russian, Eastern European, and post-Soviet geocultural spaces. Our public programming, exhibitions and community engagement – across history, literature, and the visual and performing arts – share connections among individuals, disciplines, periods and cultures and engage themes of identity, citizenship, migration, displacement and belonging. We strive to be an open space for initiating critical enquiries and relationship-building.

We are proud to operate as an independent organisation thanks to the vital support of our patrons, friends, visitors, and granting institutions. Please consider supporting Pushkin House’s mission and activities by donating or joining the vibrant community of our supporters.

As you can see, the Pushkin House’s mission has absolutely nothing to do with the Middle East. Nevertheless, back in March, when Rubina was scheduled to speak there, she received an interesting email from Nataliya (Natasha) Rulyova, a professor at the University of Birmingham. Pushkin House, via Rulyova, demanded to know what Rubina’s position was on the Israel-Hamas conflict:

Hello, Dina!

The Pushkin House announced our upcoming conference on social media and immediately received critical messages regarding your position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. They wanted to understand your position on this issue before responding. Could you formulate your position and send it to me as soon as possible?

Please accept, Madam, the expression of my distinguished greetings,

Natasha

Rubina was pleased to “formulate” her position, and she did so by raining down fire and brimstone on Hamas, the Gazan people, UNRWA, and the intellectuals who demand ideological pro-Hamas purity on the Middle East as a pre-condition for speaking in London about Russian issues.

Image Dina Rubina (cropped). YouTube screen grab.

Rubina’s open letter, which has suddenly gone viral, is long but worth every word, especially in the last paragraphs. Read and enjoy:

Dear Natalia!

You’ve written beautifully about my novels, and I’m so sorry for the time you’ve wasted, because apparently we have to cancel our meeting.

The universities of Warsaw and Torun have just canceled lectures by the wonderful Russian-speaking Israeli writer Yakov Shechter on the life of Galicia’s Jews in the 17th and 19th centuries - “to avoid making the situation worse.”

I suspected that this would affect me too, since academia is now the main breeding ground for the most disgusting and virulent anti-Semitism, disguised as so-called “criticism of Israel.”

I was expecting something like this, and I even decided to write you an email about it... but I put it aside. It’s time for me to publish it.

This is what I want to say to all those who expect from me a quick and obsequious report on my position regarding my beloved country, which currently lives (and always has) surrounded by ferocious enemies who seek to destroy it . My country which is waging a just war today against a rabid, ruthless, deceptive and cunning enemy.

The last time I apologized was in elementary school, in the principal’s office, I was 9 years old. Since then, I have been doing what I think is right, listening only to my conscience and expressing exclusively my understanding of the world order and human laws of justice.

Natalia, thank you for your efforts, and I personally ask you to send my answer to all those who are wondering:

On October 7, Saturday, the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah, the ruthless, well-trained, well-prepared and well-equipped Hamas terrorist regime of Iran, Hamas, which rules in the Gaza enclave (which Israel left around twenty years ago), attacked dozens of peaceful kibbutzim, and bombarded my country with tens of thousands of rockets.

Hamas has committed atrocities that even the Bible cannot describe, atrocities that rival the crimes of Sodom and Gomorrah. Atrocities filmed by the way, by GoPro cameras, the murderers having taken the horror to the point of sending the images to their families or on social networks in real time.

For hours, thousands of happy, blood-drunk beasts raped women, children and men, shooting their victims in the crotch and heads, cutting off the women’s breasts and playing football with them, cutting off the babies from the wombs of pregnant women and immediately decapitating them, tying up and burning the small children. There were so many charred bodies that, for many weeks, forensic pathologists could not cope with the enormous workload of identifying individuals.

A friend of mine, who worked in the emergency room of a New York hospital for 20 years, then in Israel for 15 years, was one of the first to arrive in the kibbutzim, as part of a team of rescuers and of doctors.

She still hasn’t been able to sleep since. While she is an emergency specialist, accustomed to dissected bodies and at the corpses, she fainted when she saw the macabre sight and vomited all the way back in the car.

Among the Hamas militants, Palestinian Arab civilians [from Gaza] rushed in, participating in pogroms of unprecedented scale, pillaging, killing, dragging everything they could get their hands on.

Among these “Palestinian Arab civilians” were 450 members of this highly regarded organization UNRWA (United Nations Relief Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East).

Judging by the utter joy of the population (also captured by thousands of mobile cameras), Hamas is supported by almost the entire population of Gaza.

But the essential is there for us:

More than two hundred Israelis, including women, children, the elderly and foreign workers, were dragged into the beast’s den.

A hundred of them are still rotting and dying in Hamas dungeons. It goes without saying that these victims, who continue to be mocked, are of little concern to the “academic community”.

But that’s not what I’m talking about right now. I am not writing this so that anyone will sympathize with the tragedy of my people.

During all these years, while the international community has literally poured hundreds of millions of dollars into this piece of land (the Gaza Strip) - and UNRWA’s annual budget alone is equivalent to a BILLION dollars! - During all these years, Hamas used this money to build an empire with a complex system of underground tunnels, stockpile weapons, teach schoolchildren from primary school to disassemble and assemble a Kalashnikov assault rifle, print textbooks in which hatred of Israel is indescribable, in which even math problems look like this: “There were ten Jews, the shahid killed four, how many are left?...”, calling for the murder of Jews with every word.

And now, when, finally shocked by the monstrous crime of these bastards, Israel is waging a war of annihilation against the Hamas terrorists, who so carefully prepared this war, who placed thousands of shells in all the hospitals, the schools, kindergartens... - this is where academia around the world is on the defensive, concerned about the “genocide of the Palestinian people” - based, of course, on data provided by... . Who ?

The academic community, which was not concerned about the massacres in Syria, nor the massacre in Somalia, nor the mistreatment inflicted on the Uighurs, nor the millions of Kurds persecuted by the Turkish regime for decades, this very worried community, which wears “arafatkas” - the trademark of murderers - around their necks and rallies under the slogan “Liberate Palestine from the river to the sea”, which means the total destruction of Israel (and Israelis). “academics”, as polls show, have no idea where this river is, what it is called, where certain borders are located. And it is this same public which asks me “to express a position clear on the issue.

Are you really serious?

As you know, I have been a professional writer for over fifty years. My novels have been translated into forty languages, including Albanian, Turkish, Chinese, Esperanto... and many more.

Now, with great pleasure, without choosing my expressions too much, I sincerely and with all the strength of my soul send to all the brainless “intellectuals” who are interested in my position to go f*** themselves.

In fact, you’ll all be going without me soon.

Dina Rubina