"Checks are underway, but a case has still not been opened. We are not commenting on this affair," the spokesman said, in reference to the Russian edition of the Shulhan Aruch that came out in 1999.
The investigation appears to have been sparked when a group of parliament deputies and other prominent figures handed the Moscow prosecutor's office an anti-Semitic pamphlet complaining that the historic text was anti-Russian.
Rabbi Zinovy Kogan, president of the Congress of Religious Jewish Communities and Organizations and the organizer of the Shulhan Aruch's publication, said that he had been summoned by the prosecutor to explain his actions, probably due to the handing in of the pamphlet, entitled "Jewish happiness, Russian tears".
"I was asked by the Moscow prosecutor's office to answer questions on why the book was translated into Russian. They asked me who published it and how many copies were printed," Kogan said, specifying that 3,000 copies of the book had been printed.
"I explained to them that our students of religion in Russia needed the book in Russian because it is difficult for them to read everything in Hebrew," he said.
Israel's foreign ministry swiftly denounced the incident as "anti-Semitic".
"This attempt to attack a central text of Judaism is without any doubt an anti-Semitic act of the most serious nature," said ministry spokesman Nimrod Barkan, who is responsible for Jewish Diaspora affairs.
In Brussels, the Conference of European Rabbis (CER) issued a statement expressing "deep concern" over the Russian initiative.
The CER said that its director, Rabbi Aba Dunmer and the French chief rabbi, Joseph Sitruk, had written to Russian President Vladimir Putin to protest against the investigation.
The letter said that the reports "represent a frontal attack on Jewish life in Russia today and recall similar attacks by Stalinist and Tsarist authorities in earlier times."
"Jewish happiness, Russian tears," was signed by 20 Russian parliamentary deputies as well as former world chess champion Boris Spassky and Russian mathematician Igor Shafarevich and dozens of Russian Orthodox priests and editors of nationalist newspapers.
It demanded the banning of all Jewish organizations, which it accused of "extremism" and denounced "a hidden genocide against the Russian nation and Russian culture". The Russian courts have refused to take action against the authors.
The Israeli statement said that the Russian investigation "contradicts" all Russian declarations against anti-Semitism, and added that Vice-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert would make an official protest during his visit to Moscow this week.
"This issue shows the strength of the current of deep-rooted anti-Semitism, which has been present in Russia for centuries," former Diaspora affairs minister Natan Sharansky told army radio.
"This is not linked to the denunciation of Israel or even of Zionism," added Sharansky, a former Soviet dissident.
Parliamentary speaker Reuven Rivlin said that Russia needed to do more than just condemn the incident.
"We are aware of official condemnations in Russia against this sharply anti-Semitic invective, but condemnations are not enough," Rivlin told parliament. "We firmly believe in the 'zero tolerance' approach."
"Democracies that fear to defend themselves, democracies that fear to stop those who abuse the freedoms that they provide, democracies that show forbearance for fascism, racism and anti-Semitism - will not last."
Rabbi Kogan on Monday defended certain assertions in the Shulhan Aruch that the pamphlet said were anti-Russian, such as "A Jewish woman should not help a non-Jew to give birth," an injunction that he said did not apply to trained midwives.
"Ninety percent of the text is devoted to explaining how to dress, how to carry out circumcisions, how to spend the Sabbath," Kogan said.
MOSCOW - Russian prosecutors will not bring charges against either the translators of the ancient Jewish text or the authors of a letter demanding for several Jewish groups to be closed down, the Interfax news agency reported quoting sources. According to sources quoted by the agency on Tuesday, prosecutors decided not to bring charges after additional checks into the text's publication and the provocative letter.
© 2005 Agence France-Presse
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