As Ukrainian protesters, gathered at Kiev’s Independence Square, threaten to march on President Viktor Yanukovych’s presidential palace and seal him inside if he does not give in to their demands, Jewish leaders told 124TV News that security details are being tightened to ensure protection from protesters with anti-Semitic tendencies who might try to scapegoat the Jewish community.
“Now that streets across Ukraine are full of civilians, the community’s safety is becoming our primary concern,” Oleksandr Feldman, a Ukrainian lawmaker and president of the Ukrainian Jewish Committee, wrote in statement published last week by the Israeli Ma’ariv newspaper.
Feldman called the protests “a tour de force by various opposition parties, from liberals who support ties with the European Union, to the ultrantionalist and anti-Russian Svoboda party.” The involvement of Svoboda “and other elements with anti-Semitic tendencies may lead to a situation where the Jewish community is made into a scapegoat,” Feldman warned. “We are on high alert.”
Feldman added, “To a considerable degree, the Ukrainian Jewish community supports promoting a path toward merger into the European Union… but it is important to adopt a neutral and comprehensive position.”
“We fear that this situation will get out of control,” Rabbi Pinchas Vishedski, head of the Jewish community organization in the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk, told JTA. “And when there is chaos, minorities will suffer, as our history tells us.”
The chief Chabad rabbi of Ukraine, Moshe Azman, also condemned the protests as dangerous for the Jewish community.
But despite the concerns and growing fear, according to JTA, a number of young Jews were seen involved in the protests, despite the fact that the diverse coalition of liberal youth and opposition party leaders included members of the ultranationalist Svoboda (Freedom) party, whose leader, Oleh Tyahnybok, has freely trafficked anti-Semitic stereotypes.
“If the nationalists are in favor of a regime change in the country, and I am also, then they won’t prevent me from going out into the Maidan with everyone and expressing my opinions,” Evgenia Talinovskaya told JTA. “The EuroMaidan movement is primarily identified with the educated youth. And Jewish youth in Ukraine primarily fall under that description.”
According to Meylakh Sheykhet, Ukraine director for the Union of Councils for Jews in the Former Soviet Union, “The community is very split on the issue of the protests. Generally speaking, the young generation of Jews, just like other young Ukrainians, support this revolution. But the older generation of Ukrainian Jews, the ones who grew up and were educated in the Soviet system, they are not in support. They are very pro-Russian.”
“Svoboda is an opposition party to the current regime, and they are supporting this trend because it goes against the current regime,” Oxana Shevel, an associate professor of comparative politics at Tufts University., explained Jewish presence at the protests, in a correspondence with JTA.
“Many Ukrainian Jews who considered themselves Jews first have left Ukraine already,” Ahava (Anuta) Teslenko, a 29-year-old model and television personality, explained her role in the anti-government movement. “So those who stayed, and who now make up the majority of the Jewish presence in Ukraine, consider themselves Ukrainian first
Anna Furman, 22, echoed a similar sentiment that being Jewish is no obstacle to her passionate involvement in the fight for Ukraine’s future. “It’s important to note that healthy and informed nationalism entails support for the religious and cultural heritage of the people,” Ms. Furman told JTA. “What’s important is that this is the country we live in, and we are its citizens here and now. We can’t close our eyes to what’s happening around us.”
Photo/ BuzzFeed news
(Jacob Kornbluh – YWN)
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One Response
I don’t understand how a Jew could live in the Ukraine. Their bloodthirsty murders of thousands of Jews in WWII is well documented (ever heard of
Babi Yar). Gee, you might be subject to anti-semetic violence during these protests? No kidding. Just get out that disgusting place. Only return for mechiyas amalek ,b’mhera byameinu.