Political antisemitism as well as vandalism of Jewish sites has declined in Ukraine in comparison to the early days of independence of that country. In accordance with this trend, the number and intensity of attacks decreased in 2001 compared with the previous year.
THE JEWISH COMMUNITY
At the beginning of 2001 the Jewish population of Ukraine numbered 135,000, the majority of whom resided in the large cities of Kiev, Odessa, Kharkov, Kherson and Dnepropetrovsk. The population declined by 40,000 in 2000, of whom 23,500 left for Israel and about 15,000 for Western countries, while the rest were lost to the negative birth rate. Since the mass emigration began in 1989 some 292,000 Jews have left Ukraine for Israel.
Some 95 Jewish organizations and religious communities are active in about 60 cities. Their umbrella organizations include the Union of Jewish Communities and Organizations of Ukraine (founded 1991), the Council of Jewish Organizations (founded 1992) and the Union of Orthodox Jewish Organizations (founded 1992). Most of these organizations also belong to the Ukrainian Jewish Congress (VEK, founded September 1997) and the Chief Coordinating Council of Ukrainian Jewish Communities (GKSEOU, founded February 1999). Frictions based on personalities and economics which have characterized the Ukrainian Jewish communities in recent years, account for the multiplicity of groups and organizations. Moreover, there is intense rivalry over which organization should represent the community to the local authorities, to Jewish organizations abroad and to the State of Israel.
As in the Russian Federation, Jewish organizations in Ukraine are involved in Jewish education, maintaining Jewish traditions and the memory of the Holocaust, and caring for the aging population.
ULTRA-NATIONALIST ORGANIZATIONS
In contrast to Russia, antisemitism has played almost no role in political and economic rivalries in Ukraine in the last decade. The image of deeply rooted antisemitism as characteristic of the sovereign state of Ukraine was reinforced by the immediate emigration of Jews who feared widespread xenophobia, especially in the provinces. Blaming Russia rather than the Jews for the worsening economic and social situation is evidence of a change in attitude toward the Jews, who play a much more modest role in the political, public and economic life of Ukraine than they do in Russia. Ukrainian antisemitism is also moderated by Ukrainian aspirations to be accepted into NATO and to shake off Russian political pressure. Accepting European values implies curbing extreme nationalist and antisemitic organizations, even to the point of taking legal action against them.
However, on the political fringe, particularly in the western provinces, antisemitism is integral to the ideologies of a number of small ultra-nationalist groups. They include: the State Independence of Ukraine (DSU), Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUND), Ukrainian Idealist, Congress of Ukrainian Intelligentsia (KUI), Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists (KUN) and Association of Ukrainian Enlightenment (PROVSIT). These groups publish a number of periodicals and newspapers, some of which have been decreasing rapidly in circulation in recent years. Papers which routinely carry antisemitic material are: Nezborima Natzia (The Unconquered Nation), Neskorena Natzia, (The Invincible Nation), Idealist, Za Vilnu Ukrainu (For a Free Ukraine), Vechirni Kiiv, a Kiev evening paper with a nationalist orientation, and Samostina Ukrana (Sovereign Ukraine). Although the government has done little to curb antisemitic propaganda, on 8 December 2000 a Kharkov court ordered the intellectual, government-funded association PROSVIT to cease publication of its youth newspaper Djereltze (The Source), and fined them $4,400 for printing an antisemitic article in September 1999. This decision, taken after accusations by local Jewish organizations in March 2000, is a precedent, which could serve as a warning to all antisemitic and ultra-nationalist publications.
ANTISEMITIC ACTIVITIES
A number of Jewish sites were vandalized in 2000, some clearly motivated by antisemitism and others simply acts of hooliganism. The number and intensity of these attacks diminished compared to the previous year. There was one cemetery desecration (in Slavuta in January 2000), compared to six in 1999; a memorial to Jews killed in World War II was vandalized in Dnepropetrovsk in September 2000; and the library of the People of the Torah congregation in Kiev was torched in June 2000. In the case of the cemetery desecration in Kalinovka on 28 July 1999, the three perpetrators were tried on 8 February 2000 and given prison sentences.
