Ukraine 2007

 

As in previous years, many violent attacks on Jews, Jewish facilities and Holocaust memorials were recorded around the country in 2007. Attempts by nationalist groups to discredit candidates in the 2007 parliamentary elections by using antisemitic motifs had little impact on voters. The leading purveyors of antisemitic propaganda in 2007 continued to be MAUP and the associated Ukrainian Conservative Party. Many statements condemning antisemitism and xenophobia were issued by the Ukrainian president, as well as by the prime minister and the foreign, interior and education ministers.

 

the Jewish Community

The Jewish population of Ukraine was 103,600, according to the 2001 population census; however local Jewish organizations estimate it at 200,000−400,000. Jewish umbrella organizations include the Vaad of Ukraine (Association of Jewish Organizations and Communities), the Jewish Confederation of Ukraine, the All-Ukrainian Jewish Congress, the Association of Jewish Religious Organizations of Ukraine, and the Federation of Jewish Communities of Ukraine (Chabad).

The Jewish Agency and the Joint are very active in Ukraine. Charity organizations, supported by the Joint, operate in many cities. Schools, Sunday schools, kindergartens, yeshivas, Hebrew ulpans and summer camps for children are supported by the Or Avner fund (headed by Israeli businessman Lev Leviev). The International Solomon University in Kiev (with a branch in Kharkov), Beit Khana women’s college in Dnepropetrovsk, the Institute of Jewish Studies in Kiev, the Ukrainian Center for Holocaust Studies and the religious Jewish University in Odessa are among the country’s Jewish studies institutions. The communities publish several newspapers, including the Jewish Observer (Jewish Confederation of Ukraine), Hadashot (Vaad of Ukraine), VEK (All-Ukrainian Jewish Congress) and the literary almanac Yehupets; the larger provincial communities have their own newspapers as well.

 

Political Background – 2007 Parliamentary Elections

Almost the entire year was marked by political rivalry between the various branches of the regime. From early 2007, the government, headed by Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych and composed of a coalition of the Regions Party, the Communist Party and the Socialist Party, strove to expand its power at the expense of the president, Viktor Yushchenko, and to boost support for the parliament. The situation came to a head toward the spring when Yushchenko dismissed the parliament and called early parliamentary elections. The elections took place in September, and after lengthy negotiations Yulia Tymoshenko (the liberal BIuT - Yulia Timoshenko Bloc) became prime minister. A steep increase was noted in the activity and aggressiveness of skinhead groups, which like other radical groups, exploited the unstable political situation for their own ends. The year 2007 witnessed a record number of crimes motivated by ethnic hatred, a wave that began in late fall 2006: there were 89 victims of such attacks in 2007 (6 dead) compared to 14 in 2006 (2 dead), mostly in the last three months of 2006, according to the Congress of National Communities of Ukraine.

Election campaigns in Ukraine tend to trigger a rise in antisemitic propaganda. However, the 2007 campaign was relatively short, and differed from the 2006 one (see ASW 2006). In 2007 the only extreme right political organization that participated was the nationalist Svoboda (freedom) All-Ukrainian Union, headed by Deputy of the Lvov Regional Council Oleg Tyahnybok, known for his racist and antisemitic views (see for example ASW 2004 and 2005). Svoboda advocated a racist concept of representation according to an ethnic key. Svoboda received 0.76 percent of the vote, double that in the 2006 elections. The increase in its power can be explained by the fact that in this election there was no competition from other nationalist-radical groups. There was also much less antisemitic propaganda in the 2007 campaign compared to the 2006 one, when most of the literature was distributed by the Ukrainian Conservative Party, which decided to boycott the 2007 elections.

There were, however, several cases of antisemitic propaganda distributed locally. Most notably, perhaps, was the publication and distribution in Kirovograd by the Ukrainian Regional Active (URA bloc, established by the People's Democratic Party headed by Ludmila Suprun and several small satellite parties) of 20,000 copies of a brochure by Vladimir Yaroshenko, "Ukraine in the Plans of Zionism," containing various accusations against the Jews. Yaroshenko himself is head of the Kirovograd branch of MAUP (see below) and a member of the Ukrainian Conservative Party. It is noteworthy that in the past Ludmila Suprun, head of URA, was critical of MAUP’s antisemitic activity.

Antisemitic motifs were also used to discredit political opponents. The opponents of BIuT conducted a massive campaign to defame its head, Yulia Tymoshenko, including the insinuation that she is Jewish. This claim was disseminated in a leaflet falsely attributed to the chief rabbi of Ukraine, Dov Blaich. The text called on voters to cast their ballot for BIuT because its leader, as well as other members of this party, such as Yosef Vinskii and Alexander Feldman (who really are), is Jewish. In addition, the first (and last) issue of Politik (500,000 free copies; provenance unknown) was completely devoted to discrediting Tymoshenko, whose grandfather, it alleged, was Jewish. The main article accused Tymoshenko of reaching the top echelons of Ukraine by having sexual relations with influential people. The author continued: "Everyone knows that since biblical times the daughters of the people of Israel were famous for their magnificent beauty, and for their ability to please their male master skillfully and imaginatively in intimate relations."

In regard to another candidate, Viktor Yanukovich, leader of the Regions Party and a former prime minister, leaflets distributed in Cherkassy read: "Yanukovich already got 11 billion dollars for the elections from American kike bankers and he will pay them back with Ukrainian land and the blood of the Ukrainian people."

It can be concluded, nevertheless, that the attempts by radical groups to discredit candidates in the 2007 parliamentary elections by employing antisemitic motifs had little impact on voters.

 

Antisemitic Activities

Violent Incidents and Vandalism

As in previous years, many violent attacks on Jews, Jewish facilities and Holocaust memorials were recorded around the country. Some were targeted more than once.

Most of the Jewish individuals attacked were identifiable by their traditional clothing. The majority of incidents took place in Zhitomir. On July 9, about 20 people assaulted Rabbi Shlomo Wilhelm, chief rabbi of Zhitomir, near a local synagogue and shouted antisemitic insults at him. About a month later, Rabbi Nakhum Tamarin and his wife Bracha, representatives of Chabad-Lubavich in Zhitomir, were beaten by youths near a synagogue. The victims said the attackers were skinheads. Graffiti such as "Death to the Yids" appeared on the door of the rabbi's home in October. In September, four youths ambushed Israeli citizen Mendel Lichshtein near a synagogue in Zhitomir and beat him as he left the building after prayer. He defended himself with a mace and they fled. Also in September Rabbi Benjamin Wolf, chief rabbi of Sevastopol, was beaten and abused with antisemitic insults by a group of four middle-aged men on his way to the local synagogue. A day later, a group of six men attacked Israeli yeshiva student Josef Rafaelov and two other religious Jews from Israel near the synagogue in Cherkassy. Rafaelov was hospitalized with head and other injuries.

Synagogues throughout Ukraine were targeted. In early January, the slogans "Death to the Jews,” "There will be no Jews in Lvov,” "Jude must die" and "Juden raus" were painted on the Golden Rose synagogue in Lvov. A few days later, swastikas, the phrases "Die Yids" and "Death to the Yids" were painted on the remnants of a synagogue in Mariupol, which had been confiscated by the Soviets and returned to the Jewish community in December 2006. In July a swastika painted on a synagogue in Zaporozhie was discovered by police after they had received an anonymous phone call about a bomb planted there. A youth smashed a window of a synagogue in Zhitomir during prayers in August, and then fled.

There were numerous desecrations of Holocaust memorials, among them: Two youths broke the glass plaque on the Menorah Holocaust memorial at Babi Yar as well as about 40 tombs at the nearby Lukianovskii military cemetery in February. When they were caught, one of them said that since the tombs did not have crosses on them they must belong to Jews. They were charged with hooliganism and desecration of burial places. Also in February, red swastikas and "Congratulations on the Holocaust" were painted on a memorial near Tolbukhin Square in Odessa, where 25,000 Jews were murdered during the Holocaust. About 250 graves were desecrated at a local Jewish cemetery with similar red swastikas on the same day. Three suspects were arrested a month later and in early August a district court convicted and sentenced them to two years imprisonment. One of them admitted he was inspired by neo-Nazi literature. In early March a memorial to 25,000 Jews murdered during the Holocaust was vandalized in Lutsk. Remains of the victims buried there had been unearthed and scattered around. Memorials in Berdichev and Aleksandria were vandalized in March. The latter (which was vandalized a second time in September) was painted with swastikas and the acronyms "SS" and "UPA" (Ukrainian Insurgent Army which collaborated with the Germans during World War II). The vandalism in April of a memorial to victims of the Ianovsk camp in Lvov and of a train station from where Jews were deported during the Holocaust was attributed by local Jews to the distribution of antisemitic material in the city. In October it was reported that the police had arrested a 16-year-old youth on suspicion of desecrating the Aleksandria memorial in September. On October 28, participants in a ceremony in Taganrog marking the 66th anniversary of the Holocaust found that parts of the memorial had been broken.

In addition, in April, 666 graves, most of them Jewish, were broken at a cemetery in Mariupol; a month later, 20 tombs were damaged at the Jewish cemetery in Chernigov; and in November swastikas and antisemitic slogans were painted on the grave of Rabbi Aharon in Zhitomir after it had been renovated a few weeks earlier.

Other Jewish facilities were attacked as well. In May, during an event held by a company selling kosher ice cream in Lvov, a group of youths headed by the above mentioned Oleg Tyahnybok, smashed stands and shouted insults against Jews and against the Yanukovich government. Police arrested some of the youths. In early September antisemitic slogans such as "Death to the Jews" and "Jews get out" were painted on the walls of the Jewish ORT High School in Zaporozie. A month later the Chabad center in Uzhgorod was broken into and the home of Rabbi Menakhem-Mendel Taichman, chief rabbi of Uzhgorod and the Transcarpatian Region, was torched while nobody was in the building. They also stole money, passports and some official documents. Also in October, the Simcha Jewish school in Kiev was extensively damaged by an arson attack. Eyewitnesses said the perpetrators were the same youths who had harassed pupils earlier; moreover, a week before the fire a rock with a note reading "Kill the Jews" was thrown through a window. A Chanukah menorah with a “Happy Chanukah” sign, placed in a central square in Cherkassy with the permission of the local authorities, was damaged following protests by local politicians about its presence.

Antisemitic graffiti appeared also on non-Jewish facilities. The slogan "Death to the Yids and anti-fascists,” swastikas, "SS” signs and Celtic crosses, as well as anti-Russian graffiti, appeared on the walls of the Ukrainian Communist Party offices in Stavropol in March. In July the Jewish community of Chernigov reported that swastikas, "Yids go away,” "Ukrainians are better" and other antisemitic graffiti had appeared on buildings in the city. They also complained that although similar graffiti had appeared regularly over the previous six months the police were not investigating. In August a poster reading "Ukraine, we are all your children," portraying a Jewish boy, hung on a central street in Zaporozhie, was defaced. The poster was one of a series with images of children of different nationalities displayed in cities of Ukraine on the eve of its Independence Day.

 

Propaganda

As in previous years, the leading purveyors of antisemitic propaganda in 2007 were MAUP (Inter-Regional Academy of Personnel Management) and the associated Ukrainian Conservative Party (see ASW 2005 and 2006). Practically every issue of the newspapers and journals of MAUP and the party (Information Bulletin, Ukrainian Gazette Plus, For Free Ukraine, For Ukrainian Ukraine, Personal Plus, and Personal) featured antisemitic materials. An exception was the youth newspaper Ukrainian Leader, where antisemitic articles were rarer. All MAUP newspapers and journals are published in the Ukrainian language. Personal has summaries of the main articles in Russian, English, Arabic and Chinese.

On January 21, for example, an article entitled "A Foreign Sect Does Not Have a Place in Ukraine," published in Personal Plus, referred to the Chabad organization as a "Judeo-Nazi sect" whose members should be deported from the country. The article also blamed Chabad for all of Ukraine's problems and urged the authorities to ban it. The article was reprinted in other MAUP newspapers. In September the Za Vilnu Ukrainu (For a free Ukraine) published an article titled "The Yids Want War? They Will Get It,” which blamed the Jews for the 1932-3 famine (Holodomor) and called for a struggle against contemporary problems allegedly caused by them, including that of "almost 500,000 Ukrainian women" abducted to Israel "where slavery of white women, predominantly from Ukraine, still exists.”

MAUP also publishes antisemitic books, both originals and translations, and organizes conferences and round tables. In October its publishing house brought out a collection of antisemitic articles under the title The Jewish Mafia and Its Cult, which discusses various aspects of organized Jewish crime allegedly concealed from the public, including ritual murder.

In May MAUP opened a kiosk selling antisemitic books and newspapers, alongside its textbooks, at the Babi Yar bus station, near the memorial. The Big Lie of the 20th Century: Myth of the Genocide of the Jews during World War II and Zionist Protocols – Sources and Documents were among the titles on offer. At the end of the month, the mayor of Kiev ordered the kiosk to be closed. In December, MAUP participated at an international book fair in Kiev, where it displayed books about alleged Jewish conspiracies and the use of blood for Jewish rituals.

MAUP propaganda also calls for a struggle against Zionism, identifying it with Nazism and claiming it is a danger to all humanity. All attempts to convince the prosecutor's office and other state organs to act against MAUP because of its antisemitic activity have so far been ineffective.

According to a study conducted by Vladimir Mindlin, who monitors antisemitic propaganda in the main print media for Vaad Ukraine, at least 542 antisemitic publications were published in Ukraine during 2007. The number is probably higher since not all newspapers published around the country were surveyed. Nevertheless, on the basis of Mindlin’s figures, there was a decrease in antisemitic publications compared to 2006 (676), the first time a decline has been observed since 2002. In fact, the "MAUP era" in Ukrainian antisemitism appears to have ended. MAUP abruptly ceased disseminating antisemitic propaganda in September-October 2007 in the same way it suddenly began in 2002. Not a single antisemitic article appeared in MAUP newspapers during the first two months of 2008.

 

Other Antisemitic Manifestations

In August the website of the marginal skinhead National Labor Party of Ukraine (an unregistered party) called for a boycott of Israeli and kosher products since "buying them helps Jews and Israelis conquer and destroy Ukraine's economy" and because they are linked to Zionists. The site stated that 13 percent of profits from the sale of such products were used by the religious Jewish communities in Ukraine against the Ukrainian people. It also gave details of how to identify such products. The call was accompanied by an antisemitic caricature of a Jew seated on skulls and counting money, with a Star of David in the background. In December, the website published an antisemitic article entitled "Appalling Customs of Judaism,” illustrated with an antisemitic poster from the Middle Ages. The article is a Ukrainian version of an article published by Ahmad Zalama in the Saudi newspaper al-Riyadh, in which he accuses the Jews of using a special supplement made of human blood in food during Purim.

An antisemitic and racist torchlight rally took place in Kiev on December 8. The participants, most of whom were from the right-wing Freedom Party and Patriots of Ukraine youth organization, shouted slogans against "the Zionist occupation government,” "Kikes," "Death to our enemies," and against foreign immigrants, and for "one race, one nation, one motherland.” The Patriots of Ukraine youth organization published antisemitic and racist materials in Ukrainian on its website in the same month.

Also in December leaflets calling for pogroms and the murder of Jews, signed by the Pravoslav Society of Odessa, were distributed near churches in Odessa. Rabbi Avraham Volf, chief rabbi of Odessa and South Ukraine, issued a release condemning the leaflets and lodged a complaint with the president, prime minister, police and prosecutor's office. Earlier, in August, the Pravoslav Society of Odessa was condemned by the Diocese of Odessa for "sowing inter-ethnic hatred and inciting enmity and hatred.” In mid-December, the Moscow patriarchate labeled it "anti-Church.” In early January 2008 Bishop Paul Jesep, spokesman of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Church in the US, issued a condemnation and the ADL called on President Yushchenko to publicly deplore antisemitism.

 

Responses to Antisemitism

Many statements condemning antisemitism and xenophobia were issued by the Ukrainian president, as well as by the prime minister and the foreign, interior and education ministers.

In April President Yushchenko asked the prosecutor general, the security services chief and the interior minister to take measures against the desecration of Jewish memorial sites in Ukraine. He also noted his concern over the increasing number of extremist groups in the country. On September 29, during a ceremony marking the 66th anniversary of the massacre of Jews in Babi Yar, he said that Ukraine deplored any kind of xenophobia and antisemitism and that there was no place for inter-ethnic intolerance and enmity in the country. The truth about what took place in Babi Yar must be made known to all. In light of the rise in antisemitic acts in the country, the president met, on October 22, with leaders of the Ukrainian Jewish community and promised to "spare no efforts to free Ukraine of xenophobia, antisemitism and hostility toward foreigners.” He blamed "external forces,” including Russia, for the situation since those "forces" were interested in destabilizing Ukraine. During a visit to Israel in November, Yushchenko addressed the Israel Council on Foreign Affairs (a World Jewish Congress affiliated organization). Reiterating his condemnation of antisemitism, he claimed that it was "a marginal phenomenon" in Ukraine and that there were no antisemitic political parties in the country. As he had vowed in the Israeli parliament (Knesset) the day before, he also promised to protect Jewish historical sites in Ukraine and to build a Holocaust memorial museum. In December Yushchenko submitted a draft bill to the Ukrainian parliament making denial of the Holocaust and of the Holodomor (the 1932-3 famine in Ukraine) illegal. According to the draft, denial of the Holocaust or Holodomor in public would make the offender liable to a sentence of up to 2-3 years imprisonment or a fine of the equivalent of 9,000-27,000 US dollars (100-300 times the Ukrainian monthly minimum wage).

During a visit to Israel in January, Yulia Tymoshenko, head of the BIuT party and then chairwoman of the opposition, stated that her party would fight antisemitism in Ukraine uncompromisingly. Later in the month, Foreign Minister Boris Tarasiuk said that there was no place for antisemitism in Ukraine and labeled MAUP's actions "unlawful.” Minister of Education Vasil Kremen stated on the same day during a press conference that MAUP's actions must be thoroughly analyzed in order to determine whether it could be prosecuted under Ukrainian law.

In August Acting Minister of Interior Mikhail Kornienko announced that the ministry would establish regional departments for the struggle against racism and xenophobia in the country.