THE JEWISH COMMUNITY

At the beginning of 2000, the Jewish population of Ukraine numbered 185,000, the majority residing in the large cities Kiev, Odessa, Kharkov, Kherson and Dnepropetrovsk. The population declined by 40,000 in 1999, of whom 23,500 left for Israel and about 12,000 for Western countries, while the rest were lost to the negative birth rate. Since the mass emigration of 1989, some 266,300 Jews have departed Ukraine for Israel.

There are about 110 Jewish organizations and religious communities 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). Friction based on personalities and economics which has characterized the Ukrainian Jewish community in recent years accounts for the multiplicity of groups and organizations, and intense rivalry exists over which organization is to 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 engage in Jewish education, preserving Jewish traditions and the memory of the Holocaust, and care for the ageing population.

ULTRA-NATIONALIST ORGANIZATIONS AND ANTI-SEMITISM

Currently, anti-Semitism is declining in Ukraine in comparison to the early days of independence when previously dormant historical disputes, such as the role of the Jews in the conquest of Ukraine by the Soviet Union, were revived. Jews were also a scapegoat for the difficulties of the new nation at that time. This change in attitude toward the Jews may be explained by their relatively modest presence in the country’s political, public and economic life (in contrast to their position in Russia), and to their replacement by the Russians as “the enemy of the Ukrainian people.”

In contrast to Russia, anti-Semitism plays almost no role in political and economic rivalries in Ukraine. However, on the political fringe, particularly in the western provinces, anti-Semitism is integral to the ideologies of a number of small ultra-nationalist groups. They include: State Independence of Ukraine (DSU), Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUND), Ukrainian Idealist, Congress of the Ukrainian Intelligentsia (KUI), Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists (KUN) and Association of Ukrainian Enlightenment (PROSVIT).

These groups publish a number of periodicals and newspapers, some of which have suffered a rapid decrease in circulation in recent years. Papers which routinely carry anti-Semitic material are: Nezborima Natsia (The Invincible Nation), Idealist, Za Vilnu Ukrainu (For a Free Ukraine) and Vechernii Kiev, a Kiev evening paper with a nationalist orientation.

A number of Jewish sites were damaged in 1999 and the beginning of 2000; some attacks were clearly motivated by anti-Semitism and others were simply hooliganism. There were six incidents of desecration of Jewish cemeteries in the cities of Chernovitsy, Simferopol, Kalinovka , Serna, Uman and Slavuta. In addition, anti-Semitic graffiti and swastikas appeared on the Brodsky Synagogue in Kiev and on a synagogue in Zhitomir, among other places. Only in the case of the cemetery desecration in Kalinovka were the perpetrators caught and brought to trial. Three were found guilty of cemetery desecration, in accordance with Article 212 of the Ukraine Criminal Code; two teenagers were released and a 20-year-old was sentenced to two years and three months in prison.

As in past years, Jews are still blamed by ultra-national extremists for the country’s economic difficulties. They are accused of holding positions of power in the political and economic spheres and of controlling the mass media, although mention of the latter accusation markedly decreased in 1999. Further, the new class of wealthy Jews are accused of despoiling the Ukrainians and the emigrants to Israel of taking the wealth of Ukraine with them. Sometimes the Holocaust is denied or is justified as retribution visited on the Jews for their having harmed Ukraine before World War II.

RESPONSES TO ANTI-SEMITISM

In the course of 1999 and the beginning of 2000, attempts were made to put a stop to anti-Semitic propaganda in extreme right papers. In April, 32 members of parliament addressed the president on this issue. In addition Jewish activists sued Vechernii Kiev and Djeraltze (The Source), an ostensibly non-partisan paper published by the intellectual association PROSVIT and funded by government money. They accused these papers of crude and unremitting anti-Semitism, including Holocaust denial, which is an infringement of the Law on Information, Article 46/3, forbidding the dissemination of racist propaganda. As of mid-2000, these efforts had proven fruitless, despite President Leonid Kuchma’s promise that the authorities would take decisive action.