Ukraine Country Page

 

   

Ukraine Data Ukraine Summary Reports: NCSJ report (below) CIA World Factbook U.S. State Dept. - background U.S. State Dept. - Human Rights U.S. State Dept. - Religious Freedom Betsy Gidwitz: Jewish Life In Ukraine Part I Part II Ukrainian Embassy U.S. Embassy Kyiv About NCSJ Country Reports Return to Country Directory

Population: 45.7 million (2009 est.) Ethnic Composition:  Ukrainian 77.8%, Russian 17.3%, Belarusian 0.6%, Moldovan 0.5%, Crimean Tatar 0.5%, Bulgarian 0.4%, Hungarian 0.3%, Romanian 0.3%, Polish 0.3%, other 2% (2001 census data) Religion: 56% Orthodox Christian (Moscow Patriarchate, Kyiv Patriarchate, Ukrainian Autocephalous), 6% Ukrainian Greek Catholic (Uniate), 3.8% Protestant, 1.5% Catholic, 0.5% Muslim, .02% Jewish  Jewish population: 150-400,000 2009 Aliyah: (emigration to Israel): 1,598 Size: 603,700 sq km    Capital: Kyiv (Kiev)  Major cities: Kyiv, Lviv (Lvov, Lemberg), Kharkiv (Kharkov), Odessa, Dnepropetrovsk Freedom House Rating: Free

Currency: 8.08 hryvni = $1 GDP: $179.6 billion (2008 est.) GDP per capita: $7,400 (2008 est.) GDP Growth: 2.1% (2008 est.) Head of State: President Viktor Yanukovich Head of Government: Prime Minister Mykola Azarov Foreign Minister: Konstantin Grishenko Ambassador to the United States: Dr. Oleh Shamshur U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine: John Tefft Chronology of all U.S. envoys to Ukraine

SUMMARY

Home to the original Russian state―Kyivan Rus―but lacking natural frontiers, Ukraine has long been fought over and dominated by its many neighbors. Ruled for centuries by Russian Tsars, and heavily victimized by subsequent Soviet and Nazi occupations, Ukraine gained its independence for good in 1991. After more than a decade of growing misrule and economic underperformance, discredited presidential elections in late 2004 sparked a peaceful mass “Orange Revolution” that led to the inauguration of pro-Western and pro-reform President Viktor Yushchenko in early 2005. Political tensions rose again in 2005, after the ruling pro-Presidential coalition broke apart, and again in 2006, due to constitutional changes to the balance of power within the government. A contentious parliamentary election in 2006 returned controversial pro-Russian politician Viktor Yanukovych (Yushchenko’s rival in the bitterly contested 2004 presidential election) as Prime Minister. Ukraine’s government, parliament and society are now increasingly divided among competing factions promoting sharply differing political and economic domestic and foreign agendas.

Ukraine’s conversion to a market economy in 2006 has been rocky, despite substantial agricultural and industrial resources. Energy debts, corruption and bureaucratic inefficiency plague reform efforts and slow economic growth. Ukraine has dismantled its nuclear arsenal but still contends with environmental damage and health effects from the 1986 Chernobyl reactor disaster. Ukraine’s formal accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in May 2008 and efforts to join other Western institutions have led to greater integration into European affairs

The country’s 150,000-400,000 Jews form the second largest Jewish community in the former Soviet Union, after Russia, and are represented by several umbrella and local groups that work in conjunction with American, European, Euro-Asian and Israeli organizations. International Jewish bodies sponsor the construction of new buildings and support the community by providing elderly assistance, communal, charitable and educational programs and immigration assistance. Although popular anti-Semitism has become more prevalent in recent years, the Ukrainian government has demonstrated a stronger commitment to combating this trend. 

return to top

UKRAINE

INTRODUCTION

POLITICAL ORGANIZATION
    1990s - 2007
    2007 - present

FOREIGN POLICY
    U.S. relations
    Israel relations

ECONOMIC PROBLEMS

HUMAN RIGHTS

JEWISH COMMUNAL LIFE
    History
    Community Revival
    Community Concerns

RISE IN ANTI-SEMITIC ACTS

MAUP

Slightly smaller than the state of Texas, Ukraine is the second-largest nation in Europe and the second largest of the Soviet successor states in population and economy. Comprised mostly of flat, fertile plains, Ukraine borders Russia, Belarus, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Moldova and the Black Sea.

Ukraine was originally inhabited by Indo-European and Turkic tribes and Greek colonists. Kyivan Rus, a powerful medieval state centered on Kyiv, was founded in the 9th century but destroyed by the Mongols in the 13th century. Later, Ukraine was partitioned by its stronger neighbors, Poland, Lithuania, Austria-Hungary and Russia, with Russia eventually annexing most Ukrainian territories after the Napoleonic Wars. During the 1917 collapse of the Russian Empire, Ukrainian nationalists proclaimed independence and secured German support for an incipient Ukrainian state in 1918. However, German defeat in World War I and internal divisions caused Ukraine to be overpowered by the Bolsheviks during a complex, many-sided civil war fought across Ukraine and South Russia between 1918 and 1921. After the Treaty of Riga ended the Soviet-Polish War in 1921, Ukraine was divided among the USSR in the east and Poland, Czechoslovakia and Romania in the west.

Early Communist rule over Ukraine was brutal. The Bolshevik regime under both Lenin and Stalin repeatedly and forcibly confiscated Ukrainian grain in the 1920s and 1930s, generating artificial famines that killed as many as eight million Ukrainians by starvation. Likewise, untold thousands of Ukrainian civilians (nationalist-minded party members, intellectuals, cultural elites and affluent peasants) were shot or deported to Siberia during the Stalinist purges of the 1930s. Under the terms of the secret protocol to the 1939 German-Soviet Non-Aggression (Molotov-Ribbentrop) Pact, the USSR annexed western Ukraine from Hungary, Poland and Romania in 1939/1940, and promptly applied the same policies. These annexations, reconfirmed after Soviet victory in 1945, established the current territorial borders of Ukraine (minus the Crimea).

World War II devastated Ukraine due to heavy fighting and a Soviet “scorched earth” policy. All major war industries and party personnel were evacuated to the Urals, Siberia and Central Asia. Ukraine lost millions of civilians and soldiers to combat, Nazi atrocities and wartime deprivations. In the immediate post-war years, drought combined with recollectivization drives, purges of suspected “anti-Soviet elements” and the struggle against nationalist guerrillas in western Ukraine claimed nearly a million additional lives. 

Repressions eased after Stalin’s death in 1953, when the accession to power of Ukrainian-born Nikita Khrushchev raised Ukraine’s status. Khrushchev ordered the transfer of the Crimea from Russia to Ukraine in 1954 and also supported a return to greater ethnic Ukrainian representation in the Ukrainian Communist Party. However, throughout the post-war Soviet era, Ukraine remained subordinate to its close linguistic and cultural cousin, Russia. The fragile sense of national identity among Ukrainians has derived partly from an enduring division between “Russified” eastern Ukraine and more nationally aware western Ukraine. Ironically, a stronger sense of Ukrainian nationhood developed outside Ukraine, especially within the Ukrainian diaspora community in Canada and the United States. 

Ukraine declared its independence on August 24, 1991, a move ratified by over 90 percent of Ukrainian voters in a December 1, 1991, referendum often described as the death knell of the USSR, given the impossibility of preserving the Soviet Union without this key republic. In December 1991, Ukrainian party boss Kravchuk, together with Russian President Yeltsin and Belarusian leader Shushkevich, announced the end of the USSR and the creation of the CIS.

return to headings


POLITICAL ORGANIZATION

Ukraine is a mixed parliamentary-presidential constitutional republic with executive, legislative and judicial branches. The Ukrainian parliament approved a major constitutional reform in late 2004, during the Orange Revolution, which shifted the balance of power toward the legislative branch: as of January 1, 2006, the parliament appoints the Prime Minister, who is proposed by the President. The Prime Minister in turn nominates his cabinet members for confirmation by parliament. 

The unicameral parliament (Verkhovna Rada, or Supreme Council) consists of 450 members elected to 5-year terms. It has the power to initiate legislation, ratify international agreements and approve the budget. The President appoints judges for five-year terms, after which parliament may award lifetime tenure. The President is elected by popular vote every five years, with the next election scheduled for 2010. 

National politics between the 1990s and 2007
Ukraine enjoyed a relatively peaceful transition process toward democratic reform after December 1991. Democratic elections held in the 1990s were considered free and fair by international observers, despite irregularities and growing domestic and foreign criticism of the Kuchma administration (1994-2005) over allegations of corruption and the erosion of political rights. The presidential election of 1999 raised international concerns about government manipulation of the media. 

Political turmoil erupted in January 2000, when legislators established an alternative parliament in opposition to the predominantly leftist members remaining in the original body. Former President Kuchma, who was reelected to a second term in November 1999, after two rounds of voting, backed the alternative parliament. Political wrangling with estranged leftist legislators stalled crucial legislation, including economic reform. A highly contested national referendum in April 2000 accorded Kuchma far greater powers over the split legislature, provoking substantial international criticism. 

Adding to the political turmoil, developments in the case of missing journalist Georgii Gongadze focused international attention on Ukraine and brought out thousands of protestors to demand Kuchma’s resignation. Gongadze, who had criticized the government, went missing in September 2000. After police found a decapitated body in November 2000, believed to be Gongadze (confirmed by DNA evidence in March 2003), a Kuchma bodyguard revealed the existence of tapes implicating Kuchma in the murder. However, Kuchma continued to deny any involvement. 

Parliamentary elections in March 2002 resulted in further controversy, as local and international observers criticized the unfair allocation of media exposure and other resources among the competing parties and candidates. Abuses were particularly flagrant in eastern Ukraine (including Donetsk and Kharkiv) and in Crimea. “Our Ukraine,” the electoral bloc of Kuchma’s former Prime Minister and leading reformist politician Viktor Yushchenko, garnered the largest share of the proportional vote, pushing the long-dominant Communist party into third place. Nonetheless, Kuchma’s bloc “For United Ukraine” formed the majority of the new parliament due to the success of favored “independents” in single-mandate seats, who later stated their membership in For United Ukraine. Outspoken opposition parties fared poorly and complained of rampant discrimination and corrupt local officials. 

In late 2002, Yushchenko aligned himself more vocally with other opposition leaders, who were frustrated with the high levels of political corruption and intrigue (most notably tied to the ongoing investigation of the Gongadze murder and the alleged sale of radar technology to Iraq) and with the failure to implement economic reforms. The opposition coalition―consisting of Yushchenko, Yulia Tymoshenko, Oleksandr Moroz, Petro Symonenko and other future leaders of the Orange Revolution―called for the impeachment of President Kuchma. They organized demonstrations of tens of thousands of people in September 2002 and demanded a meeting with Kuchma to voice their complaints and call for his resignation. After occupying part of Kuchma’s administration building they secured a meeting. However, Kuchma did not accede to any of their demands. 

After the September 2002 rallies, which some have called a dress rehearsal for the much larger protests of 2004, President Kuchma continued his attempts to strengthen his political power in the face of growing national and international criticism. He removed Prime Minister Anatoliy Kinakh from power and nominated Viktor Yanukovych, regional governor from the eastern industrial province of Donetsk, to replace him. Yanukovych helped promote reintegration with Russia via a September 2003 agreement creating a Common Economic Space that in theory could eventually link Ukraine with Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan. The Ukrainian parliament ratified the agreement in April 2004, despite street protests.

In late 2004, Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych ran for President against former Prime Minister Viktor Yushchenko. The November 2004 election polarized Ukraine between east and west; the Russian government openly backed Yanukovych, while Yushchenko represented European integration and rejection of Russian influence. After a campaign marred by accusations of intimidation, media manipulation and a mysterious near-fatal dioxin poisoning of Yushchenko widely blamed on Yanukovych and his Russian backers, the Central Electoral Committee declared Yanukovych the winner. This announcement sparked massive and sustained non-violent protests against the election, which was marked by voter intimidation and illegal destruction of ballots, and in favor of Yushchenko. Yushchenko’s Our Ukraine bloc brought its grievances to the Supreme Court, which invalidated the election results. A runoff election on December 26 resulted in Yushchenko’s election as President. Protesters disbanded only after Yushchenko’s inauguration on January 23, 2005. 

The non-violent protests and subsequent victory of Yushchenko came to be known as the Orange Revolution after the color symbolizing Yushchenko’s campaign. The revolution’s success was the second in a chain of “color revolutions” in the former Soviet states, after Georgia’s Rose Revolution in late 2003.

The Ukrainian constitution was amended in 2005, following negotiations and agreements during the 2004 presidential elections that replaced single-member-districts with an increased multi-member proportional representation. The amended constitution, which went into effect on January 1, 2006, also transferred power from the President to the parliament, making Ukraine a parliamentary-presidential democracy. As part of this reform, the parliament gained authority to name the Prime Minister.

President Yushchenko was not able to meet the high expectations anticipated after the Orange Revolution. During 2005, popular disenchantment set in with his disengaged style, fractious government, failure to improve the economy and inability to put Ukraine on a fast track to join the EU. The alliance of nationalists, populists and reformers who came to power with Yushchenko broke apart, due to the firing of Prime Minister Tymoshenko in September 2005. The failure of Yushchenko’s and Tymoshenko’s parties to unite in the March 2006 parliamentary elections in the face of a strong challenge by their common opponent, the pro-Russian Party of Regions led by former prime minister Yanukovych (who chose the color blue to contrast with the orange favored by presidential supporters) contributed to the collapse. 

Ukraine’s parliamentary elections on March 26, 2006, were declared “free and fair” by the OSCE-led International Election Observation Mission (IEOM). European and U.S. monitors concurred. The election was especially significant in the wake of recent constitutional amendments. The new parliament was the first in post-Communist Ukraine to name the Prime Minister and appoint key cabinet members―both previously presidential prerogatives. Election results largely duplicated national divisions made manifest in the 2004 Presidential elections, with western and northern Ukraine supporting the two main nationalist parties, and southern and eastern districts voting for the pro-Russian Party of Regions led by the Prime Minister.

The outcome of the March election reflected Ukraine’s disillusionment with President Yushchenko, seen as having failed to bring about changes demanded by the Orange Revolution. Yushchenko’s Our Ukraine bloc received only 15 percent of the popular vote for parliament, coming in third behind Yanukovych’s Party of Regions and the Yulia Tymoshenko bloc. Supporters of the Orange Revolution pushed to reinstate the Orange Coalition, consisting of the Yulia Tymoshenko bloc, Our Ukraine and the Socialist Party of Ukraine, and to name its ambitious head, Yulia Tymoshenko, as Prime Minister. Yushchenko resisted, having already once made Tymoshenko Prime Minister in early 2005, only to fire her later that same year. 

Ultimately, the former allies of the 2004 Orange Revolution proved unable to overcome their personality and policy differences to form a ruling coalition in 2006. President Yushchenko shocked many of his former Orange Revolution supporters when, on August 3, 2006, he named rival Yanukovych to be Prime Minister, endorsing Yanukovych’s “Anti-Crisis Coalition” government by pro-Russian, socialist and communist parliamentary factions. Other supporters, however, believed that Yushchenko’s surprising move would help unite Ukraine. In late 2006 and early 2007, as Yushchenko and Yanukovych sought to develop a working relationship, hopes were raised that French-style cohabitation between an “Orange” President and a “Blue” Prime Minister could allow Ukraine to pursue both EU and NATO accession while managing vital economic relations with key neighbor Russia. But the two men and their backers had sharply divergent national priorities that prolonged the political stalemate. The pro-Western President and his allies in the nationalist opposition backed EU and NATO membership for Ukraine, and the pro-Russian Prime Minister and his supporters among Ukraine’s large Russian-speaking community opposed NATO membership. 

The Prime Minister openly sought to outflank and marginalize the President. When Yushchenko’s pro-Western foreign minister resigned in January 2007, under strong pressure from Yanukovych, it was widely seen as a move by the Prime Minister to reduce presidential power and gain greater control over cabinet appointments. In February and March 2007, as the political standoff intensified, calls were made on both sides for early presidential and parliamentary elections to break the deadlock. Yanukovych’s ruling Anti-Crisis Coalition changed its name to the National Unity Coalition.

Political tensions spiked again in March 2007, when Yanukovych launched an attempt to create a 300-seat, veto-proof parliamentary “super-majority” that would enable him to amend the constitution, in part by recruiting legislators from opposition parties. After a widely publicized defection of 11 former opposition and pro-presidential parliamentarians to Yanukovych’s ruling coalition in late March 2007, Yushchenko condemned the government’s policies as “illegitimate.” Failing to reach agreement, the President dissolved parliament on April 2, 2007, and called for legislative elections on May 27, 2007. Observers agreed that Yushchenko’s move was most likely triggered by fears that a veto-proof parliamentary super-majority led by Yanukovych could amend the constitution to weaken or even eliminate the post of President, ending Ukraine’s hopes of joining NATO and the EU. 

The Prime Minister and his supporters condemned the President’s action as unconstitutional, rejected early elections and called on the government to defy the President’s order and continue working until the country’s Constitutional Court could rule on the legitimacy of the presidential decree. Although nearly 200 pro-presidential deputies began to boycott parliament after Yushchenko’s April dissolution decree, the Yanukovych-controlled legislature continued to meet and pass legislation. Thousands of blue-clad Yanukovych supporters, many of them bused in from outside, rallied in downtown Kyiv to protest the President’s decree and oppose early elections, while orange-draped Yushchenko supporters staged spirited counter-rallies. 

return to headings


Politics since 2007

On April 26, 2007, Yushchenko issued a decree postponing early parliamentary elections to June 24, citing the need for adequate preparation in the face of the cabinet’s continuing refusal to allocate funds and pass legislation for the May election. Although Yanukovych and the ruling parliamentary coalition initially condemned the decree as “unconstitutional” and “astonishing,” President Yushchenko announced on May 4 that he and Yanukovych had reached agreement on holding early parliamentary elections, without announcing a specific date for the poll. However, hopes that the agreement would end the standoff faded when a parliamentary working group failed to produce a solution. Political tensions rose again in late May 2007, when Yushchenko fired the prosecutor-general and ordered Interior Ministry troops into Kyiv to secure government buildings. On May 27, after intensive talks, Yushchenko, Yanukovych and Rada Chairman Moroz announced a compromise parliamentary election date of September 30. 

In those elections Yanukovych’s Party of the Regions bloc lost its parliamentary majority to former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko’s bloc, the YTB. Tymoshenko formed a coalition with Yushchenko’s Our Ukraine party, and on December 18, 2007, she was elected Prime Minister. The coalition soon began to fray, however. Tymoshenko supported factions that favored warmer ties with Russia, and sided with the opposition to pass measures limiting the President’s powers. Yushchenko responded by ending the coalition and dissolving parliament in October 2008. 

The elections were held in January 2010, the first round ballot occurring on January 17, with a voter turnout of approximately 67%, down by 8% since the 2004 presidential election. Major issues raised in the campaign included the economy, healthcare, housing, membership in NATO and CSTO, European integration, relations with Russia, constitutional reform, and the status of the Russian language. 

Incumbent president Yushchenko received only 5.45% of the vote, while Yanukovych and Timoshenko finished first and second, respectively. They faced each other again in the second round ballot on February 7, which resulted in Yanukovych’s narrow victory (48% of votes compared to Tymoshenko’s 45%). It is widely recognized that the elections had improved in the direction of meeting democratic standards, but Ukraine has not been able to erase its legacy of fraud and corruption. A December 2009 poll found that 82% of Ukrainians expected rigging and manipulation of votes. Ukrainian politics continue to be highly dynamic, fluid, deeply divided and lacking effective institutions. Yet they are also fundamentally democratic in that they give voice to the country’s many constituencies, in sharp contrast to other former Soviet states characterized by authoritarian leaders, dominant “leading” parties, muzzled oppositions and choreographed elections.

return to headings


FOREIGN POLICY

Membership in NATO was a top priority for President Yushchenko, and Ukraine has been an active member of NATO’s Partnership for Peace. While NATO Allies support Ukraine’s aspirations, an invitation to join is based on Ukraine’s performance in implementing key reforms. In September 2006, Prime Minister Yanukovych publicly challenged Yushchenko’s authority on foreign policy and defense issues by disagreeing on Ukraine’s membership in NATO. Moreover, the resignation of Yushchenko’s staunchly pro-Western foreign minister in January 2007, who had been strongly opposed by the pro-Russian Yanukovych, and Yanukovych’s March 2007 call for closer defense cooperation with Russia, was widely seen as adversely affecting Ukraine’s near-term chances to join NATO and the EU. In April 2008, NATO announced Ukraine would not be offered a Membership Action Plan (MAP). In April, at the 2008 NATO summit in Bucharest, Ukraine was declared an unfit candidate for membership. However, the Alliance has committed itself to the political and strategic integration of Ukraine, albeit without a deadline. 

Yushchenko was particularly eager to forge close ties with the EU in order to become a member state. The EU-Ukraine Agreement on Partnership and Cooperation, June 14, 1994, had established a legal basis for interaction between the EU and Ukraine, and trade and economic relations were discussed in a July 2004 summit. Since then negotiations have proceeded slowly but persistently. Energy and nuclear safety are among the most important areas of the EU’s cooperation with Ukraine.

In March 2007, The European Commission announced a $647 million aid package meant to strengthen “good governance and democratic institutions” in Ukraine, and to help bring Ukrainian legislation closer to compliance with EU standards. When the Prime Minister visited Brussels in March, officials told him that the EU was interested in a “deeper partnership” with Ukraine, and described Ukraine as a key energy partner for the EU and a vital diplomatic bridge to Central Asia. As a result of a summit held in Paris on September 9, Ukraine and the EU agreed to sign a future Association Agreement, to replace the one due to expire in 2008. The summit declaration acknowledged Ukraine’s European aspirations and stated that the new treaty left open the question of further, gradual development of EU-Ukraine relations. 

President Yushchenko also showed renewed interest in strengthening the Organization for Democracy and Economic Development-GUAM, a regional grouping consisting of Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Moldova. Founded in the late 1990s, GUAM seeks to advance the economic development of its member states and the creation of a strategic alliance to help strengthen the independence of post-Soviet states and promote regional security and human rights. Member states hope that the organization will counterbalance growing Russian influence over former Soviet states. During a May 2006 summit meeting in Ukraine, it was agreed to locate the group’s headquarters in Kyiv and to elect the President of Azerbaijan as its first secretary-general. In August, member states met to discuss the creation of a joint military force. Member states signed an agreement on international multimodal cargo shipment at Baku on June 19, 2007. The third GUAM-Japan meeting was held On July 1, 2008, in Batumi, Georgia, for an exchange of views on various issues of mutual interest, including energy, transit and transportation, environmental protection, trade and investment, and tourism as well as peaceful resolution of conflicts on the basis of the UN Security Council resolutions.

Official relations between Russia and Ukraine have remained cool. Disputes persist over Ukraine’s outreach to the West and its continuing natural gas dependency. In the summer of 2006, Ukraine pledged to stop siphoning off oil from Russian pipelines that run through Ukraine. Other longstanding disputes have largely been resolved, including partition of the post-Soviet Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol, Crimea, and jurisdiction over the Crimean peninsula. Despite its majority ethnic Russian population, many of whom favor reunification with Russia, Crimea signed a non-separatist treaty with the Kyiv authorities in late 1998. However, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s vocal support for Yanukovych during the 2004 election campaign complicated relations with the new pro-Western Ukrainian government. 

return to headings


Relations with the United States

In September 2005, visa restrictions for U.S. citizens were eased, allowing Americans to enter Ukraine without a visa for 90 days. Also, visas are not required for U.S. citizens who enter Ukraine within six months after their previous trip. Such measures represent a more friendly diplomatic posture toward the United States and an effort to attract greater American investment. 
After his inauguration in January 2005, President Yushchenko declared that graduating Ukraine from the Jackson-Vanik Amendment would be one of his top priorities as president. As part of the Trade Act of 1974, the amendment imposed U.S. trade restrictions on the Soviet Union in response to its inadequate human rights policy, particularly in regards to religious minorities and anti-Semitism. The amendment stated that non-market economies that restricted the emigration of its citizens would not receive permanent normal trade relations or most favored nation status with the United States. Yushchenko visited the United States in April 2005 and met with President Bush. In March 2006, President Bush formally graduated Ukraine from the Jackson-Vanik Amendment, aiding Ukraine’s bid for membership in the World Trade Organization. 

However, concerns remain about non-state sponsored anti-Semitism (described below). The U.S. Embassy in Kyiv continues to monitor human rights and religious freedoms. The embassy has raised concerns with government officials about restitution and about the desecration of Jewish cemeteries. 

With the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine inherited the world’s third largest nuclear arsenal. In keeping with the 1991 START treaty, Ukraine renounced nuclear weapons and agreed to trade its 1,300 warheads to Russia in return for $1 billion in aid and the elimination of much of Ukraine’s oil and gas debt. Through its Cooperative Threat Reduction Initiative (“Nunn-Lugar Legislation”), the United States has contributed over $670 million through 2002 to assist Ukraine in dismantling its nuclear stockpile. On October 25, 2002, U.S. and Ukrainian officials celebrated the closing of Ukraine’s last nuclear missile silo in Pershotravensk and the end of Ukraine’s nuclear weapons legacy.

Aid continues for the development of nuclear power resources and related environmental programs. The United States plans to provide Western safety equipment to improve the design of two nuclear plants, Khmelnitsky and Rivne, under construction. As part of the G8, the United States is helping to finance construction of a new containment shell for the Chernobyl Reactor 4 site. 

U.S. financial assistance includes projects to enhance democratic institutions in Ukraine, strengthen the economy, and address such social issues as the gaps in state health care and pensions. In light of the Ukrainian government’s reluctance or inability to enact far-reaching reforms, the United States has focused its aid on local government and grassroots organizations. U.S. assistance to independent Ukraine has totaled more than $3 billion, given primarily under terms of the 1992 Freedom Support Act, and targeting political and economic reforms and urgent humanitarian needs.

The 2004/2005 Ukrainian elections and President Yushchenko’s April 2005 visit to the United States signaled a major improvement in bilateral relations. In a joint statement after their meeting, presidents Bush and Yushchenko affirmed “a new era of strategic partnership” between the two countries. 

Ukraine has made practical contributions to the international fight against terrorism, including involvement of its military transport aviation for deployment of Allied troops in Afghanistan, and opening its air space to Allied aircraft participating in the counter-terrorism campaign. Ukraine supported the U.S.-led effort in Iraq in 2003, after initially siding with Russia, France and Germany before the war’s start. Ukraine deployed a specialized chemical/biological weapons team and nearly 500 soldiers to aid in Operation Iraqi Freedom and sent 1,600 troops in August 2003 to aid in the peacekeeping effort. Fulfilling a campaign promise, President Yushchenko ordered the withdrawal of these troops from Iraq in early 2005. At an April 2005 press conference, President Bush expressed his understanding for Ukraine’s withdrawal from the coalition. By December 2006, no Ukrainian troops remained in Iraq. Ukraine has also participated in peacekeeping operations in Kosovo in close cooperation with NATO.

In September 2008, President Yushchenko visited the United States and met with President Bush to discuss U.S.-Ukraine relations and regional issues, as well as attending the opening of the U.N. General Assembly. During his visit, Yushchenko awarded NCSJ Executive Director Mark Levin the Order of Merit, which recognizes citizens of foreign countries for their significant personal contribution to the cause of strengthening the prestige of Ukraine in the world and the promotion of its historic and contemporary achievements.

return to headings


Relations with Israel

Israeli-Ukrainian relations are steadily improving. Israel opened an embassy in Kyiv in 1993, and Israeli cultural centers sponsor seminars and programs in several cities. Ukraine opened its embassy in Tel-Aviv in 1992, and then-President Kuchma paid a state visit to Israel in 1996. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Ukraine in March 1999 and laid a wreath before the memorial at Babi Yar in tribute to the more than 33,000 Jews massacred there during the Holocaust. Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres visited Ukraine in December 2001 to discuss bilateral relations and observe the ten-year anniversary of diplomatic relations. Economic agreements were signed in 2005 to promote trade ties; bilateral trade was estimated at $426 million in 2004 and nearly $200 million in 2003. Israeli President Katsav visited Ukraine in October 2001, meeting with then-President Kuchma, and again in September 2006 to participate in ceremonies marking the 65th anniversary of the massacre at Babi Yar.

Then tragedy struck in October 2001, when a misdirected Ukrainian test missile hit a civilian jetliner over the Black Sea, killing all 77 passengers, most of whom were Israeli citizens. The slow process of compensation and acceptance of responsibility exacerbated bilateral relations until December 2003, when Ukraine ratified an agreement involving the Ukrainian, Israeli and Russian governments.

Ukraine has sided with Israel in opposing two moves at the United Nations. The first was in August 2006, when Ukraine supported Israel during a Human Rights Council vote to condemn “Grave Israeli Violations of Human Rights in Lebanon.” The resolution called for the establishment of a high-level inquiry commission to investigate Israel’s conduct during the war with Hezbollah. The second issue involved the so-called Goldstone Report. Richard Goldstone, former South African Constitutional Court judge and chief prosecutor of the United Nations International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and for Rwanda, published an open letter in March 2009, expressing “shock” over the “gross violations of the laws of war and international humanitarian law” committed by Israeli military personnel and Hamas during a three week offensive in Gaza, and asking that they be prosecuted. This letter, later expanded into a 575-page document known as the Goldstone Report, was presented before the Human Rights Council and the General Assembly in September 2009, for a vote to decide whether or not to pursue further investigations. The Israeli government maintains that the number of casualties in the Gaza offensive has been exaggerated and that the report is biased. Ukraine, along with the United States, Italy, Holland, Hungary, and Slovakia, voted against the report.

return to headings


ECONOMIC PROBLEMS

Ukraine is rich in natural resources and also in industrial capacity. Vast stretches of rich arable land helped Ukraine become the Soviet Union’s breadbasket, while large deposits of coal, sulfur and iron ore, along with ports on the Black Sea, were the basis for a large heavy industry establishment. However, post-independence reform efforts have been complicated by falling industrial and agricultural output, high inflation, corruption and organized crime. 

Ukraine’s dependence on Russian energy continues to make its economy vulnerable. In October 2002, Russia and Ukraine signed an agreement establishing an international consortium to manage 35,000 kilometers of gas pipelines running through Ukrainian territory. In January 2006, Russia temporarily cut off the supply of natural gas to Ukraine after failing to reach an agreement over a price increase. The two countries finally worked out an agreement.

After independence in 1991, Ukraine went into crisis, as economic output dropped to 40 percent by 1999. Ukraine’s economy has generally followed the fluctuations of its largest import and export market, Russia. Russia’s strong growth in 2000 helped produce Ukraine’s first year of positive GDP growth since independence. Since then growth has been uneven: in 2004, Ukraine’s growth was the highest in Europe at 12.4 percent; in 2005, the GDP only grew 2.4 percent; in 2006, it was estimated at 7 percent. Inflation, running at 13.5 percent in 2005 and 8.5 percent in 2006, remained the greatest macroeconomic challenge, and was significantly higher than in most developed countries. 

Much reform is still needed to decrease poverty levels, curtail government corruption and bureaucracy, promote the formation and registration of small businesses and protect property rights through the timely issuance of land title deeds. Recent strong economic growth has helped reduce poverty, but the labor force is among the lowest paid in Europe. Though poverty rates have fallen and Millennium Development Goal targets on maternal and child mortality have been exceeded, tuberculosis and AIDS are emerging as major challenges. The number of HIV cases increased by 25 percent in 2004 to an estimated 70,000.

Ukraine has developed a working relationship with the World Bank. In June 2005, the Bank approved the First Development Policy Loan for Ukraine, in the amount of $251.26 million. Soon thereafter the Bank approved loans in education ($86 million) and energy ($106 million), and agreed to make $2 of lending available from 2005 to 2007. In September 2009, Ukraine was granted $400 million as part of a Programmatic Financial Rehabilitation Development Policy Loan (PFRL 1). Since the start of World Bank programs in Ukraine in 1992, a total of $4.5 billion have been approved in project funding.

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) also continues to disburse aid for banking, industrial and agricultural reform and to energy projects that promote efficiency and nuclear safety. Ukraine still suffers from the effects of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster of April 1986, and continues to invest a sizable share of the national budget in medical care for victims and cleanup of contaminated areas. With international aid, Ukraine has strengthened the containment unit around Chernobyl’s damaged reactor and has shut down the entire Chernobyl complex. 

The support of the IMF, World Bank, EBRD and other foreign donors suggests that confidence in Ukraine has been growing steadily. These investments often carry significant conditions and responsibilities, however, and total investment still falls short of what is needed to rebuild Ukraine’s infrastructure and economy. Private investment, in particular, has continued to lag as a result of endemic corruption and structural impediments. According to the EBRD, in 2004 the Ukrainian government made progress with the implementation of new legislation aimed at combating money laundering, safeguarding secured transactions and establishing arbitration tribunals. Nevertheless, many enterprises encounter barriers to doing business, including a cumbersome regulatory framework. 

Ukraine joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) in May 2008, amid hopes that membership would lead to better living standards, higher wages and improved social standards. In October 2008, as Ukraine’s economy began to feel the effects of the global financial crisis, the government negotiated a $16.5 billion bailout agreement with the IMF. Ukraine desperately needed the money to stave off a run on its banks and currency. 

return to headings


HUMAN RIGHTS

The Ukrainian constitution guarantees most civil rights in principle, if not always in practice. After coming under domestic and international criticism for his treatment of the media, then-President Leonid Kuchma signed a bill in April 2003 designed to protect the freedom of the press and abolish censorship. 

Religious and minority rights are generally respected, but ethnic minorities and persons of dark complexion have reported harassment by law enforcement. In addition, the past several years have seen a notable increase in anti-Semitic incidents. Law enforcement generally respects freedom of assembly and the rights of religious groups. In February 2005, President Viktor Yushchenko announced that he would abolish the State Committee on Religious Affairs in a bid to bring Ukraine’s government more closely in-line with European standards.

The return of Crimean Tatars from Soviet-era exile in Central Asia has raised pressing issues concerning property restitution and minority rights. Ukraine is also tackling a growing problem of West-bound Asian and African illegal migrants, as witnessed by the establishment of a detention camp in Mukachevo, Transcarpathia, to prevent migrants from reaching Ukraine’s western border. The migrant problem is expected to intensify as Ukraine’s western neighbors join the European Union (EU) and Ukraine’s western borders become crucial buffers. In January 2007, the World Bank ranked Ukraine as the 4th largest migrant receiving country worldwide. It was reported in 2006 that between 3,000 and 7,600 were detained while attempting to cross Ukraine’s 600 km long borders with Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia. Similar numbers were reported in 2007.

Ukraine is considered a source country for tens of thousands or more of women and girls trafficked to Central and Western Europe and the Middle East. It has passed legislation to fight human trafficking. A criminal code enacted in September 2001 criminalized human trafficking, pornography and sexual exploitation. However, weak enforcement has resulted in few convictions on trafficking charges. Limited resources, corruption among law enforcement officers and organized crime still impede Ukraine’s ability to eliminate or significantly reduce human trafficking or deal with its tragic consequences. In 2002, an OSCE sponsored anti-trafficking initiative established a national hotline and public service campaign to raise awareness about trafficking, and the OSCE project coordinator in Ukraine has held several courses to train judges, prosecutors and consular officials. Parallel economic empowerment and education programs were also introduced. In February 2007, the International Organization for Migration estimated that approximately 117,000 Ukrainians had been forced into exploitative situations abroad since the Soviet breakup. Ukrainian officials say low salaries and unemployment increase the vulnerability of the country’s citizens to human trafficking and forced labor.

return to headings


JEWISH COMMUNAL LIFE

Ukraine’s Jewish community comprises 150,000-400,000 people and more than 290 organizations in 100 cities. Kyiv’s Jewish community, estimated at 100,000, is the largest, followed closely by those of Odessa (est. 60,000-70,000), Dnepropetrovsk (est. 60,000), Kharkiv (50,000), and Donetsk (18,000). The Jewish community in Ukraine serves as a model for other communities in the FSU successor states. Second in size only to Russia, Ukrainian Jewry has regained its vibrancy, but leadership disputes after the Orange Revolution have slowed further consolidation, with Ukraine currently hosting four separate Chief Rabbis.

History

The first Jewish communities on the territory of modern Ukraine are thought to have appeared in the early Common Era, in Greek- and Roman-ruled city-states founded in the Crimea and along the Black Sea coast. During the early Middle Ages, the Khazars, Turkic nomads from Central Asia, conquered and dominated much of modern Ukraine and southern Russia. Many converted to Judaism in the 8th century to better resist neighboring Christian and Muslim threats; their conversion accelerated Jewish settlement in the region, including in Kyiv. These early Jewish communities were eclipsed after the destructive Mongol invasions of the 13th century. Jews began to return to Ukraine from Western and Central Europe in subsequent centuries, especially from Germany and Poland. By the 16th century, Kyiv was the center of a 45,000-strong Jewish population. Jews became successful traders as well as adjuncts to the Polish landowning aristocracy; however, this generated strong hostility from the Ukrainian peasantry, who perceived Jews as allies of oppressive Polish landowners. Approximately 100,000 Jews were massacred during a popular revolt against the Polish aristocracy (1648-49) led by Cossack Bohdan Khmelnitsky, who is still regarded today as a Ukrainian national hero. Smaller-scale anti-Jewish and anti-Polish riots and massacres were orchestrated in the 18th century by the Haidamaks (bands of peasant serfs and Cossacks).

Despite periodic anti-Jewish pogroms, the Ukrainian Jewish population grew to over two million by 1899. As a result of the tsarist policy of limiting Jewish residence to the Pale of Settlement, the vast majority lived in western Ukraine. Continued anti-Jewish violence and tsarist “Russification” programs led hundreds of thousands of Jews to emigrate from Ukraine, mostly to the United States, between 1880 and 1913. Russia’s 1918-21 civil war dealt another major blow to Ukraine’s Jewish population, tens of thousands of whom were killed by the various armies, militias and insurgents. Ukrainian nationalist forces have been accused of responsibility for the most devastating pogroms, due to popular Ukrainian stereotypes of alleged Jewish opposition to Ukrainian self-rule and pro-Russian Jewish “Bolshevism.” Ukrainian pogroms during the civil war led many Jews to join the Red Army and the Communist Party, given the Communists’ official opposition to anti-Semitism. 

The German invasion of June 1941 led to attacks on Jews by some Ukrainians, especially in newly Sovietized western Ukraine, as the Soviet Army retreated and law and order collapsed. Many Ukrainians (again, particularly in western Ukraine) collaborated with Nazi forces, including volunteering for mass executions of Jews. Some Ukrainian Jews, particularly in the east of the country, were evacuated to Russia and Central Asia. The Nazis and their collaborators murdered about 1.5 million of the remaining Jews, including those living in western territories annexed by the Soviet Union in 1939. While hundreds of Jewish mass graves dot the landscape of Ukraine, the massacre of more than 33,000 Jews at Babi Yar on September 29-30, 1941, and subsequent roundups of Jews through 1943, has come to symbolize the Holocaust in Ukraine. 

Individual Ukrainians hid Jews or helped them to safety. Israel has formally recognized 2,139 Ukrainians to date as “Righteous Among the Nations” for risking their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust.

Following Ukraine’s liberation by Soviet forces, Jews were persecuted under post-war Soviet campaigns against Jewish leaders and “rootless cosmopolites.” Kyiv became a major center of underground Jewish culture and pro-aliyah (immigration to Israel) agitation during the 1970s and 1980s. 

return to headings



Community Revival

Lesley Weiss

Kyiv Synagogue

Ukrainian Jewish life experienced a remarkable revival during the Glasnost period of the late-1980s and after independence in 1991. On numerous occasions, President Yushchenko stated his intention to work with the Jewish community on issues of restitution and the elimination of anti-Semitism, and his government generally supported Jewish community initiatives. In 2004, Yushchenko made an unprecedented gesture by sending the Jewish community Chanukah greetings. In May 2005, the Ukrainian Embassy in the United States printed an eight-page article in English publicizing Jewish life in Ukraine, but no equivalent Ukrainian language document was produced. Still, entrenched anti-Semitic and xenophobic attitudes in Ukrainian society and resistance by some officials to acknowledge anti-Semitic incidents continue to mar official Ukrainian efforts to combat what is widely described as a rise in anti-Semitic publications, incidents and actual violence against Jews (see below). 

In February 2004, the government shut down the newspaper Silski Visti (Village News), which was published by the opposition Socialist Party, because of an inflammatory article, “Jews in Ukraine Today: Reality Without Myths.” A Jewish citizen, with alleged tacit government approval, sued the newspaper and a January 2004 court ruling sided in his favor. It is unclear whether the government acted to suppress one of the few opposition media outlets, or genuinely wanted to combat anti-Semitism. After the paper was closed by the court ruling, members of the opposition, including Yushchenko and Tymoshenko, issued a dissenting statement entitled, “Hands Off Silski Visti.” An outcry from Jewish community leaders spurred Yushchenko to issue a statement criticizing the Silski Visti article as anti-Semitic and urging the newspaper to apologize. In late 2004, an appeals court overturned the ruling, and in October 2005, Ukraine’s Supreme Court concluded that the charges brought against the newspaper were unreasonable. High-ranking newspaper staff members received state awards in 2005 and 2006.

The Jewish community is represented by several umbrella organizations based in Kyiv. U.S.-born Chassidic Rabbi Yaakov Dov Bleich (a member of the Karlin-Stoliner movement) has served as Chief Rabbi of Ukraine and Kyiv since 1992, and is widely recognized as helping to lead Ukraine’s post-Soviet Jewish renaissance. The Association of Jewish Communities and Organizations of Ukraine (VAAD), founded in 1991, unites more than 260 Jewish organizations and deals with communal, charitable, educational, cultural and political issues and provides emigration assistance. The Jewish Council of Ukraine promotes Yiddish culture and Holocaust memorial activities. The Jewish Foundation for Ukraine was created in 1997 to fund communal and educational projects. The Union of Jewish Religious Communities of Ukraine unites more than 70 Jewish organizations, and the All-Ukrainian Jewish Congress encompasses 120 organizations.

In 1998, the Jewish Confederation of Ukraine (JCU) umbrella organization was founded, uniting the VAAD, the Jewish Council of Ukraine, the Union of Jewish Religious Organizations of Ukraine and the Kyiv Municipal Jewish Community. 

International Jewish bodies make their presence felt in a variety of ways. In particular, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC/“Joint”) funds welfare, cultural and educational projects across Ukraine. To address the needs of elderly Jews (approximately 50 percent of the Jewish population), JDC and the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany have built up a network of “Hesed,” or welfare, centers to supply daily hot meals, medical supplies and other social services. Forty seven such welfare centers were operating in Ukraine in 2007, assisting over 72,988 elderly Jews in 1,529 locations.

In 2003, the Jewish Confederation of Ukraine opened an assisted living home in Kyiv with support from the Harry & Jeanette Weinberg Foundation. JDC has sponsored the construction of buildings to house Hesed and community centers in some of the larger cities, most notably Kyiv. Kyiv's new Jewish Home for Assisted Living of the Elderly

An array of religious groups has begun to emerge under the sponsorship of international religious organizations. In addition to the Union of Jewish Religious Communities of Karlin-Stolin, the Congress of Jewish Religious Organizations under Chabad-Lubavitch has built an extensive network of programming. Chabad has a rich history in Ukraine and has been active in coordinating efforts of the Jewish community with the national and local governments. The Federation of Jewish Communities of Ukraine, which is affiliated with the Chabad Lubavitch movement, elected Rabbi Azrael Haikin Chief Rabbi in September 2003. 

Rabbi Alexander Dukhovny has served as Chief Progressive Rabbi of Kyiv and of the World Union for Progressive Judaism since 1999. The World Union operates congregations in Lviv, Kerch and Kharkiv, and also runs leadership seminars as well as holiday and summer programs. The Masorti (Conservative) movement runs a Sunday school and a youth group in Kyiv; it operates a day school in Chernovtsy and sponsors Sunday schools, youth activities and summer camps in several smaller cities (predominantly in western and southwestern Ukraine).

In September 2005, Rabbi Moshe Reuven Azman was elected Chief Rabbi of Ukraine by the All-Ukrainian Jewish Congress and the United Jewish Community of Ukraine, two secular Jewish organizations backed and headed by Ukrainian-Jewish media magnate Vadim Rabinovich. Some local Jewish leaders have expressed concern that competition among four chief rabbis would complicate further consolidation of Ukraine’s Jewish community. A Chabad-ordained rabbi (but not a member of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Ukraine), Azman is rabbi of Kyiv’s central Brodsky Synagogue. He and Rabinovich supported Yushchenko during the 2004 presidential election and the Orange Revolution that followed, in contrast to the support shown by many Federation members to Yushchenko’s rival Victor Yanukovych (attributed in turn to the Ukrainian Federation’s close ties to former president Kuchma, who supported Yanukovych during the 2004 election). After Yushchenko’s January 2005 inauguration as president, Azman and Rabinovich emerged as powerful players in Ukraine’s Jewish community, with close ties to the new President, despite the reputed opposition of many in the Federation of Jewish Communities of Ukraine. In 2008, billionaire Igor Kolomoisky replaced Rabinovich as the president of the United Jewish Communities of Ukraine. Rabinovich stepped down after being the leader of the organization for ten years.

The Jewish Agency for Israel (JAFI/“Sochnut”) sponsors a wide range of programs connected to Israel, aliyah and Jewish life, facilitated by the expansion of its center in Kyiv, which includes a new youth club. JAFI funds its own summer camps and trips to Israel as well as those of many other Jewish organizations. The Orthodox Union has built a Torah community-learning center in Kharkiv, providing outreach to children and adults. 

Israeli and American organizations (including Hillel, Beitar, Kidma and Aish HaTorah) have initiated numerous student and youth programs. Local Jewish groups have established facilities in Dnepropetrovsk, Odessa, Zhitomyr and Korosten for homeless Jewish children, with support from World Jewish Relief and JDC. An orphanage is maintained under the auspices of the Union of Jewish Religious Communities of Karlin Stolin. B’nai B’rith International is also represented in Ukraine. 

For several years, NCSJ has helped pair Ukrainian Jewish communities with American Jewish communities through its Kehilla Projects and Operation Lifeline, which assist in providing educational, medical and other social service programs. Models of the Kehilla partnerships include Baltimore-Odessa, Chicago-Kyiv, MetroWest (NJ)-Cherkassy and Boston-Dnepropetrovsk; similar projects have been successful in other Ukrainian cities. NCSJ organized another program in which Boston college students from Brandeis and Tufts Universities traveled to Dnepropetrovsk in 2005. Paired with local Jewish college students, they met with community leaders and organizations. The students discussed issues of human rights, democracy and civil society in Ukraine and the United States.

Educational programs and scholarly institutes have expanded significantly in the past decade. Ukrainian Jewish community organizations run 15 day schools and 11 kindergartens, 70-80 Sunday schools, eight yeshivas and an estimated 70 Hebrew ulpans. Approximately 20,000 students attend these programs. Ukrainian Jewish groups, in cooperation with the Ministry of Education, sponsored a seminar in Kyiv in 2000 to discuss the teaching of Jewish topics in schools. The International Solomon University, with branches in Kyiv and Kharkiv, offers Judaic studies and enrolls a total of 150 students.

Shai Franklin Graduation ceremony of Jewish day school in Kyiv

In a speech to ORT in June 2005, President Yushchenko discussed the importance of education for minorities and tolerance programs. He also spoke of the need to open more schools for Jews and other minorities and the importance of restitution of Jewish property. 

Secular Jewish day schools operate in several Ukrainian cities under the supervision of World ORT Union, and ORT has contributed computer equipment and curricula to several other schools and community centers. The Ukrainian government signed an agreement with ORT in 2000, recognizing it as an official organization. ORT opened the ORT Kyiv Technology Lyceum in the same year, graduating its first class in 2002. As of 2005, the school had 268 students. The ORT Technology Centre in Odessa, founded in 2005, is the largest secular Jewish school, with 426 students. The ORT Technology Centre at Jewish School Number 144 in Dnepropetrovsk has 642 students. 

The Center for Jewish Education in Ukraine (CJEU), under the sponsorship of the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture, trains Jewish teachers for day schools, conducts teacher-training workshops on the Holocaust and organizes Sunday schools. Similarly, the Beit Chana Jewish Women’s Pedagogical Institute in Dnepropetrovsk, established by the Boston Jewish community, trains teachers for work in Jewish schools and operates a special-needs center for children.

Sue Wolf-Fordham

Special-needs center at the Beit Chana Jewish Women's Pedagogical Institute, Dnepropetrovsk

Several research centers focus on Jewish themes and collect Jewish materials. JDC supports the Tkuma Scientific-Educational Center, an institution for Holocaust studies. The Ukrainian Center for Holocaust Studies, affiliated with the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, also recently opened in Kyiv. The Academy of Sciences maintains an archive of Jewish manuscripts and books in its Vernadsky Library. The Institute for Jewish Studies, a research institute in Kyiv, receives support from several local and international Jewish organizations for its projects, publications and annual conference. It also prepares a regular analysis of anti-Semitic trends.

In addition to scholarly Jewish publications, 10 Jewish newspapers are published in Kyiv, four of which have national circulations of 10-15,000. Nearly 20 smaller Jewish newspapers are published in other Ukrainian cities, each with a circulation of about 1,000. Several professional Jewish theater companies also operate in Kyiv. 

The restitution and re-dedication of some Jewish communal property has contributed to the revival of public Jewish life. In 1999, in Crimea, a marble monument erected by the Jewish community over 100 years ago was re-dedicated to the 500 Jewish soldiers who died defending Russia during the 1854-55 Crimean War. Opening ceremonies for the restituted Central Synagogue, or Brodsky Synagogue, were held in Kyiv in 2000. Local Jewish groups financed a major restoration of this Lubavitch-run synagogue after wholly reclaiming it in 1997.

In December 2002, then-President Kuchma and Israeli Ambassador Ana Azari attended the dedication of a memorial to the 30,000 victims of the massacre at Drobitsky Yar, on the outskirts of Kharkiv. The victims of the January 1942 massacre, carried out by Nazi forces, were mostly Jews but also included Russians, Ukrainians, Armenians and Gypsies. 

In July 2006, a monument commemorating victims of the Holocaust was dedicated in Zolochev, Lvov region, Ukraine. A first-ever 90-minute documentary on the Nazi massacre of Jews at Babi Yar aired on prime time Ukrainian television in February 2007, after its October 2006 theatrical release in Kyiv. The documentary was co-produced by Steven Spielberg and Viktor Pinchuk, a leading Ukrainian Jewish businessman. Spielberg and Pinchuk also announced plans to help Ukraine develop a new school textbook on Holocaust history, which was published later in 2007.

Jewish community leaders in Ukraine welcomed a March 2007 statement by the government that designated the Babi Yar Holocaust site as a state-protected historical and cultural reserve to be administered by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. The Ukrainian government explained the designation was meant to better commemorate the memory of the victims of World War II and Soviet political repressions. One of Ukraine’s chief rabbis praised the government’s decision but added that it should also address the issue of postwar construction in the area.

return to headings



Community Concerns

Key concerns include the restitution of communal property and the preservation of Holocaust sites and cemeteries. The restitution of Jewish communal property confiscated during the Soviet and Holocaust eras has been an issue of concern for several years, especially in the wake of large-scale Ukrainian land privatizations in 1996. Although a small number of synagogues have been returned to Jewish communities, the pace has been notably slow. Hundreds of synagogues and community buildings in Ukraine could potentially be restituted, and many have their history of ownership fully documented by the Jewish community. Many isolated and poor communities seek to recover their buildings, which could once again house synagogues, schools, senior centers and other community functions.

According to the Ukrainian Jewish community, approximately 40 synagogue buildings have been returned out of the nearly 2,000 surviving communal properties confiscated during the 20th century. Some communities have been able to regain property through Ukraine’s court system. In a few cases, newer buildings have been provided to religious communities in the place of the original synagogues to which they lay claim. Instances of restitution from 2001 include the Galitska Synagogue in Kyiv and synagogue buildings in Lviv, Sumy and the town of Zolotonosha in the Cherkassy region. The Galitska Synagogue, built in 1909 by the Galitsky Jewish society, had been closed by the authorities in 1930 and transferred to the Transsignal factory for use as a cafeteria. 

Many claims for restitution remain outstanding. According to a 1992 decree, only registered religious organizations are entitled to seek restitution of property confiscated by the Soviet regime, and restitution is limited to those buildings and objects considered necessary for religious worship. Local authorities should have returned the property to religious communities by the end of 1997, but the law was never fully implemented; only 10 percent of Jewish properties have been returned to their original owners. Proposed amendments to the current “Law of Religion and Freedom of Conscience” would expand the types of religious property eligible for restitution to include religious schools and administrative buildings. Restitution is an important step in making Jewish life in Ukraine less dependent on overseas donors and wealthy domestic sponsors.

In 2004, the government transferred a former synagogue to representatives of Progressive Jewish religious communities of the Kharkiv Region. In February 2004, the Zhytomyr Oblast Archive returned 17 Torah scrolls to the local Jewish community, but took them back in February 2007 and also demanded the return of Torah scrolls from Kyiv’s Brodsky Synagogue. Ukrainian Jewish leaders protested the seizure. The scrolls had originally belonged to local Jewish communities but were acquired by state archives and museums after Soviet and Nazi looting earlier in the 20th century. The scrolls had been loaned to the synagogues after 1991, but on unclear terms, in the absence of a restitution law. Community leaders strongly disputed claims by the state archives that the scrolls in question had been damaged while out on loan, and called for the passage of a proper restitution law that would allow the return of hundreds of Torah scrolls currently held as state property in Ukrainian government archives.

Lesley Weiss

Restored Brodsky Synagogue in Kyiv

Like the restitution of religious property, the preservation of Jewish cemeteries poses serious problems across Ukraine. While cemeteries should fall within the parameters of the government decree on restitution of religious property, in reality they have frequently been distributed to private owners, resulting in the desecration and destruction of burial sites and memorials. Even in those cases where conflicts over ownership of burial sites do not arise, Jewish communities frequently do not have the resources to restore old cemeteries. 

The disregard for Jewish sites throughout Ukraine has created tensions between the Jewish community and the government. For example, construction of the Lviv market, in the 1990s, on the site of an old Jewish cemetery, angered Jews in Ukraine and abroad. The city claimed that relocation of the market would be expensive, but negotiations led to the recognition of the historic character of the site and the signing of a protocol in 1996 stating the market should be moved and the cemetery restored in some way. Important political figures in the U.S. and Ukraine (including Charles Schumer, now senator from New York) called for the restoration of the cemetery. The market has since expanded and now has some permanent buildings. There are no signs or markers to indicate the history of the site. Following U.S. and Ukrainian protests, then-President Kuchma imposed a moratorium on the privatization of burial land. This halted further construction on the marketplace but did not mandate the dismantling of the market. 

There are other examples. Despite a court ruling and a letter from the Ministry of Culture halting the construction of an apartment building on the grounds of the Jewish cemetery in Volodymyr-Volinsky, Volyn oblast, construction has continued. Crosses erected at several Jewish cemeteries and World War II killing sites have stirred inter-ethnic and religious conflicts. In particular, controversies continue to ignite over the presence of a cross in the old Jewish cemetery near the massacre site of Babi Yar and over the erection of crosses in the restored Jewish cemetery (reopened as a memorial park) in the Lviv oblast town of Staryi Sambir. 

The U.S. Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad has been active in addressing issues of restoration and preservation, in addition to convening a joint U.S.-Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Commission. In conjunction with the Commission, the U.S. and Ukrainian governments have signed an agreement to establish frameworks for the protection and preservation of cultural sites. In 2001, the Commission released a comprehensive list of communal properties and artifacts in Ukraine, including sites of Jewish cemeteries, mass graves and memorials. The U.S. Embassy in Kyiv has also assisted in efforts to promote the restitution of communal properties. As of 2006, the Commission had three ongoing cemetery projects in Ukraine: Berdichev Jewish Cemetery, Brailov Holocaust Monument and Brody Jewish Cemetery. Lo Tishkach has also been a partner in the preservation of Jewish cemeteries in Ukraine, and is working to establish a comprehensive publicly-accessible database of all Jewish burial grounds in Europe, currently featuring details on over 9,000 cemeteries and mass graves. The Lo Tishkach project is also producing a compendium of the different national and international laws and practices affecting these sites, to be used as a starting point to advocate for the better protection and preservation of Ukraine’s Jewish heritage.

return to headings


RISE IN ANTI-SEMITIC ACTS

Acts of anti-Semitic vandalism and violence were widespread across Ukraine in 2005 and 2006, and increased by comparison to prior years, reaching a peak in Ukraine’s post-1991 history. The city of Uman, the famous burial site of Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav and site of an annual pilgrimage by Bratslav Hassidim, has also seen a rise in tensions between the local population and its Hassidic visitors, resulting in an increase in anti-Semitic violence. In October 2002, a group of Bratslavers was allegedly brutalized by Uman police officers. A listing of the most significant incidents follows.

In January 2005, a group of Orthodox Jewish adults and youths returning from synagogue were assaulted by skinheads in Simferopol, sending two 13-year-old girls to the hospital. Local police treated the incident as hooliganism rather than a hate crime. The same month, a synagogue in Ivano-Frankovsk had windows broken and swastika graffiti painted. In March 2005, a project manager for the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) and a university student were attacked by skinheads in Kyiv, and the city’s Brodsky synagogue was vandalized with a painted swastika. 

In April 2005, four members of the Jewish community in Zhitomir, including a rabbi, were assaulted on their way home. In August 2005, two Israeli yeshiva students were beaten and stabbed by skinheads in Kyiv, but the attackers were arrested. Meeting with the Israeli ambassador shortly after the attack, Ukraine’s deputy minister of internal affairs asserted that this attack and other recent violent assaults on Jews were not motivated by anti-Semitism, showcasing the reluctance of many local officials to admit that violent anti-Semitism is an increasing problem in Ukraine. In September 2005, an Israeli rabbi and his son were attacked at the Kyiv Expo Center by a youth gang shouting anti-Semitic slogans. While local police quickly detained the gang, police officials then publicly asserted that the attack was nothing more than “hooliganism” despite the neo-Nazi and anti-Semitic statements made by the attackers. In December 2005, a correspondent of the Jewish Telegraph Agency was attacked near his home the day after he published an article critical of MAUP (see below).

In January 2006, the editor in chief of a Kyiv newspaper and the author of several articles against anti-Semitism was attacked outside his apartment. No items were stolen, and police considered it a hate-motivated crime. In February 2006, a knife-wielding man entered Kyiv’s Brodsky synagogue, asked to see the rabbi and made anti-Semitic threats, possibly seeking to copy an already-notorious January 2006 knife attack by a young Russian skinhead on worshippers in a Moscow synagogue. Although detained and arrested, the would-be assailant was only charged with weapons possession and not with a hate crime, despite making anti-Semitic statements to interrogators. Released after a year in prison in early 2007, he allegedly made telephone threats to a Ukrainian Jewish newspaper in February 2007, leading one Ukrainian Jewish group to appeal to the authorities for assistance. 

Also in February 2006, an anti-Semitic leaflet was posted on the door of Kyiv’s Brodsky synagogue, saying, “Chabad is the road to hell! No to Judeo-Fascism!” along with a threat of anti-Semitic violence: “Today our children don’t go to the theater—Tomorrow they will grab a gun and go on a pogrom.” The leaflet’s author claims to represent a marginal political party, whose spokesman denied that it had anything to do with the leaflet. Also in February, someone painted the words “We will slaughter you like pigs” on the fence of a synagogue in Lviv, and a Holocaust memorial in Feodosia was defaced with black paint and anti-Semitic graffiti.

Two Holocaust monuments in Sevastopol were similarly vandalized in March 2006. The monuments in Sevastopol and Feodosia were smeared with black paint, swastikas and anti-Semitic graffiti. Also in March, two Jewish yeshiva students were attacked in Kyiv, one physically, one verbally, by small groups of young men, some of whom urged passers-by to “stab and kill Jews.” The police detained several of the attackers. In April 2006, on the anniversary of Hitler’s birthday (April 20), four Jewish yeshiva students were attacked by thirty skinheads in the central square of Dnepropetrovsk. Shortly afterwards, also in Dnepropetrovsk, a Ukrainian-Israeli yeshiva student who had come from Israel to lead a Passover Seder in his hometown was stabbed and severely beaten. Again in April, the editor of a Kyiv newspaper that had published articles condemning anti-Semitism and xenophobia was attacked by two men with baseball bats outside his home, and a Holocaust memorial in Odessa was vandalized. During Passover, the Choral Synagogue in Kirovograd was vandalized by stone-throwers.

In May 2006, vandals threw stones and broke security cameras from the Ner Tamid shul in Simferopol, and a Jewish cemetery in Berdichev was desecrated. The same month, Ukrainian rabbis meeting in Kyiv called on authorities to combat rising anti-Semitism. “Unfortunately, we do not see any adequate or unequivocal response towards manifestations of xenophobia from the Ukrainian authorities,” they said in a statement issued after the meeting. Again in May, local police arrested two men who had vandalized the Dnepropetrovsk synagogue with swastikas.

In June 2006, the Sevastopol Holocaust memorial was vandalized for the second time with paint and swastikas. Although local neo-Nazis were suspected, no one was charged. Also in June, the Kirovograd Choral Synagogue was again vandalized by stone-throwers.

In late July 2006, vandals threw stones through the windows of a Jewish orphanage in Zhitomir. The orphanage’s director, Brakha Tamarin, was cited in the report saying that a few days before, stones shattered the windows of her home, and that anti-Semitism is rising in the city. 

Also during July 2006, the Holocaust memorial in Kyiv at Babi Yar was badly vandalized. Vandals smashed the inscription plate on the menorah-shaped memorial, erected in 1991 by the Jewish community near the site of the massacre. Ukrainian police claimed that it was an act of hooliganism. A suspect detained in November 2006 confessed to this act.

In August 2006, anti-Semitic graffiti were discovered in Dnepropetrovsk: “Palestine for Arabs, Babi Yar for Yids.”

In September 2006, Israeli soccer fans who had traveled to Odessa to support their Tel-Aviv team against the local club were attacked by soccer hooligans after the Israeli team’s victory, and a local Jewish man was attacked by youths shouting anti-Semitic statements shortly afterwards. In October 2006, a Jewish cemetery in Glukhov was desecrated.

In some regions of Ukraine, economic and political instability fuels xenophobia, extremism and the growth of right-wing radical parties. Expressions of intolerance in marginal publications may reflect and further incite these shifting societal attitudes. Several prominent public figures have also voiced their anti-Semitic views in increasingly public venues. In 2005, MP Oleg Tyagnybok appeared on television and stated publicly that the Ukrainians had felt the strong arm of three conquering forces: the Russians, the Germans and the Zhidi (derogatory term for Jews similar to “kike”). Anti-Semitic books were openly sold in the bookstore of the Ukrainian parliament in 2006, although this apparently stopped in December 2006 after complaints by a Jewish parliamentarian. a survey conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology showed that one in three Ukrainians (36%) did not want Jews to be Ukrainian citizens, as compared to one in four (26%) in a similar survey from 1994. The poll also showed that 45% of 18-20 year olds did not want Jews living in Ukraine, suggesting higher rates of anti-Semitism among younger Ukrainians than among older respondents.

In December 2006, three Orthodox Jews walking home from services were attacked in Kyiv by a gang of bottle-wielding youths shouting anti-Semitic abuse. One of the three suffered a concussion.

In January 2007, city workers desecrated a Jewish cemetery in Odessa that was shut down in the 1970s. A television camera crew discovered that construction crews had used heavy equipment to dig huge holes in the cemetery, bringing up the bones of the deceased and mixing them up with refuse that is commonly dumped on the cemetery grounds.

In February 2007, a major act of desecration took place when vandals defaced a Holocaust monument commemorating a mass execution site of local Jews and more than 200 graves in a Jewish cemetery in Odessa. In March 2007, local police detained three young local suspects and charged them with desecration of tombs and burial places after they confessed. 

In March 2007, Holocaust memorials were vandalized and damaged in Berdichev, Aleksandria, Kalush and Lutsk, some with swastikas and initials of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, a leading Ukrainian nationalist organization based in western Ukraine and known for its strong anti-Russian and anti-Semitic views. The Lutsk site involved desecration of a wartime mass grave of an estimated 25,000 Jews. Local Jewish activists discovered unearthed remains of victims scattered around the site in mid-March. The same month, Yuri Lutsenko, an opposition politician and supporter of President Yushchenko, was reportedly accused by government officials close to the Prime Minister of having dual Ukrainian-Israeli citizenship in a clear attempt to discredit him. An anti-Lutsenko demonstration in Kharkov reportedly featured an anti-Semitic piñata representing Lutsenko that was repeatedly hit by demonstrators. Also in March 2007, a rash of attacks by young Ukrainian nationalist extremists on foreign visitors and residents killed one and injured close to ten others. A “white power” rock concert was held in Kyiv, where performers urged anti-Semitic violence, played speeches by Hitler and led the crowd in the fascist raised-arm salute.

Although relatively few arrests were made in connection with these assaults, Minister of Internal Affairs Tsushko (Ukraine’s chief law enforcement official) reacted by declaring in mid-March 2007 that the police would focus on neo-Nazi activity, and called for legislation to ban fascist symbols. Tsushko’s comments were significant, given the previous tendency of many Ukrainian officials to ignore or downplay the threat posed by extreme nationalists.

In late March 2007, President Yushchenko said publicly that those who denied the Holocaust or the Ukrainian famine of the 1930s should be prosecuted. Yushchenko was speaking at a memorial commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the 1932-1933 Ukrainian famine, known as Holodomor. Caused by Soviet policies under Stalin, Holodomor has been officially defined by the Ukrainian government as an act of genocide that caused the deaths of millions of ethnic Ukrainians. Many Ukrainians have equated their suffering during the Holodomor to Jewish suffering during the Holocaust. The Ukrainian government is attempting to have Holodomor recognized internationally as an act of genocide against Ukraine by the USSR. Israel has not supported the Ukrainian campaign to date.

In April 2007, President Yushchenko ordered his senior security and law enforcement officials to take measures to stop the rising incidence of vandalism against Jewish and other memorial sites in Ukraine. The president cited recent increases in attacks on Jewish cemeteries and Holocaust memorials, among other targeted sites, and also ordered that measures be taken against extremist groups that were often responsible for the attacks, and whose numbers he said were growing. The same month, about 70 tombstones of Holocaust victims were vandalized in the Jewish cemetery in Chernovtsy, western Ukraine, which was reportedly recently restored by local businessmen.

On May 17, 2007, in Lviv, Oleg Tyagnybok, a former member of President Yushchenko’s Our Ukraine party and the former head of the National Socialist Party of Ukraine, led a group of party youth activists storming a public event held by a company promoting kosher ice-cream. Screaming “Ukraine won’t be sold to kikes!” and “Down with the kike-communist government of Yanukovych-Kuchma!” the youths smashed display stands and brawled with security guards. Police eventually arrived and detained some of the attackers, who were quickly released after paying fines.

On July 11, 2007, a rabbi in Zhitomir was attacked in the courtyard of his shul. Synagogue guards and local community members held off the attackers. The same day, a group of youths tried to break into the dormitory for girls at a local Jewish school, hurling insults at the students. On July 12, vandals painted a swastika on a synagogue in Zaporozhye. The swastika was discovered by police who were there responding to a false bomb threat. No suspects were detained.

In late August 2007, a nationalist party in Ukraine called for a boycott of Israeli and kosher goods. The National and Labor Party of Ukraine in a news release said that “buying them helps the Jews and Israelis conquer and destroy Ukraine’s economy.”

On September 10, 2007, vandals spray-painted anti-Semitic graffiti on the ORT Aleph Jewish Gymnasium in Zaporozhye. The messages read: “Jews, get out” and “Death to Jews.” On September 28, the chief rabbi of Sevastopol was attacked on his way to synagogue. Rabbi Benjamin Wolf said he was beaten by four middle-aged men who shouted anti-Semitic threats. The rabbi suffered a broken nose and concussion. On September 29, religious Israelis helping lead Sukkot observances were attacked in Cherkassy. Israeli yeshiva student Josef Rafaelov, 23, and two other religious Israeli Jews wearing traditional garb were attacked not far from the city’s synagogue on their way to services. Six young men, who witnesses said looked in the age range of 18 to 20, allegedly beat the three men. Two escaped and reported the incident to police. Rafaelov suffered head and other injuries.

On October 5, 2007, vandals set fire to the home of the chief rabbi of Uzhgorod. The unknown vandals broke into the Chabad center of Uzhgorod, during the holiday of Simchat Torah, and set fire to the home of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Taichman. On October 31, vandals set fire to the Simcha Chabad Day School in Kyiv. The emergency door was set ablaze, damaging the adjacent hallway and the electrical supply.

Lesley Weiss

Uzhhorod synagogue, now used as a concert hall

On November 7, 2007, anti-Semitic graffiti that included “Death to Jews!” were found on Zhitomir Rabbi Nohum Tamarin’s apartment door, the latest in a series of attacks against the rabbi. In mid-November, Zhitomir’s Jewish cemetery was vandalized. Unidentified vandals forced open the front door of the Ohel of Tzadik Rabbi Aharon, a student of Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov. Swastikas and anti-Semitic slogans were spray-painted on the walls and ceiling.

On December 26, 2007, the son of a famous Ukrainian nationalist made anti-Semitic remarks in an interview with the popular weekly 2000. Yuriy Shukhevych declared, “‘Ghetto’ as such was invented not by Hitler but by kikes themselves. Thanks to the ghetto they survived.” Shukhevych is the son of the late Gen. Roman Shukhevych of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, whose Nachtigal battalion took part in the pogroms of 1941 during World War II. Shukhevych also said in the interview that Simon Wiesenthal worked for the Gestapo.

In October 2007, President Yushchenko ordered Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) to create a Special Operative Unit on Fighting Xenophobia (SOUFX). This new unit has made several arrests. In November 2007, the Foreign Ministry created the office of Special Ambassador on Racism, Xenophobia and Discrimination, appointing Aleksandr Gorin to “combat anti-Semitism, prevent instigation of interethnic and inter-religious conflicts, and coordinate activities with other ministries and departments in this context.” Also, President Yushchenko and Members of Parliament Alexander Feldman and Gennadiy Moskal introduced a new hate crimes law addressing religious intolerance. On January 11, 2008, Gennadiy Moskal, deputy of the Our Ukraine-People’s Self-Defense Party, introduced a bill on amending certain legislative acts in Ukraine, to provide concrete definitions and increase the punishment for displays of extremism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism, racial and religious intolerance. Moskal’s bill also proposed amendments criminalizing violence against national minorities and foreigners. On January 21, 2008, President Yushchenko proposed draft law no. 1395, introducing amendments to article 161 of the Criminal Code. The bill would create stiffer punishments for crimes stipulated in the article without seeking to amend the language of the article. The president’s bill was rejected in committee in April 2008. On April 17, 2008, Aleksandr Feldman of the Yuliya Tymoshenko Bloc registered the bill on liability for publicly praising and propagandizing Nazism and discriminatory ideology. The draft law proposed to define what is meant by Nazism and discriminatory ideology and to outline punishments for the propaganda of both.

On January 20, 2008, less than three months after part of a Jewish school in Kyiv went up in flames under suspicious circumstances, vandals apparently threw stones through the windows of two of its classrooms and a synagogue. On January 24, Rabbi Dov-Ber Baitman, a teacher at the Jewish educational center Shiurey Torah in Dnepropetrovsk, was assaulted and severely beaten by four men after evening classes. On January 28, a special Ukrainian Secret Service unit reportedly detained a man who attempted to vandalize Kyiv’s main synagogue. The vandal was caught as he attempted to paint anti-Semitic graffiti on the synagogue walls. The man reportedly confessed that he had been offered money to vandalize the Brodsky Synagogue. 

On March 13, 2008, unidentified persons placed dozens of posters accusing Jews of ritually murdering Christian children in the town of Sumy. On April 24, 2008, vandals destroyed 11 gravestones at a Jewish cemetery in Bolgrad, Odesa Oblast.

In April 2008, Jewish leaders in Ukraine welcomed a court decision finding a teacher guilty of making anti-Semitic statements. Nikolay Yakimchuk, a public school teacher of Ukrainian language and literature in Kirovograd, was charged with ethnic incitement after several students testified that he allegedly said during class that “Jews are bad and impudent people,” that Jewish students are only “taking space in our school,” and there should be “no place for them among people.” In 2006 the Court of Ukraine’s Kirovograd region acquitted Yakimchuk of hate crimes charges. After an appeal from the Jewish community, however, the local court delivered a guilty verdict. 

In early May 2008, unidentified individuals painted Nazi symbols and damaged gravestones at a cemetery in Sevastopol. On May 16, 2008, young persons representing the extremist nationalist groups UNA-UNSO and the National Labor Party of Ukraine gathered in front of the Russian embassy in Kyiv, screaming anti-Semitic and anti-Russian slogans.

In August 2008, two adult workers at a Jewish youth center in Lviv were beaten with metal rods. Assailants burst into the Shalom Chaverim Center for religious Jewish youth and beat the victims. They also shattered windows and shouted anti-Semitic slogans, including “Kikes leave Ukraine.”

In September 2008, anti-Semitic material was found inside and outside an Orthodox cathedral in a southwest Ukrainian city. A newspaper article posted inside claimed that “kikes” were behind the creation of the modern “artificial” Ukraine in an effort to divide and weaken the Russian empire. The article also stated that the “Jewish conspiracy” was behind both the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the Orange Revolution of 2004. Also in September, the Holocaust memorial in Lviv was smeared with paint, swastikas and anti-Semitic graffiti. It stands outside the Valley of Death, a site near the city’s Janowska death camp, where more than 200,000 Jews were murdered between 1941 and 1943.

In August 2009, Sergey Ratushnyak, the Mayor of Uzhgorod and also a presidential candidate, physically assaulted a 21 year-old woman as she campaigned for the political initiative Front for Change, and openly made anti-Semitic and anti-Israel remarks. According to an Interfax news agency report, Ratushnyak was commenting on activities of the Front for Change initiative headed by parliament member Arseniy Yatsenyuk, a leading presidential candidate whose parents were falsely reported to be Jewish, saying “Impudent Jew Yatsenyuk, who has been successfully serving to thieves who are at power in Ukraine, is using criminal money to plow ahead towards Ukraine’s presidency.” In a request to the prosecutor general, the Jewish Forum of Ukraine on Sunday asked that Ratushnyak’s conduct be examined in accordance with the Criminal Code of Ukraine on inciting inter-ethnic hatred. 

In September 2009, local authorities approved plans to build dozens of hotels for the 2012 European Football Championship on top of the mass grave site known as Babi Yar. Jewish groups condemned this decision by the city of Kiev and have deemed it an example of the “utmost insensitivity.” After an international uproar, the mayor of Kiev vetoed the plan in October. 

return to top


MAUP

The Interregional Academy of Personnel Management (known by its Ukrainian acronym, MAUP) is Ukraine’s largest private university, with 51,000 students and many campuses. Originally public, it was privatized after the fall of communism. Many Ukrainian government officials hold bachelor’s and post-graduate degrees from MAUP, including Yushchenko, who formerly sat on the board of directors. UNESCO has recognized the university as a world-class educational institution. Starting in 2002, however, the institution became increasingly anti-Semitic, though it claims only to teach anti-Zionism. Observers have noted that MAUP receives funding from several Middle East governments and NGOs, and have described MAUP as an outlet for extremist anti-Semitic propaganda disguised as an ostensibly academic institution.

The well-known American white supremacist and former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke is closely affiliated with the university. He has lectured there and received a MAUP Ph.D. for his thesis on “Zionism as a Form of Ethnic Supremacism.” He was last invited to speak at MAUP on “radical Jewish extremists” in October 2006.

Georgy Tschokin serves as MAUP’s president and heads the Ukrainian Conservative Party. Under Tschokin’s leadership, MAUP became one of the primary purveyors of anti-Semitic and xenophobic material in Ukraine, publishing two virulent anti-Semitic publications, Personnel and Personnel Plus. Tschokin advocates dissolution of the state of Israel, and rule by majority or purely “ethnic Ukrainians” at home, barring Jews and other minorities from top governmental positions. Despite increasing pressure from the government, including condemnation by President Yushchenko, a ban on civil servants teaching or studying at MAUP, and moves to shut down its branches, Tschokin and MAUP continued to publish strongly anti-Semitic materials and to invite stridently anti-Semitic speakers to Ukraine. The Euro-Asian Jewish Congress has estimated that MAUP accounted for nearly 85% of all anti-Semitic materials published in Ukraine in 2005; its 2006 report on anti-Semitism in Eurasia described MAUP as leading “the loudest anti-Semitic crusade in the history of post-Soviet Ukraine.” MAUP owns and operates a network of kiosks in Kyiv that specialize in anti-Semitic literature.

MAUP has attempted to bar Jewish organizations from operating as well as banning the Tanya, a classic Hassidic piece of literature that it alleges promotes racism against non-Jews. In April 2005, MAUP published an open letter to President Yushchenko calling for the investigation of alleged criminal activities of organized Jewry in Ukraine. In June 2005 MAUP sponsored a conference entitled, “Zionism as the Greatest Threat to Contemporary Civilization,” attended by David Duke and other known Holocaust deniers and anti-Semites, at which calls were made for the expulsion of the Jews from Ukraine. Political and academic leaders participated, including members of Ukraine’s ruling party. In November 2005, MAUP issued a statement defending an October 2005 speech by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, which called the Holocaust a “myth” and appealed for Israel’s destruction. 

In response, Ukraine’s then-foreign minister, Borys Tarasiuk, appeared on national television, publicly condemning MAUP’s anti-Semitic activities and pledging to pursue legal action against the university. President Yushchenko stated that Ukraine had zero tolerance for anti-Semitic speech and acts. Despite his stated commitment to preventing anti-Semitism, incidences of anti-Semitism spiked in 2006.

In January 2006, the ministries of the Ukrainian government took a significant step by condemning MAUP activities. A MAUP publication printed an article in February 2006 charging that a Ukrainian boy found killed in 1911 was ritually murdered by Jews “to dedicate the Chasidic Lubavitch central synagogue.” In March 2006, a MAUP delegation headed by Tschokin paid their respects at the boy’s grave and repeated allegations that he had been murdered by Jews for ritual purposes. On June 29, 2006, Ukraine’s Education Ministry called for seven branches of MAUP to be disbanded due to its breaking national law. In October the branches were closed, leading to the revocation of nearly 5,000 MAUP diplomas awarded in 2006. However, in November 2006 the Kyiv Commercial Court allowed MAUP’s appeal against the Education Ministry and renewed the licenses of 26 regional offices of the university. Despite its decrease in size and condemnation by leading state officials, MAUP remains a significant and apparently unrepentant presence in Kyiv, and has dismissed the government’s actions as the result of “Jewish manipulation.” In January 2007, newspapers associated with MAUP printed an appeal by Tschokin’s Conservative Party that blamed Ukraine’s problems on the Chabad Lubavitch movement. In February 2007, a Kiev court ruled that the 26 regional branches of MAUP could continue to operate, reversing a 2006 ruling by the Education Ministry ordering them to be shut down.

According to the Association of Jewish Organization and Communities of Ukraine, from January to March 2008, national print media published 17 anti-Semitic items, compared to 147 in the third quarter and 75 in the fourth quarter of 2007. The association attributed the sharp decrease in the overall number of anti-Semitic material to MAUP’s gradual curtailment of its anti-Semitic campaign. In previous years MAUP accounted for nearly 90 percent of all anti-Semitic material published in the country’s print media.

In March 2008 the Supreme Court dismissed MAUP’s lawsuit against the Jewish Confederation of Ukraine and its publication, The Jewish Observer, over articles written in 2006 about MAUP activities directed against the Jewish community and Zionism. Earlier, a lower court had rejected the original lawsuit, but subsequently the appeals court found in favor of MAUP. MAUP’s suit against the mayor of Kyiv for his order in May 2007 to remove its bookstand near the Babi Yar massacre memorial site was pending at the end of this reporting period.